[Taking a break for a few weeks. Enjoy this re-post from August 18, 2019. Paula’s home page photo is new. See link at bottom.]
I don’t believe in thoughts and prayers. I don’t believe in tarot, Ouija or I Ching. I don’t believe in providence, fate, or luck. I don’t believe in messiahs, miracles, or silver bullets.
I don’t believe in progress. I don’t believe things are moving inevitably toward a better world.
I believe in people. I trust people to get things done. I believe in work.
I trust people because I don’t know what else to trust. I trust people because people create such amazing things: art, music and poetry, not to mention toilets, prosthetics, vaccines, therapies, disease-resistant crops, bridges, treaties, trade agreements, safe cars, safe planes, and laws to protect the vulnerable from the ruthless.
And yet, people mess up. Sometimes horribly.
We allow famine, war, and global warming. We create flamethrowers, bombs and assault weapons. We allow the powerful to screw the weak and laugh about it up their sleeves.
Still, I trust people to work things out. I’m hopeful.
After all, I don’t believe in “original sin.” I believe in “original blessing.” I believe we have it in us to do great things. I trust people to see what’s gone wrong, make it right, mend the world, and keep at it endlessly.
And then I remember Sisyphus.
Sisyphus was condemned by Zeus to push a giant boulder up a steep hill. He never clears the top with it. It always rolls back down to the bottom. Endlessly. It’s a myth, of course, which means it never was but always is.
Sometimes I worry that I’m Sisyphus and that trusting people is pushing my luck like a giant boulder up a steep hill.
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See Paula’s “Fall Will Blow Your Mind” on the home page. Posted October 9, 2022
Your “oldie but goodie” got Claire and I talking this morning about what remained in Pandora’s Box, jar, whatever container it supposedly was. HOPE is generally accepted as the one element that remained in the curious lady’s box. A quick search gave up a snippet form a longer poem by the 6th Century BC elegiac poet, Teognis of Megara. It presciently is a snap shot of the times we live in and succinctly sums up our present situation better than I could ever hope to:
Hope is the only good god remaining among mankind;
the others have left and gone to Olympus.
Trust, a mighty god has gone, Restraint has gone from men,
and the Graces, my friend, have abandoned the earth.
Men’s judicial oaths are no longer to be trusted, nor does anyone
revere the immortal gods; the race of pious men has perished and
men no longer recognize the rules of conduct or acts of piety.[15]
So, you’ve stimulated my thots, ideas & beliefs once again.
I have faith that humanity is vastly more compassionate, creative and talented than the few greedy, stuck, and shrewd are.
I believe more & more that the worker bees among us are creating great peace, while the few are plotting for more power & might.
I think that there are so many songs & stories about the struggles of the heroe’s journey, that it’s hard to believe that tho the darkness looks bleak, the light will not return.
So I continue to work, witness miracles large & small, and “keep a goin’”…
and “heaven only know how it will all turn out” – but I look to the rainbow as a promise… my rose colored glasses, perhaps? Or a simple, deep knowing that we are carrying forward an “ever advancing civilization”…step by step; as we live, laugh, love – it beats the alternative 🙏🏼💓
I wrote a poem about Sisyphus once. It seemed to me that the boulder was an errant story that Sisyphus had accepted about himself, and it clearly no longer served a purpose. Where does belief in humankind actually get cleansed for me? The “letting go” of the old story. Next time the boulder rolls back down that formidable hill, just let it go — and create the unique story that we are each meant to create and manifest. The only punisher is oneself.
Many years ago I read the book, THE MYTH OF SISYPHUS by ALBERT CAMUS. Many times through the years I felt like Sysyphus as I went about my dailey life. I worked the same job day after day, year after. It seemed liked the stone rolled back each night and the next morning I started rolling the stone again.
One passage of the book stands out to me:
Of whom and of what indeed can I say: ‘I Know That!’ This heart within in me I can feel, and I judge it exist. This world I can touch, and I likewise judge it exist. There ends all my knowledge, and the rest is construction.