Either/or arguments are the best way to stagnation and, in an existence where all is change and the stagnant are guided towards de-evolution, onward to destruction. Since our preferred culture is founded on the either/or philosophy, we are in danger and will forever be until we found a more true philosophy. It strikes me as hypocrisy that so many feel so passionate about the truth of Darwinian evolution, that is the truth that 'the most fit survives', and yet no species on earth has better proven its incompatibility with the principles of life and thusly its unworthiness to survive than humans have. We are at war with the earth itself. It doesn't have to be this way but the pattern of habit is etched so deep that nothing short of devastation will spark us to change. Devastation is inevitable at this point. It is not a matter of if anymore, we long ago passed that point, but when. We are addicts, addicted to the methods of our own destruction, and most addicts must hit rock bottom as a necessary prelude to their transformation to healing when they refuse to awaken by any other way. We have refused to awaken so our rock bottom must come. Our hope now should be that when it does it will not be so devastating as to lead to our extinction. One of the greatest misconceptions is that the truth must be something that is pleasant or comfortable. This is the primary hallmark of the mind of denial. Truth is truth whether it is pleasant or not. Our culture thrives on denial and avoidance so it is so easy and comfortable to just fit in, go with the crowd, and slip into walking sleep. But the comfort of the addict is no different. Catch a heroin addict in the midst of intoxication and he will tell you that all is perfect. But is it? Of course not. We cannot measure the rightness of a situation or choice by how pleasurable it is. If I were to go to the doctor with a broken bone and he were to give me an anesthetic the pain would dissipate but it would be foolish of me to then interpret that as a cure or just treatment. Covering a pain or a trauma or an evil is not healing it but hiding it. This is our way; from psychotropic medications that slip us into living soma to advertising and PR we hide our evils under silken sheets and hope that they go away on their own. We are infants who cover our spilled milk with newspaper and hope that our mother doesn't notice. None of this is pleasant to hear or to know but it is the truth just the same and we have hidden from it for long enough and this hiding is the reason we are where we are. It is understandable. There is so much struggle, so much pain. We must work more and more, harder and harder to just get by. Our relationships wax and wane and true happiness becomes harder to come by. Who has the energy left to waken to the awful truth? Who would want to? That's their weapon and it is working. The trick of denial is that it only works for so long before the backlash begins. How long can a stone hold back the river? The pressure builds until the breaking point. The spilled milk seeps through its cover but now it is curdled and rotten and stinking and it has irreparably stained the floor beneath. I wonder...what would we do if someone came into our house and began relieving themselves in the closets and dumping out the trash all over the place and wiping their soiled shoes all over the carpets and dumping out the contents of the cupboards and refrigerator onto the floor? I think the answer is obvious. What if that person gave us a gift in the aftermath? Would that make it alright? Would our anger be any less? It certainly shouldn't. Why is our reaction so different, so passive, when the same type of destruction and pain is heaped upon our earth, our home? We are compensated and distracted with the campaign of fear and consumption, but does that make it alright? These are questions whose answers are now obvious but why does our behavior so completely violate the truth of it? I can only think that we prefer sleep. I can only think that we feel the cumbersome weight of despair and we crumble. It is understandable but not acceptable. Something disturbing...if looked at as a single entity (which in many contexts is entirely rational), our society, this present world system, fits every single one of the official criteria of the World Health Organization and the DSM-IV for diagnosing one psychopathic. This world is crazy, literally crazy. Can we really implicitly trust what we are told, what we are sold, by a psychopath? Of course not. I read recently that we should have "...a pessimism of the intellect and an optimism of the will". This is our Middle Way. Our waking life and clear perception and our balanced perspective. This should be our guiding motto in a world gone completely mad.