Two for One Night at Little Caesars

I know there is a very large number; a number- with a whole lot of zeroes in it- of people who wonder what’s going on. They wonder why life is the way it is. They wonder, how come all this war and famine? Why all of this suffering? Why does history look like a blood-soaked mattress in a rat-infested alley? Why is there so much pain and ignorance? Why do some people have so much and others so little?

People handle this ‘unknown’ different ways and they get introduced to a variety of perspectives from the moment they get here, via their parents, environment and whatever educational system they are exposed to; formal and hard knocks variety. You add to that the uniqueness of their being that results in the complexity of their persona, each one exposed to something not duplicated in another human being; even when the same conditions apply- because they are not the same person and... you’ve got a snowflake in more ways than one. You’ve got a snowflake like no other snowflake and it is also melting and will soon be gone... back to where all of the water goes... but not entirely.

A snowflake is made from common water, momentarily individualized and to common water it returns, moving through all of the permutations of water. A human soul is different. Whatever happens to the housing of a human soul and the features of a human soul; the body, the personality, the emotions, the sensation of a personal mind... all the effluvia of our essence... that’s like the snowflake and the water. The soul is something different. The soul has individuality in spirit (of which it is composed) that, though it changes through experience, does not die and forever retains uniqueness no matter how high it flies.

Bear with me. All of this is prelude and not the point. The point is ‘why’ everything is the way it is. One might also ask ‘why’ everything appears to be the way it is. How does the way things are, the way things appear to be, match up with all of the explanations we have gotten from religions and philosophies and habits adjusted to getting by without understanding?

Although religion and philosophy may give us some comfort in the face of our trials, do they actually explain anything? Why are there so many different answers for the same thing? Why do these answers seem to contradict each other? Why, with these answers have we no solutions? Because nothing has gotten fixed has it? Our world has become more streamlined. Our comfort factor is generally better than the condition of kings in times gone by. Physical pain is more manageable but the conditions causing the pain, the age old tormentors from Pandora’s Box are still as active as ever.

It’s clear that some individuals have found an answer. You can see it in their face. They know something. Sometimes they can tell you what it is but even though you hear them you cannot apply what they have told you in the same way that they do. Something’s missing.

Looking at the world we see uncountable personalities pursuing myriad and often similar ends. You see them working and playing and reproducing in different ways. You see groups of them doing the same things. You see large groups speaking different languages, living according to the laws they have agreed upon. You see that these same things are in some cases more universally agreed upon and in some cases different from place to place.

Then you see one country warring against another. You see several countries joining together to war against several other countries. You see the same laws broken over and over again by new people who keep arriving and you see other people departing. Meanwhile there’s some mysterious balance that always brings things back to some sort of a central place no matter how out of wack it may get for a period of time. Somehow, in the aftermath of every storm, no matter how great, people and nations pick up again and go about their business once more until another storm hits. It's like what you see after you stir an ant hill with a stick. And it doesn't matter how often you do it. They build it right back in the same spot.

Here we see a nation in chains. Here we see a nation brimming with industry and confidence. Here we see poverty and want juxtaposed with castles on the hill. Here we see periods where the whole world is in a dark age and here we see movements of enlightenment sweeping around the globe until it all reforms into something else that eventually finds its way to another dark age.

Here and there an individual appears and their presence and their words cause millions to formulate a religion around them. A priest class emerges and immense buildings appear where people worship these beings. Sometimes these religions cause wars against other religions in direct conflict with the teachings of those upon whom the religions were established because the priest class chose to interpret those teachings in order to reflect the need for conflict.

Here and there social revolutions occur according to a philosophy based on the idea of a better life, a more equitable life, a more secure life- or even something created for a particular class- for the brief term of the lives involved and then each of these formulas find the need to make war upon the followers of another formula for whatever the reason that is given by those in a position to interpret it to that end.

Some of us see that all of these wars are initiated for personal gain and have little to do with any of the reasons given. Some of us see that no matter who was at the helm, or in what age it happened, these people always found a reason to make war and seek profit regardless of any lessons that might have been learned in the past. No matter what changes occur, the same conditions constantly repeat.

The reason for everything that happens here is because of two things; karma and reincarnation. Things are the way they are because this world, composed of four warring elements, performing on the soundboard of a fifth, is a stage set for souls clothed in these same warring elements moving through an infinity of circumstances until each soul has found freedom from the need to return in search of further experience.

The universal single self split itself into uncountable individual personifications of itself in order to experience life. The motivation is love. The end result is love and there isn’t any more to it except for what we constantly add which further requires our return in order to resolve it. Every thing we do is visited upon us so that we may weight the value of our every single thought, word and deed. People suffer because they choose to, because of what they have decided is real to them. Since none of it is real, experience is necessary in order to bring them to the point where they can realize this. Since there is nothing but the self and everything else is costume and romance; comedy and tragedy within the context of a play, there is no sane objective other than self-realization.

When this dawns and once that realization arrives, there is nothing left but the last remaining moments one must live through until freedom is complete. In the meantime it all continues across a landscape of time incomprehensible to the individualized mind. People can talk all they want on the way. They can wail like no one wailed before. They can steal all the toys and be on every lip for as long as that lasts but it is departing as it happens. It is all going away. You either let it go or you hold on until nature and compassion pry your cold dead fingers from the trigger of desire.

Visible sings: ♫ The World is a Rumor ♫
'The World is a Rumor' is track no. 8 of 13 on Visible's 2007 album
'The Sacred and The Profane'
Lyrics (pops up)