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Early consciousness

January 12, 2023   ·   0 Comments

By Constance Scrafield

When you first wake up – at the beginning of your day at whatever point in a conventional 24 hours that is; or rising from a nap; even coming back with a snap out of a daydream – only to realize you missed your turn and how-the-hell are you going to get turned around in the right direction – in the hopes it will even be the right direction…

To all of us, no matter how sharp other people think we are – how brilliant we consider ourselves to be – this happens, with any luck not actually when you are driving, although that can never be dismissed as impossible, those instantaneous flashes happen, don’t bother to deny it with “Never! That never happens to me!”

Yes, it does and they can be flashes of inspiration, of new awakenings, of clarity about another moment in the past. Of “Oh! That’s what that meant.”

Forget the excuses. We plant the seeds of flashes daily with the constant flow of mini errors we make all the time, little quips of speech misplaced and thus, misunderstood. Facial expressions of which we were not even aware; body language from muscles with their own will, sneaking out messages only the candid perceiver can catch. Yet they hit and stay in an unrelated memory for reference later.

A friendship, a business, a nation can fail from a flash.

We talk about how distracted we all are and it’s true in a way that maybe has never been before; we may be at our most unhealthy as a species: fat, out of breath; addicted to every kind of poison; it is likely that more of us are starving to death than ever. That the monster of Russia is doing all he dares to spread mayhem and fear far and wide and we really must wonder how crazily his flashes prompt his behaviour and planning and how often they come. At the end of one his dreams about being Peter the Great- how do they end? What are the instantaneous images in that madman’s mind?

Well, he is not alone in his madness although he is the boldest- willing to kill thousands, millions if he can manage it as easily as he has done so far, openly for everyone to watch via their satellites, via their reporters scrambling over broken brick and bones – with only the painless rhetoric of the terrified observers – wetting themselves with the thoughts of how much further he will push. Such an urgent matter but how to end it?

How he must laugh and rub himself in his darkened den, hunched over with a glowing map showing his conquest so far and dismissing the meagre resistance coming from the rest of the entire world! Now even some are declaring him a friend, not a foe – how that must make him roar and those little flashes run a line of wishes with his own flag flying above the ruins he has created.

Yet, there may be an element of “ ‘Twas ever thus-” and I have promoted that theory: that, historically there has never been any real peace because those little flashes invite expansions, acquisitions, small and enormous theft back so far there are paintings about them on cave walls and ancient paper, of hunters and mad people fashioning themselves as warriors with spears, then swords, then fire.

No. We have truly moved history forward in the culture of pain and we have worked very hard to achieve that. Truly, the ruin of everything: lay waste to the land but manufacture nutrition in a lab. Rob our children of a worthy education but teach infants to run computers. Dismiss the sentimentalists wanting to power the earth efficiently and pretend that providing energy in the worst way guarantees fiscal stability and safety from political enemies.

Such pessimism so early in the New Year.

A great many very smart, very wise people on this planet have really good ideas about how to save it or mitigate the damage we have done but the sincere will of the people, the absolute determination of the people is all there is to support those ideas as they need supporting. Truth is somehow, the wealthy CEOs seriously don’t care, pretending they don’t believe or are sure they will be among the ones whisked away in rockets to another paradise in the sky.

They will be quick about ruining that one too.

Without question, fossil fuels – coal, oil, gas – are 75% of the contribution to the climate crisis but the spin merchants are still spinning and politicians are fearful and corrupt. They create increased barriers to solutions and pander to us as though we are babies or fools.

There are real solutions. Everything needed is at hand except enough will to allow it to happen. Until we demand our politicians do their jobs right, the storms will rage and all will be lost. The real storms should be us at their gates demanding faster, more daring resolve.

Flashes of wisdom, it must be a beginning.

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