The Big Bureaucracy in the Sky

For centuries and millennia, the "big mean god outside yourself" has ruled over cultures and civilisations.  There is nothing like something more powerful than you whose actions you can't predetermine to keep you in line.  Children the world over with unstable parents understand how that drains their adrenals, making shaky the ground underneath their feet.  Just waiting till the big god turns up in thunder and quake to tell them how they have got it wrong this time.

Then I think of Jesus saying things like, "No, no, the kingdom of heaven is within you.  Go searching there for God.  What you see out in the world is what you are projecting out onto it.  Go inward to find new ways of understanding."  And yet Christianity  was co-opted by the power structures-that-be and turned into a weapon to use against the people.  The same old same old.  A remix of the angry distant god in the sky, just waiting to send people to heaven or to hell, a destination you could never be sure of until you got there and it was too late.

I jump now to the workplace situation here in Australia.  We don't project our power out onto a distant god in this workplace.  We project it out into a big faceless bureaucratic book depository, so that now it is not enough for one person hiring for a position - say, a childcare position - to be able to use their intellect and intuition and understanding of the life experience of another - say, a mother with two children - to determine whether that person will be able to do a good job.  Even though the mother obviously has the experience, she must complete various certificates, jump through various paperish hoops, so that the childcare centre can breathe a little bureaucratically easier because it can tick the right hoop boxes and cover its legal bottom.  It is only with the pieces of paper in place - the police checks, the various certificates doing stuff she already knows - only then can the childcare centre believe that the mother is to be trusted to do the job she is asked to do.

It's the same-old same-old.  The everyday people's own autonomy overridden in the name of getting the safety and peace we crave by instilling it in something or someone outside of ourselves.  Rather than being able to discover our own autonomy by going within for it.  The internal autonomy that breeds creative thinking, a personal power that in the right wind can breed kindness.

A workplace culture where the people themselves are allowed to develop and use their wisdom and commonsense in assessing other people's fitness for positions would be a far safer one.  It would not be an easier one, though.  The people who are making responsible decisions would have nowhere else to run to but than to their own responsible decisions.  And that's scary.  Because people are different, and that is surely giving too much, well, space and authority to one person, is it not?  Surely better to invest that authority in dusty law shelves containing Acts and Rules and Procedures drawn up to govern the people, which nobody reads unless they have to because those things are dead.

So to enforce those Acts and Rules and Procedures, strangely-wigged individuals who neither know nor probably really care about these particular incidents judge the people according to the squiggles and lines in the Acts and Rules and Procedures.

In the workplace, the people who are walking around alive doing the actual position must go and get their authority to do that position from groups of other people who do the training and set up the hoops for them to jump through for their pieces of paper.  Other people who do not know you and will maybe never see you again doing your job you are allowed to do after you get your little piece of paper.

This is the continual, ongoing and dreary method employed by bunches of people who are so scared to make decisions from an internal authority base.  We need to make everything as safe as possible, and in the very process of trying to get that in some Excel spreadsheet form everything is awfully unsafe because nobody is allowed to act freely.  We always have our eye on What Is Expected of Us By the Outside.

There is no more unsafe a position than outsourcing the inherent authority and wisdom and power and experience that can be contained in one single human being allowed to live freely, to learn and to make mistakes.  That may not be bureaucratically safe.  But we are not bureacrats.  We live and we breathe.

There would surely be nothing safer (though life can never be safe) than a culture where people are allowed to learn how to feel at home in their own valuable skins, and how deep we people go, not just in stupid directions but also in wisdom directions.  It's not until you are safe in your own skin that you are free to observe the higher universalities that make a community a common fraternity rather than a gaggly group of people, isolated from within and from without.

Begging is Illegal

While I was chatting with my homeless friend K this evening the coppers came up and asked us what we were doing.

"Talking about art," K said, looking up at them.

It's true, we were. K does the most amazing intricate pen drawings, all freehand. They look like they have been computer generated, they're that precise. Pretty amazing. I have one stuck up on my pantry door. Keeps me thinking and praying of K every day. I will scan it when I can get off my butt to do it.

I saw another one tonight and fell in love with it. Silver on black card stock. Couldn't afford to buy it as I have 30 bucks till next Thursday, heh. K said that she'll bung a big price tag on it so high that it might still be there when I come round next Thursday :)

The coppers suggested K remove her little hat that had a "donations accepted" sign in cardboard on the outside.

"Is begging illegal?" I asked her as they walked away. I'd never really given a great deal of thought to it before. K nodded.

Seems pretty weird to me. I did keep my mouth closed but what I wanted to ask them was whether there wasn't something a bit more useful they could be doing to maintain law and order, especially considering police numbers are so low. Seems like a law that means the coppers have to harass homeless people trying to get some cash should be taken to the court of petty sessions itself, really.

Is begging illegal in your area?

Okay. That's enough choofing for me. A few days in a row and I'm bored out of my skull with it :) I do, however, in my heretical Christianness reserve the right to smoke a couple of scoobs with some friends every now and then. Once in a blue moon, and it's just plain fun, you know? But me, I can't even smoke my way through a quarter of a gram before losing interest, heh :) Unfortunately, I also can't have it sitting there and not smoke it either. How strange, that propensity is. Much better for me to never have any in the house, and to just enjoy it when I come upon it.

I am happier living in my own reality than without druggish chains to bind me, thank you very much. But oh, I do love how music opens itself up like a flower, after a couple of puffs :) But I dislike how everything is heightened. It is an annoying situation to be randy as hell with no one to share it with, and no desire to go down commonly socially prescribed fuck buddy routes/roots ;) Too much information, you say? Well, yes, it's comments like that which make me feel too vulnerable when I'm on the flipside of openness, hehe ;) But I enjoy being real, however ugly or beautiful that is, to pretend too much. This is what goes on with me. I figure if any of these thoughts and beliefs are not good for me, the first way to discover that is to lay it all out, in the sun. It feels good to be open, almost all of the time. Yes it feels vulnerable too, almost all of the time. It's just the space of vulnerability; I don't know how to do it any different.

I actually don't see any difference between dope and alcohol. Both are pathetic and destructive when leant on. I do find it bizarre, however, that some people who rant and rave on about dope then go off and down a couple of glasses of whatever their favourite brew is and don't even consider the hypocrisy.

Personally, I can't see the difference. Personally, if I had a choice, I would have preferred my dad had smoked dope every day than drank every day. Not that that wouldn't have been shite either, but much more the paranoia of smoking than the belligerence of alcoholically-fuelled tempers.

And while I'm on the topic, since when did making something illegal or legal change the behaviour of humans? All it does is run it underground.

And that's all I have to say about that :)

Ways of skinning cats

Dear Victoria Police

Thank you for having such handsome young policemen man your booze bus late last night on Ballarat Road. A booze bus on a Monday night? That seems a bit strange to me, I must say, but hey, you gotta do what you believe you gotta do. I thank you that you make it attractive to my eyes in the process.

No, that's not why I'm writing. I see you apprehended Olive doing 67 k's in a 60 zone on Sunshine Road, West Footscray, thus breaking road rule 20 of the Road Rules Victoria Act. Dammit, it's so hard to concentrate on keeping the car at the right speed. I could almost miss looking at the road, spending so much time looking at the speedo.

Anyways, I am writing to inform you that I think your fine of $138 is a bit - well, it's a bit excessive, don't you think? Yes, I know, I know - you want to deter my behaviour. I understand that as a government department that writhes around in red tape and bureaucracy that you just don't know any other way of doing it than the punishment and deterring way. Perhaps there is no other way. Perhaps there is. But I'm not so sure a government department would have enough gumption to enact proactive, life-giving ways of doing things even if those things did manage to make it past the 37 meetings required to institute new proceedings without being chopped up on the floor by the 7th meeting. But I digresseth.

Anyways, I've been thinking. I understand the need for people to do the speed limit. I really do. And I understand your need to instil fear as some sort of deterrent to said behaviour. But you see, the thing is, people can't get around in fear of what might happen - not all the time, not even in this fearful society, where apparently free people with lots of money are constantly encouraged, by their hearts and externally, to be scared of so many things, most of which will never even happen. Sometimes I think your approach is counterproductive to the very people you're targeting to try to get your citizenry to conform to what you want them to do by showing them graphic advertisements at quarter time in the footy about people who have done 7 ks over the speed limit and lived to tell the sorry tale of the people they killed. Or more often, of the damage they have done to themselves. But your methods bring out my childish, inner anti-authoritarian, it must be said. The one that says, "Hey, you know what? People drive fast because they can. Maybe they should manufacture cars that don't go over a certain limit. And hey, you know something else? People drive fast because it's fucking fun. Yes, it is perhaps irresponsible driving fast, when you factor in all the possible bad, scary, awful things that could happen. But that kind of dictum would mean that we should just all stay in bed (alone, because think of the risk of sexually transmitted diseases) because ooh, bad, scary, awful things happen all the time, and in actual fact I would say that the way our society lives here is so mind numingly safe that sometimes it makes me want to drive really fast just to give it some sort of colour to a world that thinks it can legislate the danger out and still have any kind of a life.

I digress again. It's hard to keep focussed this morning. Anyway, the main reason I'm writing is to suggest that perhaps there are other ways of penalising my errant driving than fiscal. Yes, yes, I know, it's difficult to see that in a world that worships money as its god. We love worshipping money. It gets us to wield all our power-loving and fear-mongering with license. We love it that way. But hey, I was thinking - instead of charging me 138 bucks, wouldn't it be nice if there could be some other way of paying back my penalty to society? Like, for example, voluntary community service for a week or two. I'm happy to pay my dues, you know? But maybe if you got me doing a bit of community service at, for example, the TAC, where I could help the people who have come a cropper doing 7 ks over the speed limit, perhaps that might be a bit more of a proactive way to come at things, dontchathink?

Or community service planting some trees. Or hanging with some old people. Just a thought.

Level 3 (meat)

These people make a big show of saying the right thing, but their hearts aren’t in it ... so I am going to step in and shock them awake, astonish them, and stand them on their ears.

—Isaiah 29:14, Eugene Peterson translation

I believe there is a deep dilemma and contradiction at the heart of institutional Christianity. Maybe it is even a necessary one. All I know is that it can only be resolved—by authentic inner experience, “prayer,” mysticism, or dare I call it, “spirituality.” I am convinced that religion, in its common cultural and external forms, largely protects the ego, especially the group ego, instead of transforming it. If people do not go beyond first level metaphors, rituals, and comprehension, most religions seem to end up with a God who is often angry, petulant, needy, jealous, and who will love us only if we are “worthy” and belonging to the correct group. We end up with the impossible scenario of a God who is “small,” and often less loving than the best people we know! This supposedly divine love is quite measured and conditional, and yet ironically demands from us a perfect and unconditional love. Such a salvation system will never work, unless we allow an utterly new dimension of love “to astonish us and stand us on our ears,” as Isaiah says above. Unless God is able and allowed to love us unconditionally, we will never know how to do the same.

Richard Rohr, Awakened & Astonished

I started reading Isaiah last night. One of my favourite books along with the Psalms. It feels like relatively safe territory for me to walk. My hope - to read with a few layers of religiosity unpeeled so I can see beyond the surface, get stood on my ears.

Systems failure

The authority that we need must be total. It can no longer come from mere church mandate or Bible interpretation, but it must also come from our souls. We need Christians who have souls!

Only people with inner authority, what Gandhi called "soul force", are capable of true nonviolence. Only they can both let things be and call them into being. They alone create. All the rest of us simply rearrange.

Richard Rohr, Near Occasions of Grace

I am thinking of about seven different strands this morning regarding systems and their failures. Whether I can whittle it down into something coherent remains to be seen :) Kent is talking on his blog about the failure of law to bring about what we intend it to bring about. Once you start seeing it, it's very difficult to stop seeing how our efforts to enforce our safety and security by law backfire.

I think of the new law encoded recently by the Australian Football League. Because of one incident occurring several weeks ago involving an interchange stuff-up, the League, in typical reactionary fashion, has introduced a convoluted new system of rules and regulations that I can't even be fucked looking into, to be honest, to try and stop something so horrible and market-share-reducing as a mistake.

Knee-jerk reactions by insecure people who feel like they have to be seen to do something by the general insecure public, most of who want something done, something coded, something fixed, goddammit, so that they can feel like they've got some control.

Well, you know what, people? We're not in control. We never have been. Control is an illusion, designed by your fearful brain to make you feel like enshrining laws is going to make the world a safer place. But you know what? Enshrining laws just contributes to the feeling that most people have that they don't get to really be themselves, to any sort of degree, because they don't know what the rules are. If someone will just tell them the rules, then everything will be okay.

But it won't be okay. Not until we all start taking goddamn responsiblity for being in our own skins, instead of wanting a bunch of people in uniforms to tell us how it should be done. What happens if deep down we often know how it should be done, whatever that means at any one time, for a particular situation? Imagine if, using our God-given inner authority, we got about living on gut feelings and compassion and reasoning and logic and common sense and aesthetics and paradox and because the sky screams it instead of doing it because rule 3.5(a)(1) says so?

Knowing for ourselves what is right, stops us from being coerced and manipulated by people whose motives are generally ulterior. Hell, everyone's motives are ulterior. We've all got agendas. The good widdle government man isn't just encoding a law to make you feel safer. He's encoding a law because he doesn't really know what the fuck to do, and this sounds alright, and it'll quell the vocal fearful.

Every law that is encoded to make you feel safer takes away a tiny little bit of you, and your own ability to act (or not) out of what you know is right. Acting because a law says so when your head and heart are not in agreement is not acting at all, it's following. Walking about in a world that is so blanketed in rules and laws is not freedom. The guy in prison because he's tanked himself up on crystal meth is a total danger to society, and in that situation steps need to be taken to try to minimise the harm to himself and others.

But a world that never questions the policeman nor the law behind him - that's a million times more dangerous. People who have been taught to not question or think for themselves? They're the most dangerous because they never have to question why they are manipulative, vengeful, hateful, and happy to lord it over others in the name of politics, religion, peace or safety.

It just won't wash. Or it shouldn't. But it does, every day, with fabric conditioner to boot. Because we've been taught that we can't do anything about it. That's the worst part about living for the rules. It might make you think you're safe, but really it's just making you not think much at all.

All the better to manipulate you with.

Now Radio Susie is gonna be singing I Am the Law by Human League all afternoon :)

It's a beautiful day out there, the last day of Autumn. It's a beautiful thang, also, to be aware of all of this systemic shit, to get passionate about it, but to not get carried away by despair over it. That's no small thing in this society.

The sun is shining and the shit goes on, but that's our world. Happy Saturday, bloggers :)

Edit: And anyway, I can't get too despondent about too much happening in the world because I really believe that, underneath it all, waves like this are coming. I can feel it in my marrow. And I've never ever learnt to surf but I've always always wanted to :)