Alpine Ensemble II, above Hidden Lake,
Eagle Cap Wilderness . . .

TWO METAPHYSICAL MINIATURES

(I)

We shape the world and the world shapes us.

Some people make us smart; Others, make us stupid.
Some people make us happy, Others, make us sad. If
dialogue and compassion form two sides of the triangle
of friendship or relationship, this might be then the third—
encouragement, or the sustained, mutual generation of the
energy that makes change, discovery, makes real creative
work possible. Truly, this is how the world becomes a
better place, one person at a time.


(II)

We shape the world and the world shapes us.

Have you ever thought about how the world of Nature no
longer seems to inform or shape our manner of movement
or dress? Or why, in a more general way, contemporary
culture no longer seems shaped or informed by a fecund
interaction of human creativity and place? Is this not in part
because of an insidious process of not physical but rather
spiritual colonization?

In the past, the church wanted us to believe this or that—
the actual details of content are in my view irrelevant—as a
means of spiritual dominion and control; Now, the instruments
of commerce—corporations, governments, and, well, yes, once
again, churches—all wish in similar ways to take possession
of our souls. They do this by conditioning our likes and dislikes.
If this seems more to characterize the dark ambitions of a
totalitarian society and not the proud badge of freedom worn
by Western-style democracies, please consider that by the time
the average student arrives at a North American university, he
or she will have seen about 12,000 hours of television commercials.
Extraordinary, by any standard, and especially in need of an
explanation as to why this is tolerated. These new embodiments
of commerce and control thereby gain great influence over how
we vote, how we spend our money, and how and what we believe
is true and important. This they have done, and with amazing
success.

If you think this exaggeration, imagine this: put a young person
from China, India, Japan, Australia, North / South America, or
Europe on a forest path anywhere in the world. Remarkably, they
will in a nearly identical way look wholly out-of-place. Truly,
they will look as lost as if they were fresh off the streets of
downtown LA. Their movements will all seem to emerge from
one simple, common, programmed language. These movements
say, "Hey, dude! I speak MTV! Get out of the way."

Revolt of youth? Quite doubtful. That would require at the very
outset that one give away the keys to the car, tear up every logo
in sight, smash the CD-player and TV.

Perhaps the greatest endangered species of Western culture
has become now the free spirit, the one who can think, see
and act with intellectual integrity and independence—right
or wrong—for oneself.

I say to you, to outfit oneself in style for the coming peaceful,
first-and-foremost inward revolution, one need not buy a single
thing.

Now Imagine that!

Camp Lost & Found,
Eagle Cap Wilderness,
Oregon, IX.15.2008