Life, Liberty and Vasectomies for All!

     For thousands of years men have appointed themselves as second-in-command to god.  This evolutionary and egotistical misinterpretation has resulted in nothing other than irresponsible hierarchy and its hypocritical manipulations of Life and liberty.  
     The hypocrisy stems, in part, from externalizing god into a literal man (of the same race and beliefs as the hypocrite) in some future place that promises pleasurable eternity but only if one can rigidly follow the ambiguity of "His will" now.  The manipulation lies in the fact that such a male-dominated mixture of literalism and ambiguity is only tenable if the self-appointed second-in-command controls all matters concerning the interpretation of "His will."  How this hierarchical belief system defines manhood is then evident in the religions, politics, economics and entertainment of most societies.  How this belief system results in behaviors of withdrawal, manipulation, rebellion or compliance from those not at the top of the hierarchy is also evident.  In effect, this power-driven set-up dehumanizes women and children and objectifies nature and the perceived enemy.  Fundamentally, the second-in-command is second to none unless he needs to beg forgiveness or justify mercilessness.
      Because men are going to hypocritically persist in appointing themselves as second-in-command to their own misinterpretations of god, and because this fabricated appointment has proven no other functional or psychological outcome than Oppression, Addiction, Trauma and Shame (we reap the OATS we sow), I'd like to suggest one simple change.  I'm proposing that every male born is automatically given a government funded vasectomy.  The thousand dollars or so it costs up front for a vasectomy far outweighs the trillions of dollars we spend dealing with those "crazy" women who've been abused; those "spoiled" children who've been abandoned; the ever-increasing heap of altered waste that comes from nature but can't return; and all the other patriarchal and objectifying tactics that result in the costly ruins of war.  (For example, consider that over 65% of males in prison for murder killed the second-in-command because he was hurting "my mom."  This type of murder is the unnatural behavior of a grown-up, testosterone-filled male child with conditioned beliefs about the violence necessary to attain godhood.  Such a boy is systematically trained to replace self-discipline and personal responsibility with the god-deluded values of "might makes right."  At the core of this conditioning, however, are the natural and archetypal needs to survive, be safe and to belong.  So, blinded by fear and rage, the now sizable boy is reduced to this ultimatum: stop mom's abuser or die trying.  This type of war is the emotionally desperate act of a truly "spoiled" child who kills to salvage his own psychology and protect the spirituality of the mother-child union.  The rub is that such an act only creates another violent man to take the place of the dead one.  His mom might be free from immediate harm but it's highly unlikely that the young man's godhood will result in safety or well-being for her or anyone else in his life.)  Hell, our entire "prison nation," is the systematic reaction to, and creation of, violent men.  Altogether, this system of crime and punishment perfectly reveals and reflects the sown OATS of god-deluded manhood.
     Of course, vasectomies aren't going to automatically solve the social norms of Oppression, Addiction, Trauma or Shame.  After all, this idea doesn't even dent the historic psychological and emotional armaments known as manhood.  And mandatory vasectomies will not automatically stop the dehumanizing sexual violence against women and children.  Attempts to control the environment and dominate the perceived enemy will continue as well.  Mandatory vasectomies would, however, stop the outrage of unwanted and uncared for children (as well as put an end to the hypocrisy and manipulation of the male dominated abortion debate).  Because that's what I think is at the core of what's really happening!  The sown OATS of god-deluded manhood bring children into society who are instinctually and emotionally outraged!!
     If the second-in-command was biologically unable to donate sperm until after he had worked through his egotistical god-delusions and acquired a sense of responsibility and contribution to family and community just imagine the lives we could salvage and the pile of money we could save on societal reparations.  If the hypocrisies and manipulations of god-deluded manhood were nipped in the bud we could stop poisoning the nature of what connects children to their God-given Potentials of calling: to have, to feel, to act, to love, to speak and be heard, to see and to know.  Such children could then stop turning into the next generation of grown-ups who are conditioned to blindly believe and perpetuate the hypocrisies and manipulations of patriarchal hierarchy.  Instead, such children could instinctually and emotionally become individuals who value and contribute to families and communities rooted in protection, empathy, nurturance and sustenance.  
     Basically, I want to take the hierarchical "god, the father" element out of parenting and society because such a deification is a dehumanizing trap either way you look at it.  As I've stated before, I'd like us all to acknowledge and realize the miracles of all Life.  Granted, mandatory vasectomies would be a drastic step.  But, at this point in his-story I see no other way to dethrone god-deluded manhood.  And once the second-in-command is dethroned he can begin to learn how children already see grown-ups as super-beings and that the role of parenting is to model how to become human beings.  Once dethroned a man could begin to understand that his own divinity is created by his active consciousness of divinity in all others and otherness.  If the second-in-command were dethroned manhood could be redefined as welcoming the sacrifice of diligent service to the well-being of family and community.  If men were dethroned the reality of "nature via nurture" could at last be the guiding force of parenting and being human.  If men were dethroned all perceived threats to Life and liberty could be responded to differently than the fearfully reactive "might makes right" hierarchy of our current disasters.  And once dethroned men can stop trying to justify the hypocrisies and manipulations of manhood and instead allow the emotions of "Being Human" to mature into the citizenship of adulthood.
     Once a man can demonstrate how the personal responsibility for love is partly an emotion that results in safe behavior but mostly behavior that results in safe emotions he can have his vasectomy reversed.  At that point in his-story he can genuinely begin to Experience the complex Relationships of divinity in men, women, children, nature and even those who threaten with their own patriarchal delusions of godhood.  And at that point in our collective story we will all begin learning how to participate with and take personal responsibility for authentic Life and liberty.

Life's Yearning

     I'll say it again - one's genuine callings and emotions must be acknowledged.  Then, whatever they are, these callings and emotions - Internity - must find a way to be lived.  In fact, calling and emotion are the core essence of "How I Am: Being Human" (to have, to feel, to act, to love, to speak and be heard, to see, to know).  And any attempt to diffuse ego-consciousness of this fact, or refuse personal responsibility for this fact, will sabotage Life's yearning in some way, shape or form.   
     Just look around and within.  The failure to acknowledge Life's yearning always results in combinations of physiological, psychological, social, mental, emotional and spiritual dis-ease.  Examples of this sabotage are also observed in the factors and influences of "How I Am: Being Human" (i.e, the genetics, family, community, peers, education, environment, temperament and calling of the personal and collective Relationships and Experiences).  In effect, the intentional acknowledgement or devout ignorance of one's genuine calling and emotion is revealed and reflected in the purposeful behaviors and internal motivations of Life's yearning.


Postscript: I finish these thoughts in the shadow of yet another mass killing, this time at a theater in Aurora, Colorado.  (Twelve people dead, which, averaged out, is approximately one-third of how many people die everyday from gun violence in this "land of the free."  Fifty-eight people wounded and traumatized for the rest of their lives.  A country fascinated by the horror of it all but only until the headlines change.)  My observations at this point are that the public response is appropriately focused on either the victims or guns.  What we also need to address, however, are the killer's purposeful behaviors and internal motivations.  How did the nature of his Life's yearning, his interiorization of community and his deepest callings and emotions get nurtured into such a desperate annihilation of Life?  And what measure of safety and fear do all the killers, all the victims, all the media and all the guns reveal and reflect concerning our personal and collective formulations of "How I Am: Being Human?"   

Images, Instincts and Emotions

     It makes sense to me that each and every one of us, always and everywhere, responds or reacts from within to the images, instincts and emotions of self/Self, others and otherness.  (I differentiate between responding and reacting with the idea that responding comes from an internal Perception of choices and safety whereas reacting comes from an instinctual or conditioned internal Perception of being unsafe.)  In other words, we all respond or react to others and otherness via the images, instincts and emotions of the ego-self and the deeper psychological Self (i.e., Internity).  This is because all conscious and unconscious formulations of ego and Self are internally rooted in the Life of the collective yet from there branch-out to absorb, filter and behave in symbolic expressions of individual purpose and internal motivation.  Therefore, all the images, instincts and emotions of "How I Am: Being Human" can only be accurately discovered, expressed, connected and made meaningful with this reality as the guiding concept: all behavior is purposeful and internally motivated.
     Fully comprehending and practicing this immutable reality of behavior completely shifts the discovery of consciousness, the expression of challenges, the practice of choices and the meanings of change.  In effect, the moment one refuses to explain behavior using the stimulus-response fantasy (blaming this or that person-place-thing from the recent or ancient past for "making me" do this or that behavior) one begins a more intentional experience of being alive.  But please don't misunderstand me.  I am not for a moment suggesting that one's past Relationships, Experiences or Perceptions can simply be ignored as if they didn't happen.  On the contrary, I think the archetypes of the collective unconscious and the emotions of the personal unconscious will independently demand attention (in dreams, physical illness, psychosis, neurosis and every other symbolic outcome).  Likewise, the powerful emotions and symbolic values/feelings and beliefs/thinking patterns of ego and persona cannot simply be cast aside, especially when there has been some level of trauma to one's fulfillment of the human needs.  I am convinced, however, that the "nature via nurture" Potential of all these internal realities can only remain open to the natural images, instincts and emotions of Life's yearnings by nurturing an understanding of all behavior as purposeful and internally motivated.

Unity, Separation and Reunion

     It seems to me that the "nature via nurture" of Internity is, in one way or another, formulated by conscious and unconscious sensations of unity, separation and reunion.  I mean, all Potential is discovered through complex and continuous circumambulations of what it means to be individually ("the hero's journey") and collectively ("participation mystique") unified, separated and reunited.  All Relationships are expressed via the internal joys and sorrows created by a sense of unity, separation and reunion (dependence-independence-interdependence-intradependence).  All Experiences are imagined and stored as emotional memories, feelings/values and beliefs/thinking patterns (oppressing or freeing) and connected in every way to unity, separation and reunion.  And all Perceptions are emotionally meaningful in terms of how they relate to unity, separation and reunion (fearful desperation creates the emotions of fight, flight, freeze or dissociate; and the fulfillment of desire creates the emotions of having, feeling, acting, loving, speaking and being heard, seeing and knowing).  The factors and influences of genetics, family, "the interiorization of community," peers, education, environment, temperament and calling (whoever is telling the story) all become "How I Am" schemas that get played-out in the theater of unity, separation and reunion.  Likewise, the purposeful behavior of "Being Human" - physiological health/survival needs, psychological health/safety needs, social health/belonging needs, mental health/fun and learning needs, emotional health/power needs and spiritual health/freedom needs - are all motivated by Internity's conscious and unconscious responses to unity, separation and reunion.  It also seems that consciousness, challenges, choices and changes are all evoked by and then result in fluctuating awareness and truth of unity, separation and reunion.  Additionally, the original, sexual, imaginative and mortal realities of personal and collective humankind are all part of the Life-Death-Rebirth mythologies that empower ideas of unity, separation and reunion.  The Love and Grief of "How I Am: Being Human," therefore, both center and revolve around the possibilities of Life's "participation mystique" with the "nature via nurture" realizations of one's Internity.  In effect, always and everywhere, sensations and formulations of Internity (conscious and unconscious), create purposeful and internally motivated behaviors in response to the safe or unsafe Potentials, Relationships, Experiences and Perceptions of unity, separation and reunion.

Psychological Remains

     The idea and reality of psychological remains are both created by the inevitability of Death a well as the fact that all any of us leave behind are the Relationships we bring to Life.  The sooner we all understand this idea and nurture this reality with intentional awareness the sooner we will all realize (make real) the natural discovery of Potential, expression of Relationship, connection to Experience and meaning of Perception.  When one's time on this Earth is finished, no matter if it lasts for minutes or decades, he or she will leave behind psychological remains that have been affected by people from the collective and personal past and will then ripple outward to affect the lives of people in a future one will never know.  In effect, the positive or negative behaviors toward self, others and otherness during this Life on this Earth is what creates the emotional Experience of an afterlife within the lives of others remaining on this Earth after one dies (regardless of any and all religious beliefs about an eternal afterlife)!  It seems obvious, then, that fully comprehending the idea and reality of psychological remains must become the guiding force of one's consciousness, challenges, choices and changes toward all Relationships in this Life!!    

Love and Grief

     I think intentional Relationship with the natural calling of one's Internity is what makes Life meaningful.  I also think this Relationship with calling is Experienced as a limitless combination of Love and Grief.  Obviously, the word "combination" implies that Love and Grief are separate.  But the reality is they are inseparable because they each create and define the other in a symbiotic union, like a lake and its shoreline.  And long before one's individual beginning, onward into unknowable future generations, Love and Grief call us all to awaken the emotional consciousness necessary for a full participation with "Being Human."
     The nurtured ego-consciousness of "How I Am" (i.e., the Potential factors and influences that form ego), also plays an essential role in awakening one's Internity of Love and Grief.  Put simply, the ego's Perceptions and Experiences are made-up of the discoveries, expressions, connections and meanings formulated by the emotional feedback circle of Relationships.  These integrations and complexes (positive and negative) then inform ego-consciousness and facilitate one's life-long interactions with the personal and collective unconscious.  In this way Love and Grief are always in a dance with mythological calling, biological birth, the psychological birth of ego, the Experience of being alive (conscious and unconscious), biological death and one's psychological remains.  This is why a healthy ego - the images, symbols, behaviors and emotions of individual consciousness - is so important to both the present moment and a Life well-lived.  Essentially, the longings and fears that comprise every individual's ego are always and everywhere participating with the ancient collective callings of Love and Grief.  
     In a previous post I describe Love as conditional and active in the context of being partly an emotion that results in safe behavior but mostly a behavior that results in safe emotions.  Under such circumstances, the intensities of Love grow in a trust for physical, psychological, social, mental, emotional and spiritual safety.  So, wherever there is safe behavior and emotion (e.g., the self-disciplined kindnesses of home), the healthy identifications of ego that are necessary for the Love of self, others and otherness are made possible.  The Perception of Grief, under these circumstances, is Experienced as a wave of longing and calling for the joyful Relationship that was created by safe behavior and emotion - Love!  Such a loss and its intensely emotional memory of well-being and a Life well-lived will fill one's heart to the breaking point.  But this fulfillment of Love then lives on with the power to open and transform Grief into a spirited awakening of discovered Potentials, expressed Relationships, connected Experiences and meaningful Perceptions.
     Emotional Experiences that result in unsafe behavior, as well as behaviors that result in unsafe emotions, are nonetheless subject to the intensifications of Love and Grief.  Under these circumstances, however, Grief comes not only from the ancient callings associated with losing people, but also from a sorrowful intuition that one failed to Experience the Potential of genuine Love in the first place - safe emotion and behavior.  In my estimation, this intensely negative and intuitive ego-awareness is the result of physical, psychological, social, mental, emotional and spiritual Experiences found in domestic violence.  Such unnatural and stressful angst then results in the wounded behavioral responses of withdrawal, manipulation, rebellion or compliance.  In effect, if one's ego is nurtured via unsafe behaviors and emotions he or she is likely to Experience Internity and the natural longings associated with self, others and otherness as unpredictable, insignificant or even dangerous.  Love and Grief, under these circumstances, become colored with the added intensities and complexities (conscious and unconscious) of shame.  And I am convinced that anytime the heart's natural desire for emotionally safe Relationship is sabotaged by the nurtured shame and fear of violent Experience the resulting intensifications of Love and Grief cannot help but reveal and reflect some level of violence toward self, others and otherness. 
     It seems obvious that the chronic violence of Oppression, Addiction, Trauma, and Shame (the OATS we sow in united states of consciousness), are all founded on the obsessive belief that Love must include some level of unsafe behavior and emotion.  Take for example our righteous insistence on equating the punishment of children with discipline.  Such a blatant misunderstanding of the difference between punishment and discipline has no other outcome than unsafe behavior and emotion at some level of consciousness.  And yet, after thousands of years righteously using "the rod" to prevent spoilage we sit in the Grief-stricken Hell of oppressed, addicted, traumatized and shameful self, others and otherness thinking we should have been using a bigger rod all along.  But sowing such O.A.T.S. only creates emotions that result in unsafe behavior and behaviors that result in unsafe emotions!  I think these historically rooted circumstances have vandalized the Internity of Love and Grief and are now being revealed and reflected everywhere one looks [e.g., the individual refusal of calling and general loss of imagination and creativity; the rejection of sacrifice and demand for instant gratification; the spiritually empty literalism of religions that are then forced by faith to refuse their historical companionship with science; the misreading of emotional desperation and consequent medication (self and prescribed) of its symptoms; the insatiable efforts to find fulfillment with nutritionally empty and sometimes utterly poisonous food and drink; the objectification and consequent pricing of self, others and otherness; the compartmentalization of education and its consequent removal from servicing the community's interior; the sexual and violent indoctrination of children as the accepted norm of socialization, economics and entertainment; the chronic diffusion of personal responsibility and its manipulations of freedom; the contrived resistances to adulthood, maturity and aging; and the systematic destruction of nature to support the whole dis-eased process; etc., ad nauseum]. 
     I think all of this points to the fact that the human race can no longer fear and avoid Internity's Relationship with the symbiotic union of Love and Grief.  The nature of human Life, which is Love and Grief, demands individually conscious choices to fully participate with the realities of mythological calling, biological birth, psychological birth, the Experience of being alive, biological death and one's psychological remains!  We can no longer ego-maniacally avoid participation with Love, Grief or Internity!  Therefore, it seems the challenge of our time is to change how we nurture the "How I Am" emotional ego-consciousness of Internity so we can then choose differently how to participate with the nature of Love, Grief and all Life.  Penultimately, I think it's time that our personal and collective egos learn about protection, empathy, nurturance and sustenance through the safe actions and emotions of Love for self, others and otherness!  Ultimately, if one safely awakens the natural qualities of Internity, I think he or she will hear the emotional callings of Love and Grief but then answer all Life with full consciousness and intentional participation in the challenges, choices and changes of "Being Human." 

The Psychology of Calling

     I think it was James Hillman who said something along the lines of, "No one is born who isn't called first."  No one.  Which means everyone is born to express, and as an expression of, anima mundi - the world's soul.  Which also means that everyone is born with purpose and meaning.  Every one.  But this soul, purpose and meaning, even though they are all part of individual Potential, neither belongs exclusively to the individual.  This reality makes the individual and the collective Experience of being alive a complex Relationship between the Perceptions of ego and the worldly intentions of calling.
     "How I Am" Potential in the context of otherness (i.e., ego), and the Potential of otherness in the context of "Being Human" (i.e., Self), are what define the psychology of calling.  For example, a newborn's calling is a sensory and emotional Experience of Self that lasts for many years before he or she begins to consciously discover, express, connect to or make personal meaning with ego's formulations.  But every newborn is having an immediate impact on the ego and calling - the Potentials, Relationships, Experiences and Perceptions - of at least two others (the parents) which then includes countless others (the family, the community, the state, nation and the world).  Simultaneously, the sensory and emotional affect of others and otherness on the newborn influences the awakening of his or her ego.  This makes it evident that throughout one's ego-Self Life it is vitally important to ask, "What's my calling?" yet, it's irresponsible to think "How I Am: Being Human" is separate from the soulful, purposeful and meaningful callings of others and otherness.  
     All otherness takes part in one's calling.  Likewise, one's calling takes part in all otherness.  And even though calling is part of the ancient past and the unknown future it's main quality is that it is always participating in the here and now.  This psychology of calling intends to open ego's consciousness to new Potential, new Relationships, new ways of interpreting Experiences and new Perceptions of others and otherness.  Most other psychological theories address the "developed" ego as the sole experiencer and creator of others and otherness - i.e. "reality."  But "the ego is only one member of a commune" (Hillman) and so not going further into the connections of the human psyche with the world's soul cuts a person off from calling.  Such a cutting-off limits discovery, expression, connection and meaning to the ego alone.  This type of "nature versus nurture" situation, as anyone can plainly see, is a disaster for the individual, others and otherness.  A "nature via nurture" psychology of calling, on the other hand, is always addressing the vital conduit between ego and calling, reinterpreting and reconnecting the immense Potential of Self with the immeasurable Relationships, Experiences and Perceptions of all others and otherness.


PS: I'm not going to go into it now but the complex Experience of grief is the most common way we all transform ego's discoveries, expressions, connections and meanings.  Calling, after all, becomes highly intensified when the Potentials, Relationships, Experiences and Perceptions of those left behind are awakened by the ancient emotions encircling death.