[5 minute read]
Excerpts from “For What It’s Worth”
There’s something happening here
What it is ain’t exactly clear
[“Authority” stands] over there
Telling me I got to beware
I think it’s time we stop, children, what’s that sound
Everybody look what’s going down
There’s battle lines being drawn
Nobody’s right if everybody’s wrong
[The child inside is] speaking their mind
Getting so much resistance from behind
It’s time we stop, hey, what’s that sound
Everybody look what’s going down
What a field-day for the heat {of Satan’s doubt fire}
A thousand people in the street
Singing songs and carrying signs
Mostly say, hooray for our side
Everybody look what’s going down
Paranoia strikes deep
Into your life it will creep
It starts when you’re always afraid
You step out of line, [judgment] come and take you away
“There’s something happening here. What it is ain’t exactly clear.” How do we sense the happening, and why is it unclear? As we grew up into adults, we progressively suppressed the innocent optimism and flighty, energetic spirit of youth. But that child-sense remains within, beneath the rubble of adulthood.
“[‘Authority’ stands] over there, telling me I got to beware.” Where is this “man with a gun”? He is “over there,” not right here, within. He is not even part of us (“over there”), but his voice “telling me I got to beware” is louder inside our head than our own child-voice. That man and his warnings are institutional religion preaching judgment, government mindsets that make us feel threatened, today’s bitter divisiveness of political partisanship, fear of a pandemic microbe, or righteous anger and rebellion. We are mistaking that voice from “over there” as our own heart: “It’s time we stop, children, what’s that sound (not from children). Everybody look (inside, with a child’s eyes and heart).
“There’s battle lines being drawn. Nobody’s right if everybody’s wrong.” Fatal flaws of black-and-white, misinformed religious dogmas by which we feel condemnation. The replacements for Nietzsche’s dead God: Political tribalism and confirmation bias forged by “re-sharing” posts on social media.
“[The child inside is] speaking their mind, getting so much resistance from behind.” What a twist, this resistance… That resistance is the egotism of adulthood that has left the purer child-mind behind. But the child-heart inside us still calls from “behind.” Stop and listen to “that sound.”
Tribalism, fundamentalism, and individually inflated egos… “A thousand people in the street singing songs and carrying signs, mostly say, hooray for our side.” Evil triumphs not only when good people do nothing, but when good people gather under “heat” banners and surrender their creativity for *uniquely* individual powers of love. “What a field-day for the heat.”
As children, our uniqueness flowed out of us freely through everything we did, fearless of whether others were doing or thinking the same. We delighted in how our own uniqueness combined with the uniqueness of play friends. Until the well-intentioned but perditious powers of adult society pressured us to conform to roles and scripts. As children, we feared very unreal things such as monsters. As adults, we have become those unrealities, and live instead by fear of our individual selves, our intrinsic power. We don’t want to be seen by others as making mistakes. Our modus operandi has become fear itself, and we are real monsters: “Paranoia strikes deep; into your life it will creep. It starts when you’re always afraid: You step out of line,” and the unreal standards of adult expectations “come and take you away.”
Today, try to hold in conscious awareness that stopping that happens “here,” and let it become more clear. Take a moment to love another. Let your child-heart reflow through the rubble. With practice at stopping, it will become more clear. What’s happening here, is happening inside of you. Not “over there.”
“For What It’s Worth”
Song by Buffalo Springfield and Stephen Stills
Neil D. 2020-06-04
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