The Faux Pas Press #159
Zarathustra Cries at the Presence of Jesus
By Chambo Fresh
They tell you that you are not doing enough, that you are a day late and two dollars short - it doesn't seem to be going the way it was all supposed to go. They denied your application. They wouldn't let you go on the trip. He would not listen while you were so clearly communicating all that you wanted to say. Even in your beautiful home, with all the delicate care you've placed before him, there are some parts of your life that could look more like an article in The New Yorker. The perfection that you've sought all of these days: you're flat in Manhattan, the parties of delight, the great meals you've planned where people of prestige and significance will come to worship at your feet. They don't seem to look like you envisioned. Is it you? Is there some button you are supposed to push? The short answer. Yes.
I am going to postulate new ideas. I pray sincerely that you have the generosity and intention to listen - or at least pretend to read and enjoy The Faux Pas Press. What I am doing is asking you to listen , with compassion, neither agreeing or disagreeing, but rather, read using all of your faculties: logic, sanity, rationale, and just a smidge of humility.
Our skills and abilities have become important. This is how we earn our keep so to speak. Skill means earning a living, it means providing and keeping up. All of our educational institutions - our universities, our colleges, our public schools are directed for the purpose of skill. Got it? Now, when one is totally and exclusively educated for this purpose, the skills we acquire invariably breed a certain sense of power, arrogance, and self-importance. There is a connection - 1) the relationship between skill and clarity and 2) the relationship between clarity and compassion. I talk a lot of horseshit, I know. I have been told this my whole life - mostly from state-sponsored educators. Now, we can talk about the art of listening, the ability to see, and the drive to learn. The art of listening is to listen so that everything goes naturally into its right place. Art is about putting things where they belong. And this whole seeing thing - this is about observing without distortion. You can not really observe a fuzzy image, can you? Really see it. To see clearly, to have great clarity of perception - you just can't have any distortion. Distortion is comes alive with any form of motive, purpose, or direction at all. So, I ask, "Is it you?" Why yes, yes it is.
Learning is not just the accumulation of mountainous knowledge. Hey, this is necessary for skillful action. Trust me. I get it. But what about learning from others, your spouse, your children, your infamous neighbors who go around fucking shit up all day - learning without accumulation. There are two types of learning. You can acquire knowledge through experience, through books, through education. Your hard drive files and stores this for later use. We act upon this data. Sometimes skillfully - sometimes not-so-skillfully. There is yet another type of learning, madam. In this field, you never accumulate. It is to listen - registering not just words from the mouth. But listening - registering what is absolutely necessary and nothing else. In this field, the mind is not cluttered up with the movement and processing of knowledge. This is an art. And you just were not trained up that way in the greatest nation the world has ever known. The mind is too cluttered to send clear signals to the Universal Server, cluttered with all of our knowledge. Sometimes, we must surrender this stuff - sometimes, Zarathustra has no choice but bow down at the presence of the Master - to listen and to worship at his feet.
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