Ain't No Reason Things Are This Way

"There ain't no reason things are this way.
It’s how they always been and they intend to stay.
I can't explain why we live this way, we do it everyday."

When I first heard this song, I immediately reacted, "Oh yeah, great song. Great lyrics." Ironically, though, I heard the song, entitled it as "awesome", explained it to others how awesome it is, how it speaks truth, and then I returned to "live this way, we do it every day." No explanation for why life is the way that it is-- and certainly no explanation for why we do what we do. Ain't no reason...if I can't explain it, then why not write a note of observation in light of it? I cannot decide whether this song is illuminating, or if I think it's a shrewd mound of horse shit. Quite possibly a combination of both.

Since graduating and gratefully transitioning out of the "studying portal" that had encompassed me, I vowed to research and collectively attempt to understand how the crap society got to where it is today-- lest not answering the question, but consequently exploring the process of our current state.

I think a pivotal point in my search was one night I was laying in bed, listening to Bill Moyers and heard that in the last 2008 presidential election, the financial industry spent a riveting 400 billion dollars on lobbying for specific congressional candidates and elections. $400 BILLION dollars. I was astounded, and wondered what might be the monetary means to feed the world's hungry and provide clean drinking water. I found my results. According to the United Nations Human Development Report, $80 MILLION would grant access to clean water, food, social services, and education to the world's poor for TEN years.

What? Really? Unbelievable, I thought. I could not refrain myself from acting out my anger (Books thrown at the wall again. My sincere apologies dearest wall). I know we care about the world, despite the disproportional distribution of wealth. We do care, but why do we repress the pain that would enable us to exponentially care for the world? We experience the pain, the horror, the dreadfulness of our present day. They're familiar feelings. Deep in our hearts, we understand the essence of compassion: that there is no peace in me until there is a peace for you as well. The pain of the world-- imparted and experienced by each one of us. The urge of compassion is essential to our existence while the relations we make with people and the Earth reach a deeper level of understanding. The pain in itself is disheartening, but serves a purposeful motion to trigger forth some remedial action. Just like a body that suffers physical pain requires immediate attention and nurturing, so too a thorough, generalized pain in our world indicates an opportunity to heal, and to do so together. Pain for the world is not the enemy that hurts us, but our willingness to frivolously discard and dull its existing presence. Unless we deeply experience this pain and forgo repressing it, we may not generate any substantial healing that is capable of happening.

My intention in writing this is to get to the root of why we don't care. Or why I don't care. Or, not that we don't care, but honestly, we don't care to let the pain engross us to again, generate any way of life different than we know. "It's how they always been and how they intend to stay." Mentally, we have been disfigured entirely. All these are fears, ones I have faced and still fight. Others I've read about and compiled here:

1. Fear of the actual pain itself. Got pain? Pop that there pill. Remedies are instant and easy, haven't you heard? If you let the pain get to you too much, it may affect your ability to cope with daily life. That pain could make you fall apart and worst of all, make you a MESS.

2. Fear that the despair will utterly consume us, making us ineffective in reasoning why such things are happening. Will such despair destroy my faith as I know it-- scared that my faith will be deemed as inadequate?

3. Fear of the appearance of despair. Smile brightly. You are on the road to success...you are in the United States of America...turn that frown upside down! The feelings of this pain are thought of as lagging confidence and a lack of hope and general perseverence. We immediately endorse and respond with doctrinal messages of hope that inwardly call us to press on--- but are we resorting to an instantaneous form of remedy that thwarts our path to really experiencing the pain?

4. Fear of the "smart people". Frankly, I am terrified and sometimes extremely timid toward the more informed intellectuals who are sharply educated on the social issues and pain of our world. By now I have undergone a number of instances looking like an idiot, getting those "You didn't know that?" looks, and sometimes even laughed at. It's humiliating-- but who cares about my reputation. My ignorance and inept knowledge in regards to the world is constantly shown. Ask the questions. Better now that our ignorance is made aware to us than 30 years down the road.

5. Fear of feeling responsible for the pain. How do I go about my activities of daily living knowing that we are doing so at the expense of the natural world and the well-being of others? This is my hardest to deal with--- I must learn HOW to deal with these feelings rather than dislodging them to some outer space within.

6. Fear of burdening others. We should proceed onward in order to keep family and friends from worrying about us and seemingly diagnosing us as "depressed." My parents continually think I am in and out of depression. Don't ever let such a diagnosis extinguish the feelings felt for the world. It's just an attempt to make you numb and ineffective.

7.Fear of becoming overly emotional and unstable. True, we are a culture led way too much by emotion, and lacking discipline, but here to say that a mere objective mindset founded on reason outweighs the validity of a "subjective" stance based on intuitions and feelings is absurd. I know being a woman and deemed "unstable and emotional" is highly unfavored and looked down upon by the dominant society. We are expected to shove our feelings inward in an attempt to operate normally with an appearance of confidence and strength.

8. One of the greatest fears: that the powers of pain are too extreme for us to handle or effectively do something. God not only gave us a mind, but a heart as well. Both to fully connect, both to think and feel, and to openly discuss and contemplate-- which hopefully fuels thought into action. We don't want to accept the fact that we didn't create ourselves, and we do not have the ultimate control over our lives. We want to have direct control over our emotions and what it feeds into-- thereby narrowing our focused areas of attention to our extent of direct control. When employing only fractions of our hearts and minds to our itty, bitty controlled areas of attention, our impact is significantly lessened.

Of course these mental fears have evolved over time and subtly communicated to us-- most of the time without words, but rather in underlying expectations guided by societal forces (such as the urges of society to: CONSUME. STAY PUT. OBEY. DIE HAPPY. )I cannot help but wonder if we were highly influenced to engage in the pain for our world then what mighty renewal may be set before us.

I have personally noted also how even the Christian culture that promotes going against the world and the heinous streams of society, finds itself still operating in the same systematic way of thought, but with different means of justification. Though this may be paradoxically understood, I still find myself believing perfect love casts out all fear. But that statement is meaningless if I am not to become aware of the fear or the pain, but rather dislodge it like all other mischievous emotions.

My hope is that we will again listen to the people and pain of our world, and feel it. Not run away or get a hunky hearty feeling of compassion, and then return to we "can't explain why we live this way, we do it everyday." I suck at it, need help and daily encouragement. Sometimes the best thing is the only thing you have: prayer.