In the previous texts I have given an optimistic view on our social life. It is an idealistic but also realistic possibility in developing true love between people. But it is equally possible to give a pessimistic view on the social status of humanity worldwide. We can feel inside that we have the talent to be human beings that can live our lives in brotherhood, equality and freedom. But it is also easy to see that this inwardly felt idealistic human nature is not being actualized. Everyday throws up all kinds of events that make it impossible to maintain a restful soul that is needed for this actualization. Why do these events of everyday life eclipse our ideals?
The human being dreams or is asleep, dreams while thinking, dreams while feeling, sleeps while doing everything automatically. By looking attentively one can see that almost everyone vegetates, now and then aroused by something unsympathetic (once in a while by something sympathetic), becoming irritated, forgetting one's fellows, only remembering the ego - and so on....
Look at the little device in one's hand, that looks like a brain in one's hand, easy to look at, easy to communicate with, easy to get all kinds of knowledge from a visible mechanic ego, which distracts one's attention from the real world to a virtual world of ego.
Forgotten are all the original human faculties, because we want them to be forgotten. All human beings to become brothers? No, they seem to become enemies, one human being against the other.
Far away there is a kind of remembrance about love. What was it again? Erotic and sexual love are still there, and sometimes, in odd moments, there is something like sympathy, attraction, love. Sitting opposite each other at a table in a restaurant, forgetting the little device, enjoying a good glass of wine... Suddenly an old-fashioned feeling comes up, a kind of courage to live the life you really want, a life of love and freedom. But the next day it has already gone and the hurry takes over again. A kind of dementia seems to be grasping the human race.
What have we forgotten for things to have become so bad - that we seem to be losing control over ourselves?
It is awareness that has been forgotten. In dementia it is awareness that fades away, unnoticed. The first thing that vanishes is one's self-awareness, one drowns in the self, without being able to see oneself anymore. Later on also the awareness of all other things vanishes. Left, is the dreaming and sleeping...
After all my optimistic and positive texts I had to write this one. Of course I have been exaggerating, I have been painting a picture of darkness all over. But it certainly represents the other side of living in our world.
And the question is: How to regain our awareness, our self-awareness, our clear wakeful thinking, our freedom?
ZZZZZzzzzzSocial pessimism by Mieke Mosmuller