This evening I retreated to the hammock for a little. The sunset painted the few clouds in wonderful hues of yellow, orange and red. In the distance I could hear the roar of the waves breaking on Playa Estero. It was already a little cooler. No mosquitoes. Chicken scurrying around to catch a last worm before retiring in the coup. Weibi, the little dog that adopted me when I first came to panama to stay, laying close by on the earthen floor… lovely situation for pondering, reminiscing…
Then somebody turned on the outside lights - a string of little 0.5 W LED bulbs all around the picknick table and the hammocks. Among the light bulbs were also colored ones - blue, red, green… That reminded me of my highschool years, when my best friend and I started to work on founding a new highschool fraternity in our hometown. I remembered our “Burschen Strophe”:
Whao! 40 years later still remember the verse!
Loyalty, God, and Fatherland!
Loyalty, God, and Fatherland? Hm… much has changed since then! Much I learned, realized, discovered. Then, I took all that talk, all the conservative ideas very seriously; believed with all my heart these were the right believes, it was the truth, obvious reality!
Now, it’s almost as if I believe the opposite!
Fatherland? The idea of “fatherland” has been used as excuse to start many a war. It is nothing but animal instinct (instinct of survival of myself and my offspring), wrapped in human language. In nature, everything is about competition: competition about territory, about mating partners, food, and so much more. I no longer believe “fatherland” is important. It’s actually detrimental to our survival! Today’s biggest problems cannot be solved by one or another fatherland; but only if ALL people of this planet are working together! As long as we continue with the “us versus them” mentality, we’re continuing to head towards self destruction!
I now believe more in the concept of Mother Earth, than Father Land!
God? Aye aye aye! What nonsense have I been told about that topic! In essence: there is this old fart with grey beard sitting in the sky, watching what I do, writing down all the bad things. Once this world is over, there’s going to be the final judgement, during which “the loving father” decides whether I was good enough to be admitted to his paradise, or whether I’m going to be sent to hell, to be tortured for all eternity.
Really?!? Split second on this planet determines my fate for eternity? What kind of love is that, to condemn anything to any place, and especially to a hell? Major BS, I would say today! Heck, we don’t have the intellectual capacity to understand much of this world! How foolish to believe we can understand what is outside of this world!
I now believe, that almost everything that’s happening in this world can be explained by law of nature and cause and effect. There are only three things that seem to be more likely an “outside influence”. These are:
Coincidents - it is way too often that I end up in a situation where it seems important and beneficial that I am there. Either - more earlier in life - for me to learn something, to become aware of something, to practice my skills, hone my talents. Or - more and more later in life - because of who, how, and what I am, believe, like, and do; there’s a contribution needed and I can make it, and the likelihood this contribution will be made is the highest if I am there, and not anybody else.
Ideas - rather than just the product of neurological activity in my brain, it seems more likely, that I’m being given ideas. It’s a way for the outside to inject something new into this system, without breaking any of the rules! And through me, this “something” can now enter this system; and from then on, it is part of the system, and follows the same rules, causes impact and is impacted…
Passion - it seems every person has a topic that is dear to their heart. You may find yourself in a situation, where you are already very tired, ready to call it a day. Then a topic comes up, and suddenly your ears perk up, your eyes open wide, you reawake, are ready to do something. This is your topic! You already had no energy, but now you somehow have a lot of energy again! Where does that energy come from? I choose to believe, your soul is drawing energy from outside of the system, as it is the topic your soul incarnated for to work on…
What is “the outside”? Why is there an outside of the system and a system? I have no idea! And I don’t think we can know! But, anybody can observe these three things mentioned! It seems to point at the fact, that there is “an outside of the system” and that it seems to influence this system a little through these three methods…
You can call this god. But it has absolutely nothing to do with what I have been indoctrinated as youngster to believe god would be…
Finally, Loyalty? Loyalty to whom, to what, and in what way, shape, or form? In the context of the fraternity, of course, it was loyalty to the fraternity, to the purported definition of god, to the fatherland, to conservative ideas, to your friends, your family, your wife… This is a very dangerous, slippery slope!
I now believe, that most things for which Loyalty is demanded turn out to be wrong! Today, the only thing I am loyal to is the idea, that we are the tools the universe uses to continue the development of this creation. That it’s not so important what’s happening TO me (to anyone); but that what matters is, what’s happening THROUGH me (through each of us)! It’s not about me - I’m about it!
Did I abandon the things I swore to upkeep?
The things in the original, narrow minded definition: yes! Definitely!
But, the same things in a wider, wiser definition, I support fully, completely, and wholeheartedly!
All that, triggered by blue, red, green LED bulbs, in a place a world away from my old hometown, at a time a lifetime away from my teenage years…
