Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: development, education, reality TV, television
He walks into the room. He is tall, dark hair, athletic, wears his costume so well you’d think he was born with it, and you just know he has no problems either with girls, career, family, the police, employers or money. Every boss wants to hire him, every girl to marry him, he goes straight through security checks anywhere he goes, and owns about 12 Porsches and 5 Ferraris. And 3 mansions. That’s not a lot, I know… But that’s because he’s only young… Mid 20′s. He’s got a lifetime to improve on that! Let’s call him Brian, shall we? He sits down, and she faces him, behind her desk. She? She’s her female equivalent. Only she’s early 50′s, she’s REALLY well off, you can tell she’s the one in power here.
You can feel that these two have a lot in common. But. But we can feel some tension. Something’s not quite right. Something on his face. He sits down, and explains that he just got a job, and that he’ll have to leave her now, because his new job won’t allow him the time to participate in that wonderful adventure they had just started together. She was going to make him America’s Next Top Model! Or something along those lines. She pauses. Asks him what kind of job. “Financial advisor”, says he. Phew… For a minute, she probably feared he’d say “teacher”, or “investigative journalist”, or worse than anything, “organic farmer”. But no, “financial advisor”. You can’t beat that. You can’t ask someone to not take it. That’d be madness. She pauses again, looks at him with an air that says “I’m feeling something”, so as to get our maximum attention, and she says: “There’s a part of me, inside, that’s crying… But on an intellectual level, I’m really pleased for you. You go out now, Brian, you go out and kill the world.”
Heard and seen Saturday afternoon on the “Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency.” Or “America’s Next Top Model.” Or “You’re a Star.” These programs are all the same anyway. And the people who populate these programs, whom we are asked to look up to, who can never have enough, never be enough, be beautiful enough, be rich enough, whose ambition is bigger than the Universe itself, are they for real? Do they actually hear what they preach? If I threatened my neighbour that I was going to kill him, I’d be locked up. When the likes of Bin Laden tell Jihad fanatics to go kill a few hundred people in a suicide attack, they are shown – rightly so – as the face of evil, as the face of terror. But when a “supermodel” tells a would-be model to go out and “kill the world” for a few dollars more, they are shown as the ultimate that is to be achieved in this world. On mid-afternoon television. Sure thousands of kids saw it. And not-so-kids. I’m telling you. When this attitude is promoted, encouraged even, and shown as being glamourous, and no one raises a finger to denounce it, because we don’t even see anything wrong with that, don’t be surprised if we end up invading foreign countries to steal their oil, set up their populations for civil war, destroy the planet with an almost insane stubbornness and exploit children in sweat-shops to increase profits. We have the telly’s consent that it is perfectly acceptable, if not desirable, to “kill the world” for a few dollars more.
Spread the love and increase the peace.
And throw your telly in the bin.
Hubert.
I just realised one of the reasons I started this blog was that I’m scared and I needed to reach out. I’m scared of taking the next step in my life, and I can’t even see yet what that next step is. All I know is that I aspire to a more “natural” life, a life more in touch with Nature, more sustainable, more self-sufficient. At the moment I live in the city, and I’m getting sick of it at this stage.
I don’t think us humans were ever meant to live in cities. I don’t know what it is that draws us in such number in ever-growing cities… The fear of being alone, I guess. And yet the more I look at it, the more I find the life in the city alienating and isolating. For one we lose touch with our impact on the environment, we lose touch with a sense of community, and we end up running around all day to go nowhere, and to not achieve much. What is it about the cities that makes people so ignorant of one another? I can’t – and yet I’ve tried – find any sense of connection with my fellow homo sapiens sapiens in the street. All I meet are “strangers”. I’ve tried though. Yes, I’ve tried. I’ve tried to greet people in the streets. To make even only eye contact. Most often, the reaction I get is one of fear, dread, disdain, judgment of some form… All I meet is people acting out little roles, conforming to the little label they put on themselves; there’s so little possibilty left for true human interaction when we stick to those roles…
Anyway. Back to my original point. I’m scared. I’m scared to take the next step in my life. Because all I see around me is telling me that there’s no alternative, and I know deep down that there is. I know I’m longing for something different, better, more human, and despite all the love, all the fabulous people I have in my life, I haven’t quite gathered the courage to take that next little step. And I feel like the guy standing by the pool for his first swimming lesson, and wondering if the others will jump in, too. And I know that no one can do it for me. No one can jump for me. I have to do it. I. And I’m praying. I’m praying to get the answers, and to be shown my path more clearly. And I’m praying that there’s water in the pool. And I’m sharing my fear with you. I think this world would be a much more beautiful and human place if we dared to express our fears more often and more openly.
Spread the love and increase the peace.
Hubert.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: development, freedom, Mongolia, television
I forgot to mention, and I think it is important, that the Mongolian government are being “encouraged”, “advised” by the W.T.O., World Bank and other I.M.F., who know so much better than everybody else, to privatise massively their land. Most of the land that the nomadic populations roam on belongs to no one. It is there for those populations to share. They seem to do this pretty peacefully. Those wise international institutions see it fit that this be changed.
Here’s what Batbayar has to say about this: “Privatisation of the land is good neither for Mongols, nor for Mongolia. Way back in history, our ancestors have always fought for the freedom of land. Mongols have a strong attachment to their land. We have a saying that goes: ‘Never, ever, give away that land, even if God himself asked you to’.”
It seems that what God doesn’t ask them to do, the W.T.O., World Bank and other I.M.F. will ask…
The morning before Bruno, Frédéric and the crew left, before dawn, Batbayar brought them to a sacred hill nearby, accompanied also by his children, to witness the sun rise once more on the horizon. Here are the words he greeted them good-bye with: “Now, you know my values: love your neighbour, respect Mother Nature… If you can get some joy out of it, it’s a great satisfaction. On a moment like this, I am reminded that we all live on the same planet, regardless of languages or religions. We are just human beings sharing this Earth.”
May the wise folks a the W.T.O., World Bank and other I.M.F. one day come to the same conclusion, leave us alone, ask for forgiveness, and stop asking people like Batbayar, and the whole world, to get on the “Market über alles” bandwagon. It’s one of my dearest wishes for the New Year.
Spread love and increase the peace.
Hubert.
One of the most common fears we all share, I think, is the fear of death. Why am I so afraid of dying? It’s one of the only certainties that I have in this life, and yet it is the one I struggle with the most.
What keeps me stuck in that fear of dying is a very basic misconception I have as to what death really is: I sometimes believe that death is the opposite of Life. Whenever I believe death is the opposite of Life, then I am rightfully afraid of it. The truth is that death is not the opposite of Life. Death is the opposite of birth. Life is eternal. Life cannot be killed, disappear or get taken away.
Whenever I identify Life with my present incarnation, I identify with an idea created in my mind as to what Life is. The truth is that Life continues after the body dies. It was there well before I was even born, it will be there well after my body turns cold. Probably, it was always there. And always will be. In so far as we can comprehend Life. For those of you struggling with this statement – you might judge it as a purely “spiritual” concept – let us consider it from a more scientific perspective: when my body dies, my life as I know it might end, but my body undergoes a transformation. A physical, chemical transformation. This is still Life. Even if it gets cremated, it undergoes a chemical and physical transformation. It doesn’t just disappear. The same can be applied to anything. A tree, when it dies, doesn’t just vanish into thin air. It transforms itself, decays, rots, then eventually turns to humus.
If you come from a very scientific background, you’ll even acknowledge that there is Life in plants. Stones. Rocks. Plants, stones, rocks are, too, made of molecules, atoms. They, too, evolve with time. They, too, are impermanent. Put a stone on your desk. If you were able to come back in the future, it wouldn’t be quite exactly the same as it is now in a thousand years. Fifty thousand years. A million years. Because Life would have moved through it.
The same is true for you. For me. I am not my present incarnation. I am the Life moving through me. This is who I really am. The essence of Being within me. The energy of Life running in me. It really helps me to know that. This is the only thing in me that’s permanent. If I ever need some sense of security, of permanence, this is where I turn to. All the rest is passing.
Spread the love and increase the peace.
Hubert.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: development, freedom, Mongolia, television
While spending the Christmas holidays in France with my family, I have been appalled by the mediocrity of the majority of T.V. listings. However, one desert, heavenly and beautiful island stood up for me in this ocean of vulgarity: France 2′s “Rendez-vous en terre inconnue”.
Now there’s a programme that pleased both my heart AND my intellect at the same time. The concept is as follow: the “presenter” – blessings to you, Frédéric Lopez – brings a guest – usually a well-known comedian or actor – to live within a small “native” community for a couple of weeks. Thus, he brought Charlotte de Turckheim in Siberia, Muriel Robin to the Himbas of Namibia, and Patrick Timsit spent two weeks with the Mentawaïs of Indonesia.
This time, we find Bruno Solo sent out to live for two weeks with Batbayar, a nomadic shepherd living in the steppe in Mongolia, and his family. They have nothing in the sense we understand it: no house, no electricity, no running water; they spend hours just to gather the herd in the mornings because there’s no fence in the steppe: they’re nomads. And yet they live there. They experience a temperature span of 80 degrees Celcius between summer and winter. And yet they live there. Batbayar’s path is all the more surprising in that he owned a shop in a village until he was 27 years of age, at which stage he decided to pack it in, and to embrace the life of a nomadic shepherd, a life that used to be traditional for a majority of Mongolians, but which a lot now turn their back on, lured by the lights of Ulan Bator, and the mirages of consumerism. The vast majority of those end up in ever growing slums in the periphery of the city.
Nothing of the sort for Batbayar and his family. Come rain or shine, they move their yurt every few months, to avoid the soil from drying up, and live a simple but probably hard enough life. They are almost self-sufficient, only selling sheep skin twice a year for a bit of cash they use for the most basic things they can’t get from Mother Nature.
I was watching this, and I thought to myself there was such freedom in their life. They don’t work to pay a landlord. Or even worse, a bank. They don’t work to pay mobile phone bills. Electricity bills. Insurance bills. Gas bills. Water bills. Car loan. Car maintenance. Cable TV. Crèche. They don’t slave to get the latest iPod. They don’t sell their time and dignity for anyone. And yet they live. Their work is their life, and their life is their work. And I suddenly saw so much beauty in that that tears came to my eyes.
They seem to have such trust in Life. Batbayar, probably dozen of miles away from the nearest hospital, lets his four-year old son – FOUR-year old! – take part in horse-racing. With other four and five-year olds. What you could call “another day at the office” for a nomadic hors-rider in Mongolia. In the mean time, we “need” laws, rules, fire and safety regulations, security passes, I.D.’s, etc. Passports. Curfews. Bio-passports. Terms and Conditions. Security and safety… I don’t want to sound too angelic, they surely have “problems” of their own. But their apparent trust and openness towards life was an invaluable lesson. All of our “economics experts” probably look down on them. Probably, the World Bank, the W.T.O., the I.M.F., judge that these people need to get on the “development” bandwagon. That they, too, need to build pharmaceutical plants. Supermarkets. Shopping malls. Industrial complexes. And who knows? Maybe their soil holds undiscovered oil reserves.
Watching this programme was a timely reminder. What if we, in the West, the “developed” world, had it wrong? What if they were the ones, yes they, those “native” people, those “primitive” tribes, who could teach us a few lessons? Who are we to tell them what they should do? How they should live their lives? Have we not proven already that our “model of development” is sick; that we have destroyed more resources in the last eighty years than in the last few thousands of years we have been on this planet; that it is flawed and corrupt, only concerned with making a few insanely wealthy people and companies even wealthier, while leaving the rest of us struggling to stay on the treadmill, working to own a car, owning a car to go to work? Giving our freedom, our precious time and our dignity away to banks, financial institutions, anonymous corporations, greedy multinational companies?
One last thing, the most important maybe: there was so much heart in this programme. So much love. So much truth. No pretence, no awkwardness, but a lot of honesty and openness. Granted, this was just the life of one individual, one family, but these simple people have reawakened my faith in humankind. Have we exchanged a sense of connection with one another, trust towards others and love, for material security, comfort and stuff? I somehow fear that we have. And I think we ripped ourselves off if we did. And that we lost so much in doing so that we don’t even realise how much suffering it is causing us.
Spread the love and increase the peace.
Hubert.
P.S. Useful links for French readers:
http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/2004/08/TSCHINAG/11468
http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/2004/08/RUFIN/11469
http://programmes.france2.fr/rendez-vous-en-terre-inconnue/index-fr.php?page=accueil
“I am not my thoughts, emotions, sense perceptions, and experiences. I am not the content of my life. I am life. I am the space in which all things happen. I am consciousness. I am the Now. I am”
Eckhart Tolle.
I’m not talking about food labelling here. Or marketing. No, I’m talking about the little mental labels I like to stick on people and things: “beautiful”, “tall”, “disgusting”, “overpriced”, “overrated”, “stupid”, etc etc. You get the picture. You’ll recognise those easily as judgments. I hope you do, really.
But I like to go even further. I like to label people, particularly, and put them in little boxes, and they better stay in the little box I put them in, and act accordingly to the little label I put on the little box, or I may have a nervous breakdown! “Dad”. “Neighbour”. “Asian”. “Asshole”. “Slut”. “Best friend”. “Girlfriend”. “Husband”. “Policeman”. Inside my little head, the list goes on. And I have my preconceived, predetermined – and often quite rigid! – ideas as to how a “dad”, a “best friend”, a “shop assistant” should behave. What they should think. Feel. Make for dinner. How they should dress. What time they should be home. If they don’t, it could bloody well be the end of the world. Maybe worse than that, even.
Could I, every now and again, as often as possible in fact, forget those mental labels, and leave people room to be who they are? Beyond the mental label? My “mum” is my “mum” for me only. She’s not your “mum”. (Well, unless you are my brother that is. Cher Hervé, si tu lis ces lignes, je te salue bien.) You don’t expect “my” mum to act towards you according to your idea of what a “mum” should be.
I do.
Just because she happens to be the person who brought me to this world, I project onto her a mental image of who she “should be”. And guess what? I’m sometimes disappointed, hurt, angry, at her because she doesn’t live up to my idea of what a mum “should” be.
Let me try go beyond the little boxes and labels I put on people. And on myself! They keep them – and me – stuck in little roles we play out for one another. And prevent me from seeing them for who they really are. Both them and I will gain in freedom what I lose in expectations. And social conventions.
Spread the love and increase the peace.
Hubert.
I can’t help it, I can be quite forgetful: it is very easy for me to forget that everything is impermanent!
Take this very moment, for instance. The weather. My mood. My relationship status. The state of my finances, etc. What we could call “my life condition”. I can very easily, and very wrongly, take all of those for the truth of my life. And believe they are the one and only reality. And always will be.
Nothing keeps me further away for the truth of who I am than this belief. “My life condition” is what it is Now. It is completely different to what it was when I was five years of age. To what it was when I was sixteen. To what it was ten years ago. Two years ago. A week ago. To some extent, it is completely different to what it was a minute ago. A second ago. And it is completely different to what it will be, if God grants me the grace to live it, in a second. In a minute. In two weeks. In twenty years. In fifty-five years. The only thing that is impermanent is the life energy that flows through me. It was there well before I was even born. It will be there well after my body has died. It was always there, in fact. And always will be.
And this is who I really am. All the rest, my body, my thoughts, my emotions, my feelings, my life condition, is just passing.
And I should never forget that I am part of the great cycle of life. The world as I perceive it, our “civilisation”, our society, our ways of interacting, our “rules”, our conventions, all of that is temporary. If I believe these are the everlasting truth, I’m in for some serious disillusions and disenchantments…
I’m sure a Roman soldier in the 5th Century B.C. believed the world he knew always would be. So did, probably, a 7th Century carpenter. Or a 17th Century courtesan. Or a 19th Century factory worker. When I grew up in the late 1970′s, I believed the world I knew back then always would be. And that belief stayed with me for quite a while…
Let me realise that I am part of a history, a story of humankind, a story of the Universe, even, that moves through me. And that no matter how good or bad my present life condition is, it is only my life condition this very moment. It is passing. And it is different with every single moment that arises, it changes with every single breath I take. And for all of us who are dissatisfied with society, injustice, war, hatred, racism, let us trust that all of that is passing, too, and that humankind is moving to a higher level of consciousness.
Let me not forget about earthly delights, either: I have a delicious home-made boeuf bourguignon waiting for me! Which I am very grateful for. Let me never forget to be grateful. More on that later on.
Spread the love and increase the peace.
Hubert.
Welcome to my first ever blog! “The times, they’re a changin’…”
I was just having a smoke at the window and I thought to myself, “Am I smoking Marlboro Lights because I consciously picked them out of a pool of maybe 50 different brands of cigarettes, because I like them the most? Or did I make an unconscious choice, that is not a choice at all, in fact, because I, too, have been conditionned by the marketing power and advertising cleverness of an industial giant capable of making me believe, without me even looking for an alternative, that their product is so much better than any other?”
No matter how aware I pretend to be, to myself and to the world, if I look at myself honestly, I have to face up to the fact that I didn’t choose that particular brand, I just let it invade me and my unconscious. But then again, smoking is a highly unconscious activity, so there’s a lot of coherence there. How could I be conscious in engaging an unconscious activity? Well, just by being conscious that I’m unconscious. By becoming aware that I’m unaware. That’ll be a start, at least.
In 2008, spread the love and increase the peace.
Hubert.
