“Our milieu is fantastically expanded in every direction and there is crisis on every side. Our horizons for comprehension, for planning, for control, are receding faster than we can conceive. No wonder that I see red: it must be a Doppler effect.” – Stafford Beer

Yes, I know the old saw that when you point your finger there are three pointing back at yourself.

Yes, I’ve tried to think in a more forgiving way.

Yes, the problem, the angry feeling, is almost certainly generated in my own mind …

Yes, I’ve tried to take a more reflective look and I realize, from some cursory attempts at readings of buddhist writings,  that …..well I really need to put more effort in that reality.

But seeing Red …. that must be a Doppler Effect

Yet I am still faced with unresovled angst, and flashback feelings arising on reaction to current events, some large, some small, some close in effect, some distant in effect, some affecting just me, some affecting solitary others, and some impacting all of us collectively and perhaps generations to come.

Yet

I think I know,

I feel I know,

I know I know -

the anger I feel is partly due to my being able to satisfactorily deal with the impact of not being able to have a material effect on pain and suffering of not just myself, but others as well, caught in the web of evil, perhaps sociopathic,  influences that crossed my path in years gone by.

I’ve read that there is evidence that perhaps 4% of the general population has sociopathic tendencies.  If so I guess I have been  lucky to have only had a couple cross my path out of the  thousands of people that I have worked and otherwise assoicated with over the decades.

Or perhaps, I have been blind to those in my life, and have played a stooge to their antics.  It certainly seems

that I aided and abetted,

unknowingly at first,

and then in blind determination that I was wrong in my assessment,

trying to ‘make things right” for far, far too long before bailing.  But of course bailing  did not, could not,  bring relief.  For though the problem seemingly  “was out there”  in actuality it was yet still, very, very close. The thoughts, that had me feeling angry, not merely seeing red,  that had affected my being,  my relationship with myself,  indeed my life  – well they were mine and mine alone, and that is no way to build a future.

While this series is the result of a very personal journey,  it is not my story; there is no reason to deal with my anger here.  There is every reason to deal with the things that have been making me see red.

This series  is  but a reflection of characterizations, of models  that I have built to deal with to try and understand some world events.

With that said,  I will deal with the position statements of  a few people who are  in the public sphere,  mostly through analysis of various public pronouncements of these figures – to show (or is it to perhaps justify or rationalize) why  I see red when I hear of actions, policy statements, or sometimes outright contrivances which appear to cross the line between sound belief to land squarely on the side of unjustified ideology or fundamentalist stance based dogmas.

Construction of world models is fundamental to dealing with reality,  and those in a position to change the reality of the world must be taken to account when it can be shown that,  in construction of their models,  they have been less than virtuous for any reason.  They must also be challenged when it appears that they have either not constructed models in the first place, or simply do not understand the limitations of models or the  ramifications of acting on the models they have constructed.

Perhaps in the end I can find a way to reduce my anger.  Perhaps in the end I can find a way to return to a life of not just balance but one of being a propagator of good.

Perhaps I can “teach the horse to sing.”

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Tags: change, Dogma, feeling, Fundamentalism, Ideology, models, Reality, teaching