Greed and Rapunzel

I think that remaining present when you want to flee is the most courageous thing I have ever heard.  And the most authentic.  As long as you remain this honest and this authentic, you'll burst through to something new.  It's happening now.

I am pretty sure that you can still enroll in the course, and join me in changing the world.  I just submitted my first essay, and I was not happy with it.  It is difficult to develop and share a fairly complex idea in 500 words or less. 

I haven't had time to watch the last three lectures.  I hope I can get to them next week, or else I will wait until the end of the course.  This week we will read about, and listen to lectures about, poverty and development.  I'm getting the hang of where to look for assignments and essay topics.

The more I think about it, the more sure I am that the caste system still exists.  We have that Puritanical attitude that if you have money, God loves you.  If you don't, then God doesn't love you.  It allows the rich to justify so much.  What has developed is a pathological greed that is celebrated rather than diagnosed as the illness it is.  I read a quote:

“Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.”       -John Steinbeck

Those without money believe it is possible to improve standard of living.  But the rich have stacked the deck, making that impossible.

If we see someone with a house so full of old magazines, books, stored foods -so much that they can't even walk through their home, we think there is something wrong with them - they need psychological help.  But if someone is hoarding money - we admire them.  They must be good, wise, beloved.  I have never read a story of someone acquiring wealth that did not involve exploitation.  Either the land or animals or other humans were exploited, used.  Sometimes it is hard to see, or we prefer not to look at that - but it shows a deep psychological illness.

The other thing is that once we have something of value, something others don't have, we have to protect it.  Sharing, seeing the common good, being part of the common good changes everything.

Listened to the last of the Carolyn Myss yesterday.  What fairy tale describes my life?  The story that came to me was Rapunzel.  I am trapped by the wicked witch - another part of myself, I suppose.  Waiting for my hair to get long enough to allow a hero access.  In the meantime I am secluded from the world.  I suppose the hero is another part of myself.  So, how do I find my inner-hero?  And how do I make friends with my inner witch?

Lots to consider.

Glad things are calmer at your house,.  Missing you!!

Love from Clare