246 online
 
Most Popular Choices
Share on Facebook 40 Printer Friendly Page More Sharing Summarizing
OpEdNews Op Eds   

Fortune's Fools: Individual Calling at the Cusp of Ecological Catastrophe

By       (Page 2 of 3 pages) Become a premium member to see this article and all articles as one long page.   4 comments

Phil Rockstroh
Message Phil Rockstroh
Become a Fan
  (51 fans)

Are you weighted down by feelings of powerlessness" nettled by feelings of helpless rage? Good. Your feelings are appropriate to the tone and tenor of the times.

Use the feeling of being weighted down to your advantage: Descend deep into the deepest recesses of your being and listen to the garrulous silence therein. 

Appropriate your blessed rage as well: What admonitions cry out from the heart of light ensconced within your darker places.

What is it that is essential about your deepest nature that needs to find its way into Animus Mundi--the soul of the world" must seek out collaboration with even the most mundane moments of the breath of day.

This is how the creative spirit flourishes, how every moment is made holy.

And remember: Your life is a question that you live your way into. Any attempt to coerce an answer amounts to vivisection, not art.

Conversely, and anathema to the process, the guiding principle of the neoliberal economic order reduces the things of the world to mere economic entities. At this point, this much is, or, at least, should be grimly obvious: Existence within a system that defines all things by their ability to enrich the fortunes of a predatory class of elites starves the soul and blights the landscape; it has come to exist" as a thief, defiler, and squanderer. Exploited and demeaned, the populace grows callow and empty. Desperate to sate the hollowing emptiness within, the citizens of the corporate/consumer state have internalized the noxious mythos of endless growth, peddled by their exploiters, and have been driven to devour their seed crop.

In doing so, all concerned will condemn their society to the landfill of history. Yet, even in this age of corporate despotism, political duopoly, communal atomization, ecocide and the attendant alienation and ennui, life can be lived with passion and grace, and, as individuals, we can take measures to promote a transformation of the prevailing order.

There are simply too many hidden variables involved to predict and control the future. Consequently, this is what we can do: resist the present, corrupt order; organize to bring it down; and strive to create more viable alternatives.

All of which exist within the spectrum of the doable.

At the end of the day, it is a far better choice to err on the side of your inner calling, than to languish as a simulacrum of yourself" evincing a counterfeit consciousness that demands you spend your days compliant to the demeaning dictates of a ruthless few. As a general rule, one stands powerless before the sweep of history and the caprice of the ruling elite. Regardless, you must choose to slouch in the direction of your destiny, or else your life will consist of a litany of thwarted longings--an agonizing death within life that is absent death's release and resists the warmth and proffered consolation borne of the living.

All the world may be a stage, but don't allow yourself to be miscast as an expendable, one dimensional character, conceived by miserable hacks.

Deep down, your life's calling is encoded within you. Throughout your lifetime, it will arise as inchoate yearnings, reveal itself as implausible daydreams, or as dream-borne symbols that seem, in regard to your daytime exigencies, abstruse or useless. You may know it as a hollow ache in your chest. Or a nettling voice, in the recesses of your awareness, that asks, "how did it come to this?"

Ignore destiny's entreaties at your own risk. Although, your soul will stay at you; it will implore you to pay attention" even if it must pummel you with nightmares or conjure a state of depression that brings on a darkness at noon.

"We are all subject to the fates. But we must act as if we are not, or die of despair." -- Philip Pullman

To paraphrase Rilke, if you ignore the beckoning call of your own uniqueness, your soul will serenely distain to annihilate the false notions that propel you through the harried hours of meaning-denuded day. When shunted aside or blocked by barriers of calcified habit, the soul's inexorable agency will be experienced as a kindly cataclysm. At times, becoming ensnared in the dark night of the soul will allow a lodestar to reveal itself.

Next Page  1  |  2  |  3

(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).

Rate It | View Ratings

Phil Rockstroh Social Media Pages: Facebook page url on login Profile not filled in       Twitter page url on login Profile not filled in       Linkedin page url on login Profile not filled in       Instagram page url on login Profile not filled in

Phil Rockstroh is a poet, lyricist and philosopher bard living in New York City. He may be contacted at Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/phil.rockstroh

Go To Commenting
The views expressed herein are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this website or its editors.
Writers Guidelines

 
Contact AuthorContact Author Contact EditorContact Editor Author PageView Authors' Articles
Support OpEdNews

OpEdNews depends upon can't survive without your help.

If you value this article and the work of OpEdNews, please either Donate or Purchase a premium membership.

STAY IN THE KNOW
If you've enjoyed this, sign up for our daily or weekly newsletter to get lots of great progressive content.
Daily Weekly     OpEd News Newsletter

Name
Email
   (Opens new browser window)
 

Most Popular Articles by this Author:     (View All Most Popular Articles by this Author)

Why Americans Are So Easily Conned

Police State Blues: "Our rights do not end where the caprice of authoritarian bullies begins."

The Great Dismal: "What we speak becomes the house we live in"

Against the Tortured Logic of Obama's Placebo Presidency: A Call for the Audacity of Hopelessness

Reclaiming The Commons: Human Lessons in the Era of Corporatism and Perpetual War

A Day In A Dying Empire: An intimate fable on current events

To View Comments or Join the Conversation:

Tell A Friend