It Takes a Village to Raise an Idiot

Once there lived a village of creatures along the bottom of a great crystal river. The current of the river swept silently over them all -- young and old, rich and poor, good and evil -- the current going its own way, knowing only its own crystal self. 

Each creature in its own manner clung tightly to the twigs and rocks of the river bottom, for clinging was their way of life, and resisting the current was what each had learned from birth. 

 But one creature said at last, "I am tired of clinging. Though I cannot see it with my eyes, I trust that the current knows where it is going. I shall let go, and let it take me where it will. Clinging, I shall die of boredom." 

The other creatures laughed and said, "Fool! Let go, and that current you worship will throw you tumbled and smashed against the rocks, and you will die quicker than boredom!" 

But the one heeded them not, and taking a breath did let go, and at once was tumbled and smashed by the current across the rocks. 

Yet in time, as the creature refused to cling again, the current lifted him free from the bottom, and he was bruised and hurt no more. 

And the creatures downstream, to whom he was a stranger, cried, "See a miracle! A creature like ourselves, yet he flies! See the messiah, come to save us all!" 

And the one carried in the current said, "I am no more messiah than you. The river delights to lift us free, if only we dare let go. Our true work is this voyage, this adventure. 

 But they cried the more, "Savior!" all the while clinging to the rocks, and when they looked again he was gone, and they were left alone making legends of a savior. 

Illusions, Richard Bach

I was reminded of this when writing this in my journal this morning:

...being aware only of the breath is training to let go of everything else...and what happens when we start learning to let go, of the thoughts, feelings, urgencies, stimuli, the parade of important and well-known figures of psyche passing by, is that the happiness, bliss, and ease that they promised if we would follow the parade out of town is actually something the shills had stolen and was always in our possession when we just stop and let them go by without us investing

 a strong self makes for a weak consumer...and vice versa...so it's in the best interest of commerce and the immaturity of our nascent social organisms to keep individual egos crippled, needy and distracted so the system works. Maybe someday we, as a whole, will transcend the fearful clinging and insecurities that have made grouping so vital for species survival. Until then, only a few will break with biology, using this new fangled "consciousness" that we are trying to wield like the wings of Icarus.