History is the story of who we are. History is also something we can make, share, have, erase, deny, forget, refer to, bow to, track, search, and even give its own channel. It comes in all eras and sizes...Ancient, Modern, World, People's, Big and even something called Counterfactual History - basically the stuff that didn't happen. But the history that really captures the imagination is Personal History. Everyone has a story to tell, nearly everyone loves to tell their story. And to quote Stephen Colbert, "What could be more interesting than me?" Which is a good way to sum up what I call The American Religion.
The Cult of Me...the one religion with more priests than parishioners, a Holy Trinity of Individualism, Exceptionalism, and Capitalism, offering a view of History that is practically counterfactual. Devotion to the cult can be Homeric in grandeur and Shakespearean in tragic consequences; from grand success to wretched excess, from NASA to NASCAR. The preachers of The American Religion answer the question "How shall I live my Life?" with words like greed, isolation and prejudice. But this isn't the Religion we seek, this kind of myopic, misanthropic system is not sustainable...our Religion has been hijacked by greedheads and morphed into a Kafkaesque drama of the absurd threatening to turn us all into Gregor Samsa.
So what is the antidote to this Religious pestilence? Words. How can mere words save us from the ruin and doom on the horizon? Well, there is a theory that words make us what we are...the I in Me really is the story I tell...without the inner chatter, running dialogue, the constant stream of words there is nothing in there to call Me. The theory is based in part on research with deaf people who grow up unaware they are deaf (and therefore acquire no language, not even sign), those who have lost language through stroke or other brain trauma and of course on rats...rats looking for biscuits. You can find details here. My point is about the power of words...they shape who we are, words are the iterations of our thoughts, we use them to make our History, to create our World, they give expression to a Religion worth believing. Well, it's only a theory, but just in case, I will keep looking for the biscuits and choosing my words carefully.
That's all I have for now.
The Cult of Me...the one religion with more priests than parishioners, a Holy Trinity of Individualism, Exceptionalism, and Capitalism, offering a view of History that is practically counterfactual. Devotion to the cult can be Homeric in grandeur and Shakespearean in tragic consequences; from grand success to wretched excess, from NASA to NASCAR. The preachers of The American Religion answer the question "How shall I live my Life?" with words like greed, isolation and prejudice. But this isn't the Religion we seek, this kind of myopic, misanthropic system is not sustainable...our Religion has been hijacked by greedheads and morphed into a Kafkaesque drama of the absurd threatening to turn us all into Gregor Samsa.
So what is the antidote to this Religious pestilence? Words. How can mere words save us from the ruin and doom on the horizon? Well, there is a theory that words make us what we are...the I in Me really is the story I tell...without the inner chatter, running dialogue, the constant stream of words there is nothing in there to call Me. The theory is based in part on research with deaf people who grow up unaware they are deaf (and therefore acquire no language, not even sign), those who have lost language through stroke or other brain trauma and of course on rats...rats looking for biscuits. You can find details here. My point is about the power of words...they shape who we are, words are the iterations of our thoughts, we use them to make our History, to create our World, they give expression to a Religion worth believing. Well, it's only a theory, but just in case, I will keep looking for the biscuits and choosing my words carefully.
That's all I have for now.
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