Everest of Wonder

[Ron Tocknell]

 

 

 

I think it is no coincidence that the rate of UFO sightings have increased exponentially as we approached the ‘magic date’ of 2012. In so many ways, we are truly experiencing a unique point in history… yet, at the same time, we are following a pattern that is consistent throughout history. Of course every point in history is unique and marked by the myths that accompany it.

 

This is not to dismiss every UFO sighting as myth without looking further into it but debating on whether they are real or imagined is somehow missing the point. Of course it is highly improbable that life could only exist on this speck of dust in the vastness of the entire cosmos. I deliberately avoid using the distinction of ‘intelligent life’ because the term is largely meaningless. It refers to nothing more significant than proximity to ourselves. We consider a slime mould to be less intelligent than an ape and an ape to be less intelligent than a man. Such distinctions have no significance beyond our own concept of ‘self’.

 

I am not an objective observer of Humanity. I am a part of it and, as such, I share myths that my sense of reason might reject. I find myself gazing up at the night sky longing to see something that I can only conclude is a visitation from another galaxy. If I do see a light in the sky, I look for mundane explanations such as an ordinary aircraft or one of these ‘sky lanterns’. This is not because of a need to explain what I am seeing as normal or familiar but because of a desire to discount them; to reject them and arrive unambiguously to a conclusion that cannot be explained.

 

Why is this? Why do I, as a representative of Humanity, long for some form of alien intervention? Much has been said about the prophesies of 2012. Speculation varies from the End of the World to some form of global spiritual awakening or ‘ascension’. My reason tells me that 2012 will drift into 2013 pretty much as any other year has drifted into the next with nothing to mark the transition with the possible exception of a mass, global sense of disappointment. My heart, n the other hand, longs for a Great Cosmic Event… even if it is the End of the World. This isn’t as annihilistic as it sounds. What I long for is not annihilation or death but for an event that jolts Humanity into a New Age of Wonder.

 

If we were to travel back in time to the medieval period and describe the quality of life enjoyed by the average citizen in the West… leaving out the technologies that would be beyond their comprehension… we would be describing their concept of Utopia: What?? People live into their 80s and even 90s? they can retire and live for another 20 or even 30 years without having to work for their sustenance? They have food without having to hunt or gather? They survive winter without the death of at least one child? Our experience of life is so vastly different that they would imagine we must be out on the streets rejoicing. Instead, we are out on the streets protesting.

 

Yes, our ‘Del Boy’ politics is corrupt. Our planet is being polluted and, despite the relative comforts that most of us enjoy in the West, the majority of the world’s human population are living on the edge of survival or under the shadow of war. But is what we long for nothing more than an end to all that is perceived as wrong? Suppose we reach our idea of Utopia with ethical politics, stable economies and an end to poverty and war? Then what? When climbers reach the summit of Everest, there is nowhere else to go but back down. Of course, technology will always progress forward without reaching a ‘summit’ as such. But we have reached our own emotional summit. Nothing surprises us anymore. We know that, if we can imagine it, it will be in production within ten years. We know that our idea of Utopia is attainable but we also know within our hearts that this is not the goal we long for. What we want more than anything else is a New Age of Wonder.

 

What we have in the West that only the very elite could have enjoyed in medieval times is survival security. Most of us can go from the cradle to a great age at death without having to suffer the hardships and tragedies that were common to all people in medieval times. What medieval people had that only shamans, cutting-edge physicists and those who live on the edge of our concept of reality today experience was a sense of wonder. Theirs was a world in which spirits and demons and angels and witches and faeries and magic were as real as the butcher and the baker. Reading contemporary accounts of everyday life in medieval times, one is struck by the number of accounts of supernatural experiences. Encounters with spirits and faeries seemed so commonplace, one is left to conclude that the world was gripped by a global delusion of the supernatural. But could this view be more a consequence of 21^st Century concepts of reality than 12^th Century naivety?

 

Perhaps the politics and the economy and global wars are more symptoms of Humanity’s modern malaise than the cause of it. I could be wrong… in fact, I probably am wrong… but just consider this possibility for a moment: if we were to attain a global Utopia of harmony, justice and compassion that brought conflict and poverty to an end, would we be content to leave everything as it is? What more could we want? We’ve reached a point at which it is possible for everyone to effectively know everything. We cannot all retain everything in our heads, of course but the Internet has become, in effect, an extension to the global mind. We are capable of accessing information at the click of a mouse.

 

Our quest for knowledge is not driven so much by the need to know as a celebration of mystery. One thing that will always remain constant is the fact that the unknown will always outweigh the known. But we have reached the boundaries of the Known Unknown. Beyond that is to return to a point at which we recognise that we know nothing. We long to cross the boundary of current imagination and step into the unimaginable. We have reached the summit of our own Everest of Wonder.

[Lorenzo Abbiati]

I was travelling by train through the last w.e. and i saw that what humanity has done is not so bad.

there are rare facts of violence, all of them are catched by newspapers? or at least violence remains hidden.........

violence is associated with shame more felt by the victim than by the aggressor (society's filth)

most powerful(powerfools) people become the agressors and most sensible people become victims.

from generation to generation the filth increases and one descendent will pay for all his own ancestor's filth.......that's a kinda reincarnation.

Most of the filthy habits comes from sexual deviations or "food misdistribution".

the myracle conveying money and food to poorest people..........convey resilliance and wisdom from indigenous people to western ancient "civilized" societies.

we are all beast hidden behind the formality of a smart human being..........only by the time we cancel (and not conceal) this filth we will be able to change for better.

But until everyone won't change direction there will be someone getting richer and someother ellse getting poorer. Equality is the dream of the poorer in general . Equality and meritocracy has to cohexist! this could only be an astral combination something only god could be the virgin mother "never the same again" "in the light af a new day"

meritocracy should be someway measured and "stocked" for a "common cumulation".

The more the civilty the more subtile injustice.......we should begin to act by accumulating meritocracy credits rather than concentrating on negative behaviours punishment............that for example could be the start of the change........blessings brothers.