Tao Te Fighting

My spiritual beliefs come from some mixture of Irish Catholicism, Tibetan Buddhism, and Native American ideals. There are pieces of each that i hold sacred and help guide me. There are two ideas, however, that i have found at odds with one another and which have caused me great inner turmoil, especially as of late. *(come on now, this blog site is called '1punkmonk' so you have to expect one of these once in a while)

These two ideas are the two i believe most strongly in, but finding the balance between the two is difficult, to say the least, and at times i truly struggle. The two in conflict are the Buddhist idea of peaceful respect for life and the Catholic idea that to stand by as wrong is done is as bad as committing that wrong. That sense of compassion for life, and more importantly quality of life, often feeds into the desire to fight for those whose life quality are being impacted or threatened. As you can see this quickly turns to questions of are you prioritizing victim's quality of life vs aggressor's quality of life. At first it seems an easy decision but stepping back the effectiveness comes into question and aggression weighs heavy on the soul.

i was raised to fight. To clarify 'fight' i mean in every sense: physically, verbally, and physiologically. When bullied for the first time as a very small child my parents' response was to teach me how to make a fist and where to punch to stop a bully. If you didn't learn to argue, you didn't get to talk at family get togethers. There are no shortages of bullies in this world and there is no shortage of injustice so i have had a lot of practice in honing these skills.

In the most powerful of situations a sort of switch flips. The Irish call it the 'warp-spasm'. The body almost seems to change form. Reflexes and senses are heightened. A sense of clarity seems to come into play and the world seems to slow down as you take in information about your surroundings at a much faster rate. In order for all this information gathering to take place you lose touch with any sense of pain or fear as all resources are working on processing and action. Again, this can happen for all forms of fighting: physical and verbal.

Now once people see this, no matter the outcome of the interaction, they never want to again. They don't bully/intimidate you or those you defend ever again. Now this may seem noble but at a wider glance i have come to realize that these people have not actually learned any lesson. These people continue to intimidate/bully others, you have just stopped them from victimizing yourself and those around you. How beneficial is this really?

With the seemingly endless number of bullies out there one could fight almost daily, so where do you draw the line? The ends of the spectrum are simple decisions but day to day life is quite grey. The way people treat one another (and all sentient beings) can wear very heavily on you. Constantly fighting/arguing can weigh on your own sense of peace to an equal extent. Where does that sense of balance lay?

If i knew, i would reach a higher plain of enlightenment (possibly even disappearing from view or at least hovering for a few seconds). This search is a truly honorable journey but the path is scarcely travelled and it is quite easy to find yourself lost. i'm not sure if the trees along the way all look the same or if i just haven't gone anywhere. One of these ideas is not more important than the other. In my view a balance must be achieved. There are things that are worth fighting for, and times when fighting is much more harmful than any good that could come from it.

The struggle to search for that balance has really worn me down lately. i wish more people were worried about finding that balance. i feel like Hawthorne's "Goodman Brown" and these are trying times. What's a boy to do?

7 To What?

GO MANCHESTER UNITED!

Beautiful

On a positive note i wanted to share the most beautiful songs in my record collection. For some time now i've been keeping track of these songs, first on mixed cd's and latter (and much more easily) on my iPod. It's a long list so i'll get right to it and leave long explanations out. i obviously highly recommend these songs if you can give them a listen. They are in order more for flow than any sense of rating.

1. over the rainbow - melvin amina
2. little wing - jimi hendrix
3. waltz #2 (xo) - elliot smith
4. first day of my life - bright eyes
5. soul to squeeze - red hot chili peppers
6. one - u2
7. mouthful of cavities - blind melon
8. butterfly - weezer
9. hallelujah - jeff buckley
10. day after tomorrow - tom waits
11. arc: lamps, signal flares... - thursday
12. running from the rain - thursday
13. pyramid song - radiohead
14. three days - jane's addiction
15. ps you rock my world - eels
16. this song brought to you by a falling bomb - thursday
17. swing life away - rise against
18. redemption song - bob marley
19. indifference - pearl jam
20. older chests - damien rice
21. everything's not lost - coldplay
22. on your own (acoustic) - the verve
23. i will follow you into the dark - death cab for cutie
24. true love waits - radiohead
25. the ending credit theme from the incredible hulk television series - not sure who did it but it gets me every time... david banner walking away off into the horizon... piano... sniff sniff...

McPain In My Arse

McCain is so disturbingly flawed a character i get angered at his mear sight on the television. The ignorant evil of someone like Bush is one thing: it's as though he doesn't know any better and it's the voter's fault for putting someone like him in office of any kind.

With McCain, however, it seems even more scary. My real problem with him is that he does know better yet still continues down the ignorant and evil path that he does. You can see in him that he has some gut feeling of what the right thing to do is, yet at every available moment he seems to consistently go in the exact opposite direction.

To say he waffles would be an insult to waffles everywhere, and i like breakfast. When Bush speaks you are somewhat convinced that he actually believes the bullshit coming out of his mouth even if it is in fact just bullshit. When McCain speaks you know with certainty that he knows he's lying. This makes him all the more insulting to us, the American people.

As excited as i get that there is a female running who has the possibility of becoming the next president (and as fun as it may seem to see Bill in the White House again) when Hillary speaks i frequently find myself disappointed and let down.

Obama is pro-coal and we can't afford, as a civilization, to go down that road any longer. Like most pop-rock stars he is all hype and zero substance.

Kerry should not have been allowed to run the first time.

Giuliani (or however you spell his name) is a scary, scary man. If you make that many wrong decisions when selecting wives i'm not sure i want you making decisions about my country.

McCain needs to just go back to sucking Bush's dick, at least then we don't have to listen to him lie. (hey, i used the word bush and dick all in the same sentence and it is in no way titillating)

Politics have become a profession with no honor. The choices we are left with are not choices at all. Are there any honorable men (or women) left, or has our society branded and chastised them all? Have they all been driven to the fringes of our world?