Sunday, September 16, 2018

The New Age

Everybody living 50 years ago, realizes that the world that existed back then, has totally changed -- and that is even true of 20 years ago, and the pace of change has accelerated to the point to which one expects everything to change momentarily -- yet only a few years ago, the academics promoted the notion that there was nothing ever new under the sun, and history merely repeated itself -- ever since the dawn of civilization.  Of course, nothing could be further from the truth -- if evolution and progress was to be believed, and even those who fancy themselves as "progressive" thinkers, often proclaim that humanity has fallen from the grace and perfect knowledge of times past -- into a devolving ignorance from which only their chosen few are immune, and that is why they so generously offer, to  do the thinking for everyone else in the rapidly approaching apocalypse.

Old notions die hard -- in the minds of those resistant to change -- especially those who believe they have a right to think for everybody else, such as was popular in the age of broadcast media as the self-appointed prophets of their times.  That was the model of one-way mass communications -- in which a self-chosen few, told the masses what to think -- and even insisted The Constitution endowed them with special rights to speak for everybody else -- and still infer that today as though it is actually written that way.  But assuredly, the constitution ensures those rights equally to everyone -- and not just those who call themselves the press, or journalists, or some other euphemism of objectivity and impartiality.  They even insist that they alone must be perpetuated as an institution -- even while all the sacred cows of the past have been revealed and undone -- as having passed their prime and usefulness.

Yes, there even was a time when shamans and inquisitors played a central role in society and history -- and not that they were immediately recognized as charlatans and con-artists.  They were simply trying to make an "honest living" -- just like everyone else they claim was worse and incredulous.  Who was one to believe their own lying eyes, ears and senses?  So this reliance on others for information and advice, has been a normal part of human societies and extension of each individual mind since living organisms began living in colonies to form critical masses that could withstand challenges that each individually and independently, might not stand a chance.  But such critical masses, improved the chances that there would be a variation, or mutation from that past normal -- into something else, something unforeseen -- the quantum leap into a higher state of consciousness and being -- rather than simply a continuation of the past, and more of the same.

As a matter of fact, the new supplants all the old, and not merely adds one more thing -- to acquire and accumulate -- as the old mind is conditioned to think is the only thing possible.  The game has long since changed -- from whomever has the most toys wins.  It's not the number of toys that matter, but who has the one thing that does it all -- that therefore allows tremendous consolidation and one to have it all -- without the baggage and storage responsibilities.  That of course, is the modern concept of the networked mind (individual) -- accessing everything one needs -- but only as they actually need it, and not having to build stockpiles of anything (and everything), to ensure one makes it through every crisis -- or even daily life!

Such planning and contingencies, no longer need consume our every waking moment and lives -- as it did up to the beginning of this present century -- and new millennium.  Many feared on approaching this date, that it might bode the end of the world and life as we knew it -- which actually turned out to be quite true, but no less true than any other time and moment in history.  It was simply more clear cut -- and definitive than any moment for at least one thousand years since we flipped the calendar so emphatically.

So while the half-life of everything else seems to have decreased, human life spans have increased to make an entirely new age, or stage of life, now possible for many more than was possible for even the richest or greatest one person living at any time before.  That is likely to be true for every succeeding generation as well.  Knowing that, the limitation and frontier of every consciousness and being, is the extent to which they can simply plug in to the resources of this time -- first by simply knowing about it.

Cures and solutions may simply be what one doesn't know or is aware of -- and not that such things do not exist.  Therefore, the primary task of every viable being, is finding out what is "out there" -- even if they have to create it themselves in that finding out.  That is the integrating mind -- that takes all the fragments of information, and makes it whole, comprehensible, and effective (productive) -- in powerful new ways.  It is not a return to the "old ways," as all that can be known -- and simply repeated and replicated to eternity.

In that state, or grace of mind, all things then become possible -- including and especially, regarding the concept of "age" and "aging" -- obviously and predictably. One is not simply young and then old with time -- but also new, in the manner of systematically and deliberately "dying to the old, and being reborn in the new" -- which empowers one to be a driving force in their own lives.  That is quite the opposite of the current paradigm of becoming less empowered and abled, and ultimately totally dependent on others for everything.

That revival, resurrection, reincarnation has been envisioned for ages now -- as the meaning of life for quite a while now -- as the prescription for whatever ails one.  That is also the meaning of the New Age.