Understand that this post is very difficult for me to write…not due to words or lack of knowledge, but due to emotional fuzziness.
To start- understand where my voice is coming from.
“It was pretty big year for fashion
A lousy year for rock and roll
The people gave their blessing to crimes of passion
It was a dark, dark night of the collective soul
And I was somewhere out on riverside by the el royale hotel
When a stranger appeared in a cloud of smoke
I thought I knew him all too well
He said
Now that I have your attention
I got something I wanna say
You may not wanna hear it, Im gonna tell it to you anyway
You know Ive always like you boy
Cause you were not afraid of me
Things are gonna get mighty rough here in Gomorrah-by-the-sea
You said
It’s just like home
Its so damn hot I cant stand it
My fine seersucker suit is all soaking wet
And the hills are burning
And the wind is raging
And the clock strikes midnight
in the Garden of Allah
Nice car
Ah, I love those Bavarians
So meticulous
Y’know I remember when things were a lot more fun around here
When good was good and evil was evil.
Before things got so fuzzy.
I was once a golden boy like you
And I was summoned to the halls of power in the heavenly courts
And I dined with the deities who looked upon me with favor,
For my talents, my creativity
And we sat beneath the palms
In the warm afternoons and drank the wine
With Fitzgerald and Huxley
And they pawned the biting phrase from the tongues hot with blood
And drained their pens of bitter ink
Vainly reaching for the bottle full of empty edens
Branded especially for the ones who had come with great expectations
To the perfumed halls of allah, for their time in the sun
And we were stokin the fires and oilin up the machinery
Until the gods found out we had ideas of our own
And war was coming and the earth was shaking
And there was no more ruin in the Garden of Allah
Today I made an appearance downtown
I am an expert witness because I say I am
And I said gentlemen, and I use that world loosely
I will testify for you, Im a gun for hire,Im a saint, Im a liar
Because there are no facts, there is no truth
Just data to be manipulated
I can get you any result you like
Whats it worth to you?
Because there is no wrong, there is no right
And I sleep very well at night
No shame, no solution, no remorse, no retribution
Just people selling t-shirts
Just opportunity to participate in the pathetic little circus
And winning, winning, winning
It was pretty big year for predators
The marketplace was on a roll
And the land of opportunity
Spawned a whole new breed of men without souls
This year notoriety got all confused with fame
And the devil is downhearted babe, cause
Theres nothing left for him to claim
He said its just like home
Its so low-down I cant stand it
I guess my work around here has all been done
And the fruit is rotten, the serpents eyes shine
As he wraps around the vine,
In the Garden of Allah.”
-Don Henley, “The Garden of Allah
Nothing…- nothing-…. destroys a work of any kind, like two things.
A lack of trust in self, and a lack of trust in others.
Nothing breaks trust like information which is shared in the confidence and faith of a relationship (of any kind) which you choose to think of as stable–which is then shared with others outside that relationship.
It doesn’t matter whether than information was factual or not. In retrospect, I would often say that if the value of that information was such that if it could only have been imparted under the value of that information, the person imparting it must have believed it to be true.
The contamination factor happens because of what is commonly called “spin”, but in fact should be called “distorted reflection”.
No-one can impart information EXACTLY the way it was imparted to them. That is a law of communication. The value placed on certain words, image, and so on- the conscious and the subconscious make small adjustments-”tweaking” them, so that the information inevitably becomes imbued withthe viewpoint of the person relaying it.
This leads one to certain uncomfortable deductions.
You can never tell someone the ABSOLUTE TRUTH. Many are incapable, and if they are capable, it’s all to likely that such a transmission would cause a sort of psychic trauma to the reciever.
As a species, for us to communicate, the truth must be distorted in some way for it to be recieved well. We, as a species, cannot swallow a bitter pill without some sort of candy coating. That most people, even when they think they are telling the truth, are always….always…half-lying. Whether they are aware of it or not.
People who are capable of telling the absolute truth must, in the process, become aware of the problem. In doing so they realize that “truth” is always perspective. That to truly engage in “clear dialog”, one must be aware of the perspectives of both themselves and the other person.
In being aware of both perspectives, the information passed must reflect both perspectives to be completley valid.
To be aware of perspective and value the information passed back and forth, one must accept the perspective as what it is. If one person can see both perspectives, and the other cannot, then in a very practicical sense, you are trying to bridge one reality to another. And things that come from reality to another will always appear “unreal”, “illusory”, and therefore not “true”.
Because in the reality where there is only one viewpoint, the information which comes from a differnent viewpoint is not only alien, and therefore intrusive, but simply has nothing which can be validated on that side of reality.
If in one’ person’s reality it doesnt “exist”, the information will always be seen as false.
And the absolute SHIT of it is, that if the person who sees more than one perspective becomes frustrated by the lack of comprehension on the other side, then one is left with two choices.
One choice is to keep screaming, but in the end that simply reinforces the idea that BOTH sides are in “bubble realities”. Forcing communication is often seen as an attempt of invalidation of perspective. Both sides would never achieve true communication, regardless of motives.
Therefore, the person who can understand both perspectives has only one choice. If both perspectives are valid, one cannot “shout down” the other perspective out of respect for that perspective. You only have one option after that.
Move on.