encounter with an opossum and other thoughts

i saw an opossum in the garage tonight. It startled me and I reacted almost uncontrollably. I hissed at it. I think it went and hid behind some boxes. I didn't want to move all the boxes so I tried to wait and see if it came back out, but it didn't.

The opossum made me think about my relationship with animals. I consider myself an animal lover but my reaction to the opossum was one of instantaneous terror. Was that because it was in the garage? I thought about how much space an opossum requires and how much space I require. How much space people require. How much land people require.

As I waited my mind wandered and my eyes became unfocused. I thought about how limited perception really is. I tried to sense the opossum's energy field. I failed. I thought about how people tend to insist they know the truth of reality. How people tend to live as though they know everything there is to know. Particularly in terms of politics and society in general. Things could be so different. People are amazingly versatile when they want to be.

People don't know everything there is to know. There is much in the world that we don't even perceive. Truth may be relative to individuals but to a higher perspective, the god's eye view, there is an ultimate truth of the collective comings and goings of life on planet Earth. What's going through my mind may be totally different from what's going through your mind, though we are looking at the same thing, but to a third party we're just two individuals experiencing life as constructed by a (at least in name) civil society. The experience for most of the people on planet Earth is one of desperate poverty and insecurity. Is that really how things should be? A tiny portion of the population consume and control the resources while the rest do what we can to secure crumbs for ourselves. Most going without. I think one thing people forget is that as best as we can determine, we are the final arbiters of what really is and how things can be.

We're here. Here we all are, 6 Billion and counting. How many impoverished? How many fearing for their lives, wondering how to eat, where to sleep, how to survive? How many ruling the world?

We can do better.

The way is not to grow economies as practiced today. Building a strip mine in the Third world does not help the situation. Exploiting poverty and exchange rates may help another small group of people marginally, in the short term, but I don't really see this as alleviating the poverty situation.

As much as I hesitate to say it, I believe the way is to develop society and culture to be less consumptive and more creative. How much of our lives is devoted to consumption? How much to creativity? Creative people are unique and special in our society. True, many exist and flourish, but we need more. We need to be able to provide people with true security: clean air, water and food, shelter, love and freedom with less resources. We need a project. If we have a project to focus on, the material things of life pale in comparison. We should focus on simply bringing people together and providing emotional and physical security in terms of everyone's essential human dignity. If there is someone you feel shouldn't be included in the bringing together, the gathering, ask why and work to change that, try to include everyone, regardless.

Corvallis Open Forum is a start in this direction, but it's very intermittent. Especially nowadays. Tomorrow will be the third week there hasn't been a COF. But we will be trying out Wed. nights at the Beanery.

Why get together? Its fun, exciting, real, better than sitting at home watching tv. interactive, and an expression of love.

Perhaps REAL physical security (as previously described) for all will result if we first provide at least emotional security to allow for individual expression, which can lead to collective expression, which can lead to awareness, which I'm hoping can lead to a better world, heaven on earth, utopia, a population free from want and free to explore the universe in all its wondrous glory.