a select destiny

"... Be careful where you're walking
You might step in something rough
Be careful where you're talking
And saying all that stuff
Take care when you are breathing
Somethings funny in the air
And somethings Im not saying
Bout what's happening out there
Its inside out ..."
Traveling Wilburys, from Inside Out

Having seen Avatar again recently, there is no question we, the Humans, have it all wrong.  Well, that is IF we were designed to thrive within the same galaxy as Pandora and her allied planets. We may not have been elected for living in harmonious balance. We may be something else, a rogue planet, the balance the Universe requires, as if no particle is complete without an antagonist.  Is good complete without evil?  And vice versa?  There are stories, such as Earth is the prison planet, or Earth is the feed lot for aliens.  The truth is we have no way of knowing for certain with the exception of how we have performed historically as a species dwelling on this planet.  We have performed exceptionally poorly, stupidly and foolishly.  Can you imagine Pandora with her ability to call species from like-minded galactic bredren and sistren destroying herself from the inside out?  Never!  If however, there is nothing like Pandora in existence and the other planets are stuck in a me, mine rotation, we have before us the grandest opportunity ever to make a difference, an opportunity presently being blown up, blasted, fracked, radiated, microwaved, tasered, tortured, denied, whipped and generally debased as geographic slave congregations under the watchful technological eyes of the plantation overseers who happen to be far worse in carrying out punishments than their oblivious masters busy keeping their infinity pools overflowing.  I fear the change we know could come about will not happen within our lifetimes and I doubt anyone reading here could become inured, although it is possible, albeit briefly, perhaps a few days at most.  I know those few days are hard when it happens, but you bounce back, you know too much. you feel too much, you see everything and what you don't see, you soon will.  You see when you are not trying to see.

There is no beauty without ugliness, The Tao, v.2
watercolor on Arches '06

One of many thousands of things I've read online over the years was a piece on depression claiming people who are depressed are actually more in tune with the reality of their situations.  They are fearful of what they see and it pains them physically.  Compassionate friends or family want to help them come out of their pained state because the depressed are a drag on the health and happiness of the greater clan and will perform a variety of comforts designed to lift the depression and return the depressed to a more satisfactory state.  It can work, but only temporarily.  It cannot work in the long term because the state of depression is the state of seeing our fundamental realities, slaves on a rogue planet where anything could and will happen.  Taking comfort for granted is living a lie.  There is no perfection without imperfection.  The Jane English and Gia-fu Feng translation of the Tao Te Ching says, in so many words, there is no beauty without ugliness.

Under heaven all can see beauty as beauty only because there is ugliness.
All can know good as good only because there is evil.
Therefore having and not having arise together.
Difficult and easy complement each other.
Long and short contrast each other:
High and low rest upon each other;
Voice and sound harmonize each other;
Front and back follow one another.

Therefore the sage goes about doing nothing, teaching no-talking.
The ten thousand things rise and fall without cease,
Creating, yet not.
Working, yet not taking credit.
Work is done, then forgotten.
Therefore it lasts forever.

But on a rogue planet, the balance can change as easily as the heartbeat of life.

Sometimes it makes us feel like the walking dead.  Cats with nine lives who have multiplied the odds as they keep coming, back to back, each should have claimed us we say, yet we live to see more.  And more again.  Something we cannot define with science and logic is happening here, a grand design, some not-of-this-world intention we are simply not at the rightful stage of development to comprehend regardless of our effort.  I believe this makes us a unique product of evolution to remain invincible in the face of pure unadulterated evil where vast and continuing material loss strips us to the lowest category of Earthly life and it has no influence at all, we go on in trust, always looking forward, accepting each test as triathlon athletes determined to pass and not just well, but intact, because in spite of the incessant repeats, it makes the good, the pure, the honest, the natural reverent and holy, gifts from somewhere else reminding us the world we desire really does exist and one day we are destined to reach it.