Patience and power
I like the quote from Gandhi:
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win."
I don't believe it, but I like it. I mean if by "You win", he means you're dead and people idolize your subbornness to resist overt agression, well, he's heroic, but seems pointness still. I mean sure like the fall of Camelot, people can remember a time and place existed where peace and justice existed, a shining light. Sure good, but its still sort of a different story. I'd rather SKIP the first, or TAKE it as history rather than LIVE it (the fall).
I like the quote mainly because to me it suggests there's some power in the long haul, and weakness in impatient uses of power.
Of course the same argument can be used by President Bush and the civil war in Iraq. He pretends to think we can outlast our opponents, while in fact its the complete opposite. Its a war of attrition where the side with greater wealth can spend 1000 times more and still lose in the end.
If Bush had really believed in patience, he wouldn't have invaded Iraq in the first place. War and violence may be called "the last resort", but I imagine more it is just hard to sell in a democracy, unless an event like 9/11 comes to create fear in people's hearts.
Even closer to home, in my own heart, I see how the VICE of impatience creates at least one sort of evil. Somehow impatience is related to fear, perhaps a sense of impotence, not a good feeling to a warrior's heart.
People talk about moral questions in the abstract and define their enemies as immoral for doing ugly things. I won't deny evil or self-interested blindness. I just can look enough at my own heart and sense of impatience, and I see times when I'm willing to ignore the inconvenient truths of the consequences of my actions.
You can look at the American spirit - the Manifest Destiny and you see an impatient people striving to find their own place, hard workers, but also willing to ignore the uglier consequences, the wasteful killings of the bison, the brutality towards the Native Americans, faithless negociations, easily equal to the evils committed by Hitler in the lead up to WWII.
Civilization as it becomes more complex requires more surrender of this overt brutality, even if it can get sublimated into more hidden forms.
The tricky thing to me is that impatience can be a sort of asset to those on the bottom trying to rise because it gives the ambition and energy to keep fighting for what you want, but equally it is a deficit - allowing others to take advantage of your stream, to TRICK you into serving their interests because you don't slow down enough to look at the bigger picture. Promises of "instant wealth" - lotteries to pyramid schemes, all exploit impatience.
And after you start succeeding in your ambitions, especially in wealth, impatience if retained, along with repressed pain, helps blind us to what we REALLY want and only focus on what we can get, like things that take money versus things that take time.
I think of a friend, her front yard tree split down the middle in a big storm and had to be cut down. She wants a new tree, but doesn't wish to wait 20+ years for it to replace what she had before. Of course to degrees MONEY can speed up success - and large trees can be transplanted if you have big equipment.
If your time frame is 10 years, you generally can't get some things, like a big tree, but given a lifetime or TWO, trees will grow, and future generations will appreciate.
Another saying "Judge your day not by what you've sown, but by the seeds you've planted." Something like that. That's something of the power of patience, hidden slow change that moves mountains one grain at a time.
I try to wonder how patience itself can be nurtured, if we need practice, if it needs quiet time to reflect and imagine. I mean yes, it needs these, but what do we DO when we feel impatient, when we're unhappy and looking for a quick fix to our suffering.
I think an old poem I wrote nearly 10 years ago now, contrasting city and country living, like the mind and body. It's got a bit of implied moralizing, possibly saying the second is better, but more as a reminder than a simple replacement. We need both.
Our Garden
7/7/97
The City:
where brick and concrete lie,
where people come to feed,
where time races and culture rises,
where wealth and influence may grow.
The Country:
where woods and pastures lie,
where people come to work,
where time seasons and culture deepens,
where health and relations may grow.
Between these worlds,
We search,
For our garden.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win."
I don't believe it, but I like it. I mean if by "You win", he means you're dead and people idolize your subbornness to resist overt agression, well, he's heroic, but seems pointness still. I mean sure like the fall of Camelot, people can remember a time and place existed where peace and justice existed, a shining light. Sure good, but its still sort of a different story. I'd rather SKIP the first, or TAKE it as history rather than LIVE it (the fall).
I like the quote mainly because to me it suggests there's some power in the long haul, and weakness in impatient uses of power.
Of course the same argument can be used by President Bush and the civil war in Iraq. He pretends to think we can outlast our opponents, while in fact its the complete opposite. Its a war of attrition where the side with greater wealth can spend 1000 times more and still lose in the end.
If Bush had really believed in patience, he wouldn't have invaded Iraq in the first place. War and violence may be called "the last resort", but I imagine more it is just hard to sell in a democracy, unless an event like 9/11 comes to create fear in people's hearts.
Even closer to home, in my own heart, I see how the VICE of impatience creates at least one sort of evil. Somehow impatience is related to fear, perhaps a sense of impotence, not a good feeling to a warrior's heart.
People talk about moral questions in the abstract and define their enemies as immoral for doing ugly things. I won't deny evil or self-interested blindness. I just can look enough at my own heart and sense of impatience, and I see times when I'm willing to ignore the inconvenient truths of the consequences of my actions.
You can look at the American spirit - the Manifest Destiny and you see an impatient people striving to find their own place, hard workers, but also willing to ignore the uglier consequences, the wasteful killings of the bison, the brutality towards the Native Americans, faithless negociations, easily equal to the evils committed by Hitler in the lead up to WWII.
Civilization as it becomes more complex requires more surrender of this overt brutality, even if it can get sublimated into more hidden forms.
The tricky thing to me is that impatience can be a sort of asset to those on the bottom trying to rise because it gives the ambition and energy to keep fighting for what you want, but equally it is a deficit - allowing others to take advantage of your stream, to TRICK you into serving their interests because you don't slow down enough to look at the bigger picture. Promises of "instant wealth" - lotteries to pyramid schemes, all exploit impatience.
And after you start succeeding in your ambitions, especially in wealth, impatience if retained, along with repressed pain, helps blind us to what we REALLY want and only focus on what we can get, like things that take money versus things that take time.
I think of a friend, her front yard tree split down the middle in a big storm and had to be cut down. She wants a new tree, but doesn't wish to wait 20+ years for it to replace what she had before. Of course to degrees MONEY can speed up success - and large trees can be transplanted if you have big equipment.
If your time frame is 10 years, you generally can't get some things, like a big tree, but given a lifetime or TWO, trees will grow, and future generations will appreciate.
Another saying "Judge your day not by what you've sown, but by the seeds you've planted." Something like that. That's something of the power of patience, hidden slow change that moves mountains one grain at a time.
I try to wonder how patience itself can be nurtured, if we need practice, if it needs quiet time to reflect and imagine. I mean yes, it needs these, but what do we DO when we feel impatient, when we're unhappy and looking for a quick fix to our suffering.
I think an old poem I wrote nearly 10 years ago now, contrasting city and country living, like the mind and body. It's got a bit of implied moralizing, possibly saying the second is better, but more as a reminder than a simple replacement. We need both.
Our Garden
7/7/97
The City:
where brick and concrete lie,
where people come to feed,
where time races and culture rises,
where wealth and influence may grow.
The Country:
where woods and pastures lie,
where people come to work,
where time seasons and culture deepens,
where health and relations may grow.
Between these worlds,
We search,
For our garden.
posted by Ares Olympus at 4:05 PM
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