http://www.cse.dmu.ac.uk/~mward/gkc/books/Compulsory_Education.html
Thomas Merton
Alan: Humankind's habituation to "noise in the system" transforms peace into threat; the "roaring silence" into panicky din.
“Perhaps peace is not, after all, something you work for, or ‘fight for.’ It is indeed ‘fighting for peace’ that starts all the wars. What, after all, are the pretexts of all these Cold War crises, but ‘fighting for peace?’ Peace is something you have or do not have. If you are yourself at peace, then there is at least some peace in the world. Then share your peace with everyone, and everyone will be at peace.” "Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander," Thomas Merton.
The typical modern man is the insane millionaire who has drudged to get money, and then finds he cannot enjoy even money. There is danger that the social reformer may silently and occultly develop some of the madness of the millionaire whom he denounces. He may find that he has learnt how to build playgrounds but forgotten how to play. He may agitate for peace and quiet, but only propagate his own mental agitation. In his long fight to get a slave a half-holiday he may angrily deny those ancient and natural things, the zest of being, the divinity of man, the sacredness of simple things, the health and humour of the earth, which alone make a half-holiday even half a holiday or a slave even half a man. Chesterton - www.Chesterton.org
The coming peril is the intellectual, educational, psychological and artistic overproduction, which, equally with economic overproduction, threatens the wellbeing of contemporary civilisation. People are inundated, blinded, deafened, and mentally paralysed by a flood of vulgar and tasteless externals, leaving them no time for leisure, thought, or creation from within themselves.
G. K. Chesterton, Toronto, 1930
Alan: Fussy people mistake fussiness for virtue, then consider themselves superior to the extent that they fuss, fret and preoccupy.
It is mostly busybodies and meddlers -- convinced of their "righteousness" -- who "rule" the world, making it a frenzied, judgmental, obsessive-compulsive place.
Busybodies and meddlers reduce The Common Good to a kind of cultural rubble.
They believe their overwrought activity (which peaceful consider needless and usually counterproductive) imbues them with "the right to rule."
According to the mistaken rationale of The Hyperactive, "justification" is had by asking: "Am I not performing above and beyond the call of duty? Am I not getting lots of things done?"
Busybodies and meddlers reduce The Common Good to a kind of cultural rubble.
They believe their overwrought activity (which peaceful consider needless and usually counterproductive) imbues them with "the right to rule."
According to the mistaken rationale of The Hyperactive, "justification" is had by asking: "Am I not performing above and beyond the call of duty? Am I not getting lots of things done?"
Happiness, on the other hand, is most readily achieved -- both individually and socially -- by people who do not fuss, who "let it be," who fundamentally trust "what is" -- the dharma, the tao, the "providential order of things" -- without continual distraction by the unending deluge of everything that "needs" to be done.
The Biggest Big Business In America..."
Eric Sevareid
In the 1960s, while living in a peasant community high in the Sierra Gorda, I discovered a koan that has served me well: "How long do you sweep a dirt floor before it's clean?"
If we hope to be blessedly care-free, it is useful to know that peace is the antipode of fussiness.
There is a pervasive form of contemporary violence to which the idealist fighting for peace by nonviolent methods most easily succumbs: activism and overwork. The rush and pressure of modern life are a form, perhaps the most common form, of its innate violence. To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything is to succumb to violence. More than that, it is cooperation in violence. The frenzy of the activist neutralizes his work for peace. It destroys his own inner capacity for peace. It destroys the fruitfulness of his own work, because it kills the root of inner wisdom which makes work fruitful. "Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander," 1964Thomas Merton
Alan: Humankind's habituation to "noise in the system" transforms peace into threat; the "roaring silence" into panicky din.
“Perhaps peace is not, after all, something you work for, or ‘fight for.’ It is indeed ‘fighting for peace’ that starts all the wars. What, after all, are the pretexts of all these Cold War crises, but ‘fighting for peace?’ Peace is something you have or do not have. If you are yourself at peace, then there is at least some peace in the world. Then share your peace with everyone, and everyone will be at peace.” "Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander," Thomas Merton.
The typical modern man is the insane millionaire who has drudged to get money, and then finds he cannot enjoy even money. There is danger that the social reformer may silently and occultly develop some of the madness of the millionaire whom he denounces. He may find that he has learnt how to build playgrounds but forgotten how to play. He may agitate for peace and quiet, but only propagate his own mental agitation. In his long fight to get a slave a half-holiday he may angrily deny those ancient and natural things, the zest of being, the divinity of man, the sacredness of simple things, the health and humour of the earth, which alone make a half-holiday even half a holiday or a slave even half a man. Chesterton - www.Chesterton.org
The coming peril is the intellectual, educational, psychological and artistic overproduction, which, equally with economic overproduction, threatens the wellbeing of contemporary civilisation. People are inundated, blinded, deafened, and mentally paralysed by a flood of vulgar and tasteless externals, leaving them no time for leisure, thought, or creation from within themselves.
G. K. Chesterton, Toronto, 1930
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