Agreements

Often I’m running into trouble like a mosquito into a Mack truck with my fellow humans about my ideas and opinions, head-on. And it starts so promising; “Oh, I like the way you think” and “how interesting, I never looked at it that way and then comes this: “I don’t agree”.
As if I share my views with others to have them agree or disagree. I couldn’t give a fiddle. I’m not looking for converts or followers, a herd of sheep to look after. I’ll leave that to theologians and politicians. Let them be happy with sheep and use their wool and lead them to the slaughterhouse.
If they need to agree, why don’t people just tell me what they want to hear so they have me telling them what they already know and support their opinions and beliefs? But I notice that humans need others to tell them what they want to hear so they can feel safe and secure in their own views and opinions no matter how stupid or smart. Don’t look to me for any kind of support of ideologically infested craziness.
Long ago I found out that I didn’t learn anything by listening to others sprouting my own views but for the majority of people this seems to be the normal thing to do. We come up with an idea or someone planted it sometime into our heads and then we keep playing with it until we really believe it is the truth. It then becomes a point of view from which we measure and evaluate other ideas, accepting or dismissing them by agreeing or disagreeing, depending if it fits into our point of view or not. I think that only when we listen without agreeing or disagreeing can we learn new things.
Now, I am not free of points of views and when I listen to other people’s opinions and I become aware of wanting to agree or disagree I stop and exam why I do that. Invariably I discover identification with my own ideas and the need to defend or cherish them. However, ideas can be made and discarded in a blink of an eye without loosing anything of importance but we are so proud of our “product” that when someone dares to question it, we go to war.
I became aware of this odd behavior when I had a conversation with a couple of mixed culture. During our pleasant chat I noticed how a tension came up between the couple and when I asked if there was something the matter they explained to me that they had a different view about what people need to do to be happy and then they laid out their ideas. Her idea was not his and when I asked why love was not sufficient to be happy and why it was important for one to go along with the others point of view when all that really mattered was the love they shared, both defended their ideas with teeth and claws.
This couple was very indicative for how the world got to the point of self-destruction over ideas. Love and peace are sacrificed for ideas. Love is a feeling and an attitude of acceptance and so is peace. It has nothing to do with ideologies. Even an atheist knows love and peace but we mix-up ideas with feelings and then ideologies and dogmas create an attitude of who is right and all is lost. Love is not an idea neither is peace. We fight over who is right when it is about what is right.
And so it is also when we are on the same playing field. We’ve all had experiences how we seem to go along just great, we feel one with each other, in fact so much that we know what the other thinks or is going to say, and then we feel that the other is taking over and takes all the stage and we diminish to virtually nothing. So in order to be noticed we stir up some controversy. Then when our idea is being opposed, we start to defend it because after all it is our “product” and so the war is on.
Let ideas be ideas without the need to agree or disagree, see if it works for you, if not, see it as what it is, another view and if it is working, TA-DAA, you’ve just learned something new.
There is a view in the world that we need to agree on things to accomplish things and I can see the value in that when we set out for a task to do like building a bridge, a house or have a common goal, when ideas need to be coordinated to have the desired result but it needs to be restricted to the result to accomplish the task and not to satisfy feelings.
If we need to have others to make us feel good, to have them to be in agreement with us, then that’s a sure sign of fear and of our own incompetence and it would be wise to look for different ideas to learn from and those ideas are not going to be the kind we already know. Our ideas got us into the situations of incompetence and fear in the first place and will not help to get out of them but will get us deeper into it. So the question is: What are we going to do other than what we did so far?
Someone said: Doing the same things you’ve always done will get you the same things you’ve always got, therefore we could define ultimate stupidity by doing the same things we’ve always done but expecting different results.
I’d like to point out that pushing takes us sometimes to places except through doors marked “PULL”.
By insisting on doing things the way I believed to be the only right way to do it, I got into some real hairy situations.
In my youth I did get into fights like most boys and I learned a few tricks to walk away from a confrontation victoriously. But in one instance I run into a guy who previously was beaten by me and knew my trick to grab his wrist and diving under his arm and thus ending up behind him with his arm twisted up on his back.
This time he knew what to do and when I grabbed his wrist and dove, he simply turned with me and I ended up looking into his face with my both hands on his wrist while his other hand in form of a fist reshaped my nose. I needed a new technique along with a new nose and realized that there are many ways to skin a cat, not the same cat though.
A suggestion to have more peace in the world is that when we let go of our ideas as an important fact of life and strife for harmony and tolerance instead, the frictions in the world will be lessened and we could begin to promote a better understanding of each other.
Agreeing or disagreeing only creates friction that will lead to conflict and argumentations and if we look at the world today, that is what we have now and it is not advancing peace. So let’s focus on Love and Peace like the idea was in the 60ties but never got carried through.
When we put our intentions toward harmony and peace in all our dealings with others and looking for a way where no-one walks away feeling like a looser but all feel they won, then we are on the right track. It is not an easy task but it’s doable. What we need is to put more effort into it and examine why we need to be right. Set up a dialogue and listen to each other.
Just think: Even a terrorist fights to create peace. We may not approve of the method but behind it is the desire to have peace. So what the hell is the problem? That’s what we’re fighting for too but fighting can never create peace. It’s like fornicating for virginity.
Only peace can create peace. Wars ended only because they run out of resources and people and were too weak to continue but not because the lack of ideas. And the wars have always been about ideas. One group did not agree with another. Look into any family conflict, what are the reasons for arguing? Ideas that one person has and the other does not.
When they put their efforts into solving a situation, all of sudden things go smoothly.
That is called agreement for a common goal and not common feelings. I once had to tell an employer to tell me what to do not how to do it. What mattered was the end result, not the method but this fool was insisting that I should do it the way he did the job even though my job was better and easier than his way.
He told me that he did it his way for more than twenty years and if it were good for him, it would be good for me too. I replied that his forefathers dragged their knuckles in the dust and I wanted to know if he was doing that also.
It seems to me that people feel security only when others following their lead and maybe feel their leadership is threatened when others find other ways. Perhaps they think when their clique see different approaches they will secede and leave them behind and instead of adapting new ways they try to force their methods on the group. They want us to agree with their ways so they can feel secure.
That’s how traditions are created and it is one of the most retarded ways to keep people in line and isn’t it funny how well it works? When someone mentions traditions almost everybody pays reverence and nobody dares to question its validity. We abandon common sense and good judgments in favor for tradition. We agree to stupidities because it is a tradition.
It is time to wake up from “Zombie-ism” and question tradition, established procedures and customs. Let’s start fresh and ask why it is important to follow someone’s lead and ideas.
There are possible necessities to come together under one leader for a given task but once the task is finished be an individual again and stay away from habits, they only create a rut and it takes a lot of effort to get out of them. Have the guts to be you because it is impossible to be somebody else.
I heard a story about a Charlie Chaplin look-alike contest and all the contestants have gotten onto the stage, did their little gig, including Charlie Chaplin, and then someone else was declared the original. That other was more real than the real Charlie Chaplin.
This is how people are more attached to ideas how things should be instead of how they really are. But do remember: Life is not a “should be” affair. It is what it is and no agreements are necessary to the authentic individual. That is what it means to follow your own heart and as long as no one is harmed physically or repressed in the enfoldment of their individuality, we are on the right track.