Questioning

A questioning is merely a way of testing the merit of something.

OK — with that statement out of the way, let me change directions for a moment, and talk about something through which I want to circle back to questioning.

Here’s a polite reminder that "Peace" is not synonymous with "Goodness." This makes some uncomfortable, and is therefore hard for some to accept - but it's true regardless, and needs spoken to. "Peace" can be used to mean "Inaction," "Apathy," and a lack of "Investment" in, or "Connection" to, the world around you in our day and age...and when people with privilege that they have inherited or been given on an unjust, unworked-for basis, speak about "Peace"...it often ends up looking like being comfortable and complacent.

That is a conclusion that is often reached by an unhealthy set of assumptions about what peace is.

This is also honestly part of why some very widely-accepted ways of emphasizing traditional ideas of 'meditation' as a solution to inner turmoil often make me uncomfortable, and sometimes irate, in turn. Well-off people thinking that many, or all, of the problems that they and others experience are internal and (somehow) therefore solvable through meditation, rest, relaxation, practicing passive patience, being kind and holding pseudo-compassion (without really understanding another person's emotions to a degree that allows for potentially being empathetic towards them and their predicaments), or other forms internal work...well-off people thinking that one can 'will away' the difficulties of life through willpower alone...that's a dangerous consequence of privilege coloring one's reality in rose-tinted hues.

That dangerous perception can lead to a perspective that is highly out of alignment with, and shuns the factual basis of, very real physical, emotional, energetic, spiritual, and the rest of reality.

That dangerous perception is the basis for many arguments that we can 'pray' or 'will away' our own very real, very autonomous illnesses without medicinal and/or vital aid, which doesn't happen.

That dangerous perception is sometimes the basis for some climate change denial in a time and place where ocean storms are larger and more common, fueled by more melting and quickly-heated waters from polar ice caps and glaciers around the world (unfortunately, so, too, very real profits-based greed plays a large role...).

And on a more simple, broadly applicable level, that dangerous perception of reality is one of the largest current hurdles we have from doing the -real- work we need to heal and mature as people.

-Quit- approaching reality as if you're in charge of what you experience in it, and as if you're in control of it as you walk through it as you do. That's an extremist notion of how reality works, that pretends that reality is individual, not collective. It -IS- collective, and the physical science of how even inanimate objects interact shows us that. Our machines that tell us when an earthquake occurs tell us one occurs regardless of if anyone feels it, and we can still look at the tracks deep in the Earth to see as much by using proper technology to do so...much like when a tree falls in a forest, the physical sound waves leave behind the evidence of some form of impact regardless of if you, or anyone else, hears it.

Minute or not, Reality impacts reality's parts, and that's inevitable. You are, as a consequence, not in control of anything aside from your own choices - and that's assuming you have functioning physical autonomy over your own body. Assume nothing more about what you control; any other assumptions are ultimately false...and that includes the idea that "Peace" is an innately "Good" thing, when it's ultimately a term that is defined, and re-defined, by context and agreements that people make about what it actually, truly means...agreements that, like with many commonly-used words, are being edited many times over very slightly every year the word is used so much.

Don't assume that a word communicates all you need to know about a concept - nor a name, or a title or any such label.

Question the meaning and merit of the titles of all of your leaders - be they ancient prophets (in any ancient book or books, or other context); people of a congress, court, or presidency (or any other body of government); gurus, guides, aides, and supporters; friends, family, and lovers; and more.

And in turn, of course, in as healthy of a way as one can find, question the concepts that you use to navigate through life that might reign over your life, especially if they have not been questioned prior.  Whether the connect is a definition and/or assumption about what something - like “Peace” - is, or a concept that is harder to name and pin down in a single term in our current day and age, with whatever the current language might be, there’s always something that can - and probably should - be questioned.

A questioning is merely a way of testing the merit of something…but, don’t take my word for it; instead, question it.  Test it.  Try the practice of it out for yourself, and see what the results are.  If my and your results are similar in some key, and very valuable, ways, you’ll find a lot of uncomfortable truths, display their selves…but you will also probably find that questioning helps cultivate a greater appreciation for those things that maintain integrity and consistency in spite of the tests questions bring to something.  This is what I mean by ‘merit’ in that sentence, after all; something that cannot withstand a line of decent questioning probably lacks some merit, lacks a degree of integrity, lacks something of value (or a lot of value), and might need to be looked at further - even under the brain’s most analytical  evaluating microscope and the heart’s strongest, most scrutiny-inducing instinctual sense of knowing, if that is what is called for.

How does one best go about this testing, evaluating, and questioning process, you might wonder…?

Good question!

Might be best to start asking that one more, maybe?