Cartoonist Walt Kelly's most famous quote.
Have you
ever had a thought rattling around in the back of your mind, an idea that is
hard to articulate, but it seems to be something you ought to grab a hold of?
That’s
happening to me right now. I’ve been reading a book titled Choosing Easy World by Julia Rogers Hamrick. At first the book seemed
so simplistic, I pushed it aside. Then it called me back. When Hamrick began
talking about “Difficult World,” I perked up.
There appears
to be a Difficult Dictator that yammers in our heads, that feeds on difficulty,
that tells us we aren’t good enough, we will never make it, others do, of
course, but not us, that we are too old, too stupid, too disconnected to be
successful in our endeavors. Why old
Difficult Dictator does that I don’t know, he appears to feed on worry, stress,
and making things hard. Most of us have had times when can we decide to choose the
easy way and this old dictator grabs us by the throat. Some call him the Ego.
Why though does the ego want difficulty for us?
It could be
conditioning. It could be that working, striving, pushing against have been
drummed into us for so long it has penetrated our beings.
Now, this is
not to say that a challenge is not rewarding. Think of music, the arts, athletics,
solving a mathematical proof, a law proof, when we arise triumphant it is a
giant hit. What I am saying is that there is a pervasive difficulty regarding
life that is not necessary, is not healthy, and does not support the
magnificent beings that we are.
And this is
where that rattling thought in the back of my mind comes in. We hear about how
the media is conditioning us, about the “Shadow” government, the government behind
the government that pulls the strings.
We hear that the “Grays” control us, the “aliens,” are out to get us,
and the Illuminati have been lurking in the shadows controlling world affairs
for millennia. And I wondered, could be
as Pogo said long ago. We have met the enemy, and it is us?’
Perhaps, it
is not “out there. It is in here.”