*I find tribe.net painfully clumsy. I included a LiveJournal module ... it hasn't updated since early December. And here I am stripping the HTML out of a well-formatted post, because tribe.net uses a system that would have been stupid-lame in 1998. All in all, tribe.net is an insult to the users. It pisses me off. Always. Everytime. They don't deserve to make money.*

I've been thinking more and more on how it's almost impossible to connect with people who are ego-centered materialists. It's straight-up borg shit.

A post by a LiveJournal friend included something that got me keyboarding: "at times i wonder if my lack of anger at people's stupidity is laziness, or acceptance."

Interesting synchronicity
I was thinking about how years ago there really was an alternative to live in a communal situation. I mean, of various sorts. And now, there really isn't. Not realistically ... practically.
I was trying to grapple through to the root of that.
Got tangled, as usual, with the usual "the world is becoming Matrix" and "folk are becoming allergic to others, suffering their presence only in the spirit of commercial or ego-centered transaction".

"it's easier to expend energy on tearing people down rather than facing challenges yourself, or hell, having the courage to believe in yourself." resonates.
Thing about a narcissistic life-style (which can arise as a given, almost by accident of history) is that it doesn't recommend any solution or alternative. It is not, except in a deep Zen sense, self-exploding. Quite the opposite: self-involvement increases alienation which supports a world-view that's based on a sense of entitlement, where others become opportunity for exploitation.

In a deep sense catastrophe really does offer a moment of opportunity ... I'm not the only one to note that real spirit work isn't likely to be taken up by someone who isn't feeling a deep compelling need ... but that opportunity isn't immediately obvious. "The gateless gate" ... you can't even approach it because it isn't visible, but when you see the reality of it you quite possibly find that you've already crossed through, if only by having tripped on fallen on your face.

Is why I keep punching out warnings that consummer-life is BluePill ... because it operates that way: if I construct a materialistic lifestyle, the more I invest of myself in it, the more I forgo for it, the more it monopolizes my consciousness, the more it feels vaguely heroic and principled and virtuous to persist in it.

"if my lack of anger at people's stupidity is laziness, or acceptance."
Good question. Truly.
It might be a sort of sloth. Could well be. In basic Zen training I got a real good handle on "the builder of the house of ego" ... we're brilliant at explicating things in a way that flatter our self-image.
It might be a sort of hopelessness ... no point going through the wall of flame if one is convinced that there's nothing on the other side.

I fall back on self-interest: if I don't respond then I become increasingly deadened, and opportunities to respond don't rise to front of mind, so I become increasingly deadened, and I feel compelled less often.
Not that I'm saying that those compelling moments are virtuous ... more than likely with me that they're 9 parts frustration and 1 part disgust at others' blithe destruction of themselves and their surround ... but they're still the raw stuff of vigour, of energetic creativity, and those are foundational to loving-kindness.

So: keep the home fires burning!

*Sings: "This little light o'mine ... I'm gonna let it shine!"*