Saturday, March 17, 2012

Our own truth of each moment

Before the 1950s and 1960s it was as if the educated class here on earth was telling us all how to think and how to act. So, as more young people started going to college and realizing that they didn't have to be forced to think in any specific way the Free Speech Movement at UC Berkeley took place. Many of you might never have heard of this but it was important in that it heralded my generation basically saying to the powers that BE: "We are going to think and speak our own way about everything now and that has ever been or will be and no religious or governmental program is going to work to convince us otherwise."

Though in my generation the problem became through idealism "Throwing the baby out with the bathwater", it also allowed Black power, white power, female power and various other groups taking back their personal power and coming forward to the equality of today for all groups of people and individuals.

I was reading my daughter's piece about her Vipassana experience and it took me back to the "Free Speech" Days that began a lot of free thought which turned into  whole new ways of thinking about everything and all kinds of new experiences for not only the U.S. but for the whole world. Before this moment world annihilation through nuclear war seemed inevitable to everyone on earth. But with all that happened in the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and 1990s we are still here today with no cities at all destroyed by nukes since Hiroshima and Nagasaki. May they be both the first and the last to be destroyed by nukes ever.

Another way to put "Our own truth each moment" is found in why there are always 12 people on a jury. One reason is that if any 12 people witness ANY Crime and then you separate the 12, each will give you a completely different account of what happened. However, if all 12 listen to the first person who talks about what they witnessed, the other 11 will modify their stories to fit what the first person said just to be polite. So, when the other 11 witness the first one of them commenting on what they saw their individual truths become lost in the mix.  This is all just human nature and politeness.

No comments: