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An address based on a list by Kaufman, in the book, "The Faith of a Heretic". This is an address given 11-12-95. The preceding music was by
The little Sparrow. La Vie en Rose. Edith Paif.
Put Cher, Bette Midler, Madonna, and Holly Hunter into a 5' powerhouse. But she was not beautiful... if all you did was look at her. She was the quintessential romantic. The nation followed her life and loves, and identified with her.
She belted out songs in the cabaret style. She could make your feelings stand up and cheer, and a moment later, choke you up with tears.
She had courage. She went where her love led, and if others didn't approve, she didn't even notice.
"En Regrete Rien." I regret nothing!
NOW, from our HQ in Sioux Falls SD, The Top Ten Ways We Avoid Change in Our Lives. ...
I warn you... these are instructions for the devout couch potato; use them in reverse, and you will find yourself thinking and changing. HORRORS! And now, potatoes, here are the spudliest 10 ways. Maybe more.
"The moving finger writes, and having writ, moves on...". The rest of the Rubiyat glorifies wine, which I think is one likely fate of those who believe in fate. If it removes your decidability, it removes your responsibility; so why not act out. It removes all concept of "you". If there's a fate, is there really a "you" at all? I give the idea the Fickle-Finger-of-Fate Award.
You can wait til something happens to you, then make small decisions. As small as possible. A single person can tell themselves, "I'll meet my one-&-only by accident in an elevator, or when they're a door-to-door sales-person and come to my door." Or, if they're the salesperson, "Knock, knock. I hope nobody's home!"
In another way: many people's lives are devoted to achieving and holding power. Change threatens their hard-won position, and they will use what power they have to convince people to keep the status quo. And, as we're saying here, most people lean that way anyway. The motive for this tactic: fear.
An American General (Burns) said, "An opinion, idea,
or code acquired [from an authority] can become so firmly
affixed that one who questions its ... rightness
will be regarded as foolish, wicked, or insane."
We can see that it's the other way around, and reject the orthodoxy.
Allegiance can have very practical purposes, of course. The original human tribes banded together for protection from wild animals, including other tribes! It's handy to delegate some authority, but it's dangerous.
The fear of standing alone is one of the biggest; and with allegiance--and others--you becomed allied to a crowd. Never underestimate the power of ego or conformity; many men have gone to war because they would rather face bullets and bombs... than face public opinion.
There's a weaker but much more common version of this. When popular behaviors change, the decido-phobe looks around quickly and tries to do what others are doing. If the shape of their environment changes, they have to painfully change their own shape to fit it. If they can't, it's very distressing; they're lost.Weak-willed people fear getting out of step with the crowd. They say, "How will I know who I am if they won't tell me!"
If you want to hear a passionate plea against the pain of change, listen to Billy Joel's "DownEaster Alexa".
I'm affected by traditions, myself; it's not necessarily a bad thing. I still own the farmhouse my grandfather built... with lumber carried in by two white oxen, and where my father was born. I have a beautiful kitchen clock that --in 1885-- the doctor looked at to see what time Dad was born. (I was a very late-in-life kid.)
I sold the tree claim that gave Grampa some of his land. But I had heard--from Mom--that one certain day every year, Dad would go out there all alone, to spend an afternoon. He never told me about it, and I never noticed when he went.
Since he died, I went out there once myself. I found a couple pieces of old lumber he'd nailed between limbs in an ancient tree. His Dad likely planted it. I climbed up and sat there. ... ... I recommend it.
The ultimate change is death, so the older we get, the more we're agin both of 'em. Change and death. As we get older, we have more thoughts of these things, and we hear the echo of forgotten ancestors from unknown places. "If it was good enough for us," they say, "what's wrong with it now?" If someone now says the same, do they feel you are critical of them? Are you rejecting values that they've never had the courage to examine for themselves? Your courage challenges their crutches. Change is unavoidably anti-traditional. Iconoclastic. Don't you feel unfaithful? Disrespectful?
Try to change your name, and see how people resist it. It'll be like you're a different person to 'em, and forcing them to endure something painful. When you want people to see you anew, a name-change is a powerful way to do it. And it's a powerful way to control someone else; give 'em a new name... like nuns and wives. One last change can lock 'em out of any more.
Resist that freezing-up process! It takes great effort to escape conformity. Only genius does it of their nature. Artists and poets do it. The rest of us can envy children.
Notice that most of these, like religion, marriage, and tradition, can be a "decision to avoid some further decisions". Give up your decisions to an authority.
Not only do people want direction from an authority, but they will even make a real or imagined person into an authority in order to imagine that they now can take direction from him! Someone full of fears is willing to accept any tyrant, be he in robes or a crown. So question authority and the timidity of the [mousy] masses.
Anyone who thinks for himself and without restriction is liberal; an heretic. Any one who doesn't is Orthodox. In an Orthodox society, differing opinions are not tolerated. If you're not free to voice your real opinion, people will have very little cause to ever examine their thoughts and form one. That gets to be a habit, and very little real thought goes on. They don't think any more than a mirror does. An apt metaphor. Creativity disappears. And, (Higgins, newspaper editor) "Wherever Orthodoxy settles ... democracy is, to the same degree, removed. There is no one orthodoxy which is the enemy of democracy. All of them are."
And yet I say: be a pilgrim, not a colonist. Both tend to be young and idealistic; but: A colonist emmigrates from a culture, and is open--even eager--to reform himself and his society... into something a little less extreme and more up-to-date than the old.
A Pilgrim emmigrates to an empty place, and he is eager to set up a perfected culture there--one that is more extreme and traditional than his old one. Adherence to a cultural inheritance is not necessarily a good thing.
I've cited one main motive for all these gambits.
FEAR. Fear is the father of the gods and of hate. Fear is the mother of slaves, the enemy of thought. But that doesn't mean it has to win! We are people of courage. Go on, make your own future! Invent it or imitate it; do both if you can; it's ok to imitate what you would've invented.
Get this. An axiom --a truism-- what we take for obvious-- is either a well-said truth, or a lie so sacred that it has never dared be questioned. JKH.
So go! --Boldly think where no one has thought before! (jkh)
Quotes from other people...
Tidbits:
Salespeople themselves are often drifters, and must be infused with a heavy dose of allegiance to get them enthused about a job, with some manichaeism thrown in about the competition. (The other company is the enemy.)
Habits save time, but "a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds".
FATALISM/ predestination: The past is "written", yes, in the sense that it's done and unchangable. But while things are likely--to various degrees--in the future, nothing is certain. What is the attraction of the belief? Security; relief from decisions--everything is already decided!
One term for inability to decide: Abulia.