If You Had a Choice: Crucifixion or Crossroads? | Commentaries |Axisoflogic.com

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“Discourse on virtue and they pass by in droves; whistle and dance the shimmy and you’ve got an audience.”

- Diogenes of Snope

As a young teenager, I was surprised to learn of some very wealthy people being stingy tippers at fancy restaurants. Perplexed, I asked my dad, How can that be?! His response has stayed with me all the years as both a lesson in psychology and the sway of mammon: How do you think they got that way, he answered.

This now seems to me like the boardroom chart with the arrow of productivity and profit going ever upwards. But it is common knowledge by now that Earth’s limited resources make unlimited growth and expansion doomed to failure. At the heart of the current conundrum of the extractive misery economy are the questions of what we value most.

What reminded of my dad’s insight was the following headline:“'Biggest Tax Story of the Year, If Not the Decade': Analysis Shows Just How Little Richest .001% Pay in Taxes.”[1] Some of the billions go to philanthropic endeavors yet what about questioning the very societal framework that allows for a few individuals to amass such wealth, making philanthropy necessary. What do we value most?

If there was a maximum wage, then child entrepreneurial types would grow up knowing that there's only so far that monetary wealth could get them and so they might learn, from the get-go, to direct some of their energies elsewhere. Nowadays however, in effect, nothing has changed in almost fifty years since I asked my dad that question, nothing changed as far as the fundamental psychology that is the twisted energy driving a world economy based on greed, hoarding, and stingy tips (think government covid-19 relief checks while billionaires, including some in covid-related pharmaceuticals, medical equipment and services,[2] made more billions).

The winner-takes-most economy celebrates price tags that go with selective talents and skills. Aside from finance itself: various sports players playing games often using a ball and where said ball’s fruition is to go into a net (soccer), into and/or over a net (tennis), through a hole with net (basketball), into a hole (golf), over a fence (baseball). Yet, net and ball aren't inherently about money and fame, as there is another sport – perhaps the oldest organized sport of so-called North America – that uses a small net to throw a ball into a larger net, and it originated with Native Peoples, lacrosse. Interestingly, I've never heard of one famous, well-paid lacrosse player, nor could I even name one lacrosse player.

As with entertainers, huge salaries, for what? Filling some emotional need we are too lazy to satisfy elsewhere? I love music yet I’d rather listen to a mockingbird for free than pay $150 to see one of my fave musicians/bands. I enjoy watching golf on TV (in part because of having played some as a kid with my dad), yet if there was an ultimatum choice, I'd rather watch a field of wildflowers. Whatever the answers about why huge salaries, the behavioral psychology behind the system has decided that certain types of activities are more valuable, as similarly the exact same piece of paper can be worth one-dollar or a hundred-dollars. The dominant economy is an agreed upon shell-game. If what we agree upon as valuable changes, then the economy changes . . . though I wonder how many former CEOs would be willing to be garbage collectors for $21-million a year. (And did you know that for fiscal 2019, Dollar Tree honchos made from over 2- to over 10-million.)[3]

From Diogenes to my dad, why are there so many quotes and ancient sayings as if they were written yesterday? Because nothing changes unless attitude, thinking, consciousness, hearts&minds change. Behavior repeats itself in the same form (in different packages) when humans are state-sanctioned programmed to behave as such.

Much of humanity seems caught in a delusional time loop, thinking that things have evolved or progressed, when they haven’t. Ok, I'll amend that statement: some things have improved and some have gotten worse, depending on where and how you look and who you ask. So what's the crux of the situation?

The word “crux” is said to come from the Latin “cross.” Seems we as a species are in a place of choosing whether to continue crucifying ourselves and fellow Earth-travelers such as bees, trees, waterways, backyard clover and dandelions... or begin seeing the crux as a + sign, like a crossroads with varying choices and directions. Much of what gets put forth is about THE solution, THE way, THE truth – instead of simply one of the choices.

If we approach current dilemmas with the sense that there are a variety of choices and many ways, how might that change our thinking? Different locales and habitats require different actions; that's something I learned from the 2009 book Red Alert! by Daniel R. Wildcat (Yuchi, Muscogee). He writes: “The nature-culture nexus is the unique interaction between a people and a place.”

Because bright lights at night make me bonkers, while meandering about my patio garden I utilize a small pocket-sized flashlight because over the years I’ve squashed too many garden slugs slowly cruising and oozing the concrete. Those snails without shells have a crossroads, too, and their discourse is silent . . . . . but under the morning sun I sometimes see their silvery mucus trails, a non-linear map of an evening's ancient journey . . . . . reminding that there's a crossroads every which way one turns . . . . .

NOTES:
[1] See here.
[2] “Meet The 40 New Billionaires Who Got Rich Fighting Covid-19”
[3] See here.

Mankh (Walter E. Harris III) is an essayist and resident poet at Axis of Logic. His forthcoming book is Moving Through The Empty Gate Forest: inside looking out. In addition to his work as a writer and small press publisher, he travels a holistic mystic pathway staying in touch with Turtle Island. His website is here.

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