Palin, what is the fuss?

I’d like to propose a methodology to help those of us in confusion with how global politics and candidates should be considered. Rather than rely on our own emotional attraction to a party or candidate, we have to suspend our reflexive thoughts, and consider the brutal facts. The President and Vice President jobs in the White House are the most powerful positions in the world. Some consideration by the voter is required, surely.

We look for integrity. Does the candidate have enough? Do they talk of small issues, or big issues. Have they the humility to display personal error? Or do they change their story and cover it up?

We look for incisiveness. Do they show the capacity of a chess-player to see a few moves ahead? Do they have the required street smarts to take on deceptive nations. Can they see through the smoke and spin that surrounds them?

We look for charm. Do they show a relaxed confidence, even in the most daunting of circumstances? Do they make us feel like we have chosen the right person?

We look for discipline. Do they show tenacity with dealing with the details that really matter. Do they understand cause and effect? Will the candidate be smart, diligent and prepared before they do anything that will incur huge consequences.

We look for action. Do they seem capable of making a big decision - quickly if need be. When decisiveness is required, will it be thought through? Do they gather the necessary input, while under pressure, until they have the best solution. Or do they shoot from the hip with a hunch, as their main solution to the problem.

We look for vision. Does the candidate see ahead, see the complexity of the situation? Is the candidate reflective and patient enough to get past the surface in order to see the real motivations of lobbyists, corporations, institutions, nations and societies and most importantly self-interest.

We look for peace. Do they understand that the majority of wars have been based on poor understanding of cause and effect? That pride and prejudice have played their hands too many times in the lives of human kind, and that our place on the planet as the smartest mammal has not proven itself yet. Does the candidate understand that the USA and the rest of the world need to work on being friends much harder than we work on being enemies, and to work toward a global move toward this end.

We look for perspective. The people that are most effected by poor management and poor decisions, are the workers. We live on a planet full of bad and poorly trained managers and disenfranchised and pissed-off workers. We need competition to evolve, and we need social responsibility to protect the lesser-gifted. This tension of opposites is the mother of our political reinvention. This perspective is the only creative energy we can use. Is the candidate in touch with this reality? Or are they one-sided and fixed in old thought.

We look for wisdom. Wisdom comes from patience and awareness. It is not intelligence or knowledge. It is experience that has been reflected upon and seriously reviewed against the history of thought, and the modern fields of sociology, psychology and philosophy. Wisdom is the ground on which we rely being there when we fall down. Does the candidate offer this? Can they help us live with uncertainty when wisdom has not caught up with the situation?

We look for safety. We want protected, but at what cost? Have we thought about the cost of oil-dependance on our grandchildren, when there may be none left, and nations are fighting over the dregs? Has the candidate thought about this? Or are they stuck in a short-term fix over a long-term (and way more complex) solution.

We look for a hero. The role of the hero is to bring new life to the land of the wounded king - in order to revive it. This is not an easy job, and this is why we call it heroic. The public is usually against change, even when it is sorely needed. Does the candidate offer something new that is not entirely popular and do they have what it takes to see it through?

We look for someone to blame. We all need a surrogate, we all need someone to take our annoyance and disbelief. Will the candidate be able to bear this uncomfortable position without causing reactionary action as punishment?

We look for someone who punches their weight. Do they understand the sheer magnitude and intricacies of what they will become involved with. Could the candidate potentially be in over their heads?

Your decision

You vote. It is your responsibility. You pick the best all-round player, not just for the USA, but for the world. Your decision will reverberate around the globe, just like the last one. Are you going to act before you think?

It’s not about Palin, it’s about you. We project all these requirements on our leaders, but we need them in ourselves in order to make good choices.

Ask these questions of yourself first, who you vote for then should be pretty easy, you will feel like you know what they have to do, and what kind of person that looks like.

And if the answer is Republican, then you are not being honest. Honesty is seeing reality. Try again. Take the red pill.

p.s. I will blog about the movie The Dark Knight soon. It has some very clear messages about the price of responsibility.

What struck me about the Dark Knight was its psychological bravery. Mainstream entertainment meets CG Jung’s ‘Tension of the opposites’.

Whether it was conceived or understood that way by the creators is not my angle here. My angle is how well the story managed to get close to a viewer and drag their perspective into this new territory. The territory of transcending the Ego, the individuation process to becoming Self oriented.

I believe The Matrix, did a great job at pointing thematically to ‘awakening’. The ‘dark knight’ did a profound job at pointing at ‘meaning’.

Batman sees The Joker as chaos, and that by seeing chaos as the enemy he attempts to control it. Chaos is nature, our purpose is to live with it – it ain’t going anywhere. Batman sees this eventually, and sees that the final cost is being true to reality. He must go beyond his egoic needs for control and societies understanding, and follow the only path that has energy, the only path that gives him his real strength and meaning. His own purpose. This is to follow your bliss, as Joseph Campbell would say. Though it is not the Ego’s idea of bliss. There’s the rub.

This film really made me think; how do I become that brave? That responsible? It was marvelous, and easy to become enamoured with the righteousness of such a good cause as ‘saving a city’. How do I follow my bliss, how do I bypass the deception of my own mind, and walk my path?

I spoke with a young woman administrator at my local Yoga studio last week; she intends to go to an ashram in India for six months. I joked with her that I hoped she didn’t come back as a Yoga Hippy. She laughed and said ‘I think I might be one already’. My comment struck a chord with her though, and she spilled her story and desires about her journey. We had a lot in common. That same issue of ‘killing the ego’ came up. She thought she had to do that.

Obviously when I was her age I thought the same. It seems to take a long time to develop a different understanding, but following a false lead seems such a shame, albeit all roads may lead to the same place.

I pointed her in the direction of ego health and some books, she read a book a day she said, and she felt very happy to have bumped in to me. I remembered thinking at the time, why on earth do I feel I have had my sense of meaning topped up like a full tank from that exchange? What is it about helping others that feels so good, and so dangerous too!

And that’s the interesting shadow dilemma that came into my mind. Wow, she is young, beautiful and interested in your ideas, what more do you want, an invitation? Years ago I would have been very self-reproachful about thinking that – ‘what a thing to think, why does sex and power drive everything!’. But the drive for a woman is very strong when I do not have one! I would have been tempted enough and rationalised it enough to act on it. Now I feel a much more interesting blend of connection. I think I might call it integrating the shadow face of responsibility. Nothing is dismissed, it is all there, only this time I see cause and effect. At the same time I see her struggle as keenly as it were my closest friend, I admire her beauty and the azure of her eyes, and feel I can help point the way a little for her. But all within a sense of flow and containment.

Finding responsibility is the whole task. The whole goal of our life I think. We are driven by passions, but can we let them guide us to our destiny without crashing into the barriers?

I often have trouble with that. But passions are where there is infinite energy, the energy to create anew, to bring new life and ideas. To live a new life, our very own unique and unjudged capacity to become responsible for what and who we are.

Genpo Roshi, whom I admire so very much, put it this way ‘The servant of the house has come to think he is the master.’

Is the master in the house?

Can we be Dark Knights?