{"id":16194,"date":"2019-01-24T09:44:50","date_gmt":"2019-01-24T14:44:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/?p=16194"},"modified":"2019-01-24T12:37:43","modified_gmt":"2019-01-24T17:37:43","slug":"musings-of-an-ancient-soul","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/musings-of-an-ancient-soul\/","title":{"rendered":"Musings of an Ancient Soul"},"content":{"rendered":"

Musing of an Ancient Soul<\/span><\/h1>\n

I was seventeen-years-old and one of my best friends at the time told me I had an ancient soul. He told me I came from another time and another place. At the time I found it off-putting; I didn\u2019t take it as a compliment. I tried to find a different soul and chose a lifestyle of which I\u2019m not proud. I did things then that were contrary to everything I knew to be right and good. I battled my ancient soul because I hated being different.<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019m far past seventeen now and I\u2019ve become comfortable with my ancient soul. I find peace and comfort in the little pleasures of life: a good book, watching the greening of spring, listening to the wind and imagining sailing on a vast ocean without a destination, or just watching people pass by. I never really fit in when I was seventeen and it made me uncomfortable then but it does not make me uncomfortable now.<\/span><\/p>\n

I see the world differently than others see it. I sometimes withdraw too far into myself and don\u2019t often give good people a chance. I have many faults \u2013 an ancient soul offers no protection from making mistakes or making misguided decisions.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sometimes I\u2019m the ancient mariner or the town crier or a baker of bread in a small colonial town. Most of the time though, I spend observing the behavior of people as they hurry from somewhere to somewhere else, and I am bewildered. People texting, taking pictures of themselves and others, updating their social networking pages or tweeting about some new coffee-based drink at Starbucks. They\u2019re connected 24\/7 \u2014 and seem so lost when they\u2019re not connected. I wonder what can possibly be so great about being connected to someone, sometimes anyone, all the time.<\/span><\/p>\n

Why is anything new, good, and everything old, bad? I just don\u2019t understand it. And I don\u2019t think I ever will. In order to supply us with all things new, the Earth is plundered and human beings exploited. The factories in China are alive with the sounds of misery and sadness, with the sounds of twelve-year-old children working fourteen-hour days, with the sounds of fathers and mothers working for $2.00 a day to make your next pair of $200 running shoes or your next smart phone or tablet\u2026 or laptop or PC\u2026or shirt, or pants, or\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019ll bet all these people I see rushing about today, texting and trying to stay constantly connected, don\u2019t really give a damn about who made their smart phone or tablet. They don\u2019t look into their screens and see the sweat and sadness of the children who toiled long days to make it; they don\u2019t give a thought about the sweat of mothers and fathers and children by whose hands the devices that connect them were made. They see only the smiling face of a new boyfriend or girlfriend \u2013 or the tweet from a \u201cfriend\u201d about the trendy new restaurant where they are having dinner.<\/span><\/p>\n

So abused and overused, the word friendship has lost its meaning; the word love is so ubiquitous that it means the same as the word like. To see and to be seen and never be disconnected from anyone is the new mobile mantra. The world is more and more about image we project and less and less about the substance within. Unfortunately, self-worth and self-esteem come from the outside and not from the inside in this new age.<\/span><\/p>\n

The fashions we wear, the shoes on our feet, and the devices that keep us connected to a loose and unfathomable web of \u201cfriends\u201d were almost certainly fashioned by the exploited poor and underprivileged. Our appetite for the things we desire and think we need create the hunger that those who pillage the Earth and destroy its beauty and exploit its people, happily and greedily feed.<\/span><\/p>\n

We live in the world of the instantaneous. There\u2019s an instant feel-good for everything. No one need suffer anything anymore \u2013 or at least for very long. For every pain or sorrow or ache technology offers a panacea. if we\u2019re hungry, there\u2019s instant food. If we\u2019re down, there\u2019s a pill for an instant up. If we\u2019re tired, there\u2019s an instant stimulant. If we\u2019re lonely all we need to do is create a profile on some dating site and perhaps, if our image is attractive enough, have our egos instantly assuaged and our loneliness cured by… anyone, someone; it doesn\u2019t matter who.<\/span><\/p>\n

And if our image is pleasant, as soon as our profile goes up, we get attention because someone \u2014 anyone \u2014 will connect with us and ease our emptiness and loneliness. Or so we think. And if the image we project is good or pretty enough, we will will never have to worry about anything substantial. Today’s world is a world of illusion and image \u2014 image is all that matters.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Attractiveness is the universal aphrodisiac.<\/span><\/p>\n

Yet, with all this instantaneous gratification available to us, many still end up empty and aching \u2014\u00a0 and don’t even know why. There is a hollowness to all this that is almost tangible to me. I feel it everywhere, as if we are all empty shells, all so worried about being filled with something, that we don\u2019t really stop and realize what we are being being filled with.<\/span><\/p>\n

We\u2019ve become slaves to the instant world that we\u2019ve created.<\/span><\/p>\n

But this age of instant everything created many new and deeper kinds of sadness and emptiness and it\u2019s contributing to an epidemic of low or no self-esteem. Loyalty means little, integrity is for moralists, the truth is malleable, fun is wherever you find it, instant gratification is a just smartphone app away. But there\u2019s one thing missing in this connected world and that is happiness. The more we seek instant happiness the more we discover how elusive it can be.<\/span><\/p>\n

We\u2019ve lost our ability to enjoy the pleasures of being alone. We are too busy with all our electronic toys we use to stay connected that we don’t stop to enjoy beauty of the world around us or the inner-peace that we can find in the serenity of silence and the quietness of being alone.<\/span><\/p>\n

We\u2019ve become addicted to being constantly connected. We\u2019ve become terrified of being alone. We\u2019ve forgotten how to love ourselves.<\/span><\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t see anyone today, who looked the least bit happy. Everyone seemed too busy staying connected to be happy. They seemed lost in a world that doesn\u2019t really exist and too busy to think about important things \u2014 like who made that iPhone they\u2019re using? What kind of miserable exploitation are those poor underpaid workers enduring. Do the people who build iPhones have enough to eat?<\/span><\/p>\n

If you mention this to someone they\u2019ll tell me there\u2019s nothing they can do about it \u2013 it\u2019s just how things are. They will hardly look up from there iPads or smartphones to give it any thought let alone give me a thoughtful answer. There\u2019s nothing I can do about it, it\u2019s just how things are.<\/span><\/p>\n

The exploitation of mankind didn\u2019t begin in this new age, but it is alive and growing in the sweatshops of China, Taiwan, Vietnam, and Indonesia. And the products of this immoral exploitation of children and of mothers and fathers end up in the hands of us, the connected. I wonder who is happier? The child in the sweatshop or the person with the smartphone? The child\u2019s unhappiness and sorrow is real and understandable and not by his or her own choice. Maybe that guy over there using his smartphone is unhappy because he didn\u2019t receive his daily quota of texts from his friends. Or the girl over there may be grieving because the guy she met yesterday hasn\u2019t messaged her yet today.<\/span><\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know the answer. All I know is the world makes less and less sense to me now than it did when I was seventeen. Maybe trying to behave the way everyone expected me to behave, insulated me for a while. But one thing is for sure – it never made me happy.<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s not that I haven\u2019t embraced technology. I have and I\u2019m very good with it. I know more about computers and the Internet than most. And I admit, I\u2019m a hypocrite because I\u2019m typing on a computer most likely made by some exploited person working fourteen-hour days in some inhumane and horrid sweatshop somewhere in this world. And I think \u2014 I\u2019m typing these words on that person’s tears.<\/span><\/p>\n

We\u2019re all hypocrites in a way. I am for sure, but I really don\u2019t want to be. If I could travel anywhere in time and space I\u2019d be living in the 18th century making candles or shoes or tending a general store. Or maybe, I’d be alone by the sea in a lighthouse keeping mariners safe from the rocky shoals some dark foggy night.<\/span><\/p>\n

I often wonder how much people would want to connect after spending the day washing laundry by hand, plowing fields with with plows pulled by mules, or canning enough vegetables to last a long, cold winter. I wonder if they would know themselves better. I wonder if they would become more comfortable with their own inner voice instead of needing the feedback of everyone else to feel worthwhile.<\/span><\/p>\n

The more I see of this new age, the less comfortable I am with it. Where can I find substance in this increasingly superficial world. It is no wonder so many people think that happiness has to be created from moment to moment, that happiness never seems to last. Happiness is created from moment to moment because it can be \u2014 technology has made it possible. But technology can’t bridge the gap from momentary to lasting.<\/span><\/p>\n

Yes, I\u2019m a hypocrite, but I don\u2019t want to be. I see a world disconnected even as its people become more connected. People seem lost in a vast maze of interconnectivity where everyone is connected but no one ever seems to really connect.<\/span><\/p>\n

New is better. Old is worse. That goes for everything \u2014 technology and people too. People aren\u2019t so willing to work out problems with their husbands or wives or girlfriends of boyfriends. If they aren\u2019t like we want them to be, we simply switch them out with a click. Not many stop and think that the new soon becomes the old and then, of course, we will have to switch them out again for something newer.<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019m typing this on a computer that was probably made in a dreary, dirty sweatshop. This instrument of technology was fashioned by tired hands of an exploited mother, father or child.<\/span><\/p>\n

Oh yes, I\u2019m a hypocrite too, I’m sorry to say.<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019m a hypocrite and I\u2019m not at all comfortable with it. I wish there were still lighthouse keepers \u2014 I\u2019d apply for a job right now. Alone in a lighthouse on the shore of a lake \u2014 with the sound of the waves would be the only connection I\u2019d need; I\u2019d be connected to the sea, connected connected to the Earth and connected to the universe. <\/span><\/p>\n

In the lighthouse, I’d be surrounded by good books. Glancing up from a page, I look out into a dark November night and see ships in the distance and feel my purpose. I\u2019m the one who will keep those ships safe, and prevent from running aground on the rocky reefs. <\/span><\/p>\n

Alone on the sea, but never lonely.<\/span><\/p>\n

In world where image is far more important than substance, I feel alone and isolated. Who understands the thoughts of an ancient soul?<\/span><\/p>\n

I have an ancient soul and it is restless and yearning.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And I know exactly why.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Musing of an Ancient Soul I was seventeen-years-old and one of my best friends at the time told me I had an ancient soul. He told me I came from another time and another place. At the time I found it off-putting; I didn\u2019t take it as a compliment. I tried to find a different soul and chose\u2026 Read More »<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13582,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[228],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16194"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16194"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16194\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16197,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16194\/revisions\/16197"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13582"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}