*Here are the results of thoughts bounced around between Kalabhairava and Mahakali over some kaf…*
If culture is determined by geography, and geography determines all beings’ capacity to obtain the resources necessary for the surplus that drives culture...
... then how can any particular group of people claim ownership or authority of any sort of conditioned spatio-temporal response? How can any one culture have a monopoly over rice, wheat, or maize cultivation, and the lifestyles supported therein?
What is that?
Or conversely, what is it called when Egyptians wear jeans, or when Americans chant mantras? Or when French calligraphers practice Japanese calligraphy, or anyone besides Africans drinks coffee?
What is this?
All of these lifeways belong to life- and the Gifts of Life have never been limited to any one human experience, or even human experience as a whole. If we are attentive to this flow, we find what binds all life- human and not: the Force.
This idea of “that which is conducive to” and “that which is not conducive to life” is precisely this momentum that distinguishes the textures of our shared path, and yet, don’t we find a middle ground?
And further, in this shared world, who is anyone to dictate another person’s response to such a natural exchange? How much more useful and productive it is to ponder what is being shared and what is not! The amount of insight gained from such meditations are valuable beyond measure- so much so because it is attained by our own effort.
A proposal: when faced with instances of such nebulous ideas such as “colonialism”, “cultural appropriation” and “racism”, perhaps a Jedi response could be to meditate upon the mystic center upon which such things revolve...
“Is this conducive or not to the flow of the Force?”
“What balance is afforded to such an exchange?”
“How do I respond to this flowering of culture?”
Until then, f*** off with all the High Horses and knee-jerk responses and go meditate..
