Yesterday I wrote about how relocating pockets of poverty stricken members of American minorities has failed to lift most of them out of poverty. Which was just the beginning of what I wanted to say. I had a point. I still have a point. I always have a point. I just don’t often get to expound upon my points. Thoughts, which comprise points, are easy to come by. Words require a bit of work and, as we all know, work can be tricky.

What happens when you write, or maybe it’s just when I write, is that I have a logical string in my head: A + B =C, C + D = E, E + F = G, and once I get to G, Bob’s your uncle!

Except that writing down anything brings more to mind than the simple logical string that set off the work of writing. Oh, sure, I have enough self-discipline to do it, but so many interesting things come up. See? Thoughts=easy. Work=tricky.

And then there’s the problem of explaining exactly how we moved through “a + b + c = A,” and all the other steps that get us to “= G.” How many of the interim steps do I need to include to explain my point to, say, 20% of my potential readers?

You see, simply saying, “You are already so f***ed,” doesn’t explain to anybody HOW they’re f***ed, what steps led to their getting that way, what that f***edness entails, and, most important detail of all, why it’s in their interest not to simply relax into that f***ed state and enjoy the numbness of it.

Yeah, those of you who have noticed some stuff and would like to be helpful to your fellow humans by passing along what you’ve noticed, you people with thoughts that you try to write down, you know what I’m talking about. You sensitive souls who would prefer not to watch millions of humans get turned into fertilizer by the Atilla the Huns, Pol Pots, Idi Amins, and Hitlers of today’s world, you know what I’m talking about.

How do you say, “I’ve occasionally paid attention to the world, I might have lived longer than you, I’ve noticed some stuff I’m afraid you haven’t seen yet, maybe won’t ever see unless an uninvited guide intrudes into your life to point out the stuff that could get you f***ed”? How do you do that? How do you keep on doing that when few care, and only some of those understand, and even fewer of those will make the effort to save themselves or anyone else?

I don’t know. To me, and me alone because I can’t speak for anyone else, it feels like I’m being compelled to write by some force outside myself. I find it difficult to imagine that I have this much strength and stamina in the face of unending defeat. Maybe I do have that strength and determination inside myself, maybe I do compel myself. But, frankly, it isn’t important if it’s me or aliens, or CIA mind control, or angels, or the collective unconscious, or my “own inner knowing” that compels me to speak. It has to be done, and I’m one of the ones who has to do it, instead of lying back and enjoying the numbness of being just like everyone else.

The ego is the part of a human that says, “Why me?” However, the part of an individual that is permanently connected to the rest of humanity is the part that tries to be obedient to any force which is trying to help, not profit off of, humanity. And I do not profit. Mind you, I’m not looking to get f***ed! But it’s far too late for me to change a lifetime’s attitude and begin to seek to profit.

So, here I am, trying to help lift whatever part of humanity may happen to be within earshot when I speak some truth. I’m not surprised, hurt, disappointed or angry if nobody gets it today. I have to do it anyway, on the off chance that today, tomorrow, next year, sometime, someone will hear a truth they didn’t already know.

Where do I find the truth I try to speak? Part is in my experience. Part is in my endless search for truth. Part is in whatever benign spirit speaks in my heart, without benefitting me before and above others.

Am I right? I don’t need to be right. Ego needs to be right. I’ve been down that road. Searching for “being right” has silenced most human beings who’ve ever heard the truth and didn’t speak. All I need to do is speak the truth when I hear it. The work of divining truth from what I say is up to the hearer, as it has been up to me to divine truth from what I hear.

I don’t need to present credentials, footnotes, or the stamp of approval from any peer committee. I don’t need to change hearts or minds. I don’t need to get out any particular message. I don’t need to win converts. I don’t need to drum up donations. I have no cause to support. I don’t need to save the world.

All I have to do is tell the truth and let him who has ears hear what I say.

And, on my, that is a life’s work that no single one of us can ever complete. You see, there’s a chain of us seekers and speakers, going back to the beginning of time. The mad, the spiritual, the prophets, the outcasts, and yes, sometimes even the crucified, sometimes even the deceived, we come and go, universally unheeded, we come in every age and time. And it seems nobody listens, and we die. And more like us come.

But, sometimes, somebody listens, hears the truth, and begins their own journey. That happens because, I promise you, it is the destiny of humanity to eventually, and finally, produce the hundredth monkey.

As long as we believe, individually and collectively, that the one and only reason each of us is born is to play out our individual lives, learn our individual lessons, we will remain prisoners in our bodies, in our minds, in this matrix, on this planet.

I will do my part to turn you into the hundredth monkey. Then you must do your part to turn as many people as you can into the hundredth monkey. The harder we work at it, the more people each of us speaks to, the sooner we will all be free.

But, we can never be free individually. I had to listen. You have to listen. I spoke. You will speak. We go on in a long line, listening then speaking, until the day that there is only one of us who hasn’t yet heard. When that final one hears the truth, and begins to speak it, those spoken words will be revealed as the magical incantation, the abracadabra of ancient legends, that will set all of us free forever.

Here’s the deal: I don’t lie, I have nothing to gain, and I will definitely die before the hundredth monkey is even born. I’m simply a link in the middle of a chain that’s been going on for millions of years, a chain that does have an end, a strong chain that neither heaven nor hell, man or demon, good or evil can stop or break or bend.

Work to create the hundredth monkey. That’s your purpose in life, to set us all free.

Or, wait for someone else to do it, Make your life dependent on the good will of strangers, who may or may not have your best interests at heart. Don’t help anyone. Don’t listen for truth. Don’t look for truth. Live and die in the misery of your ignorance, waiting, waiting, for someone else to do it.

In the beginning was the word, and so it shall also be at the end of the beginning, when the hundredth monkey speaks.

July 1, 2008