Speaking Up – Me Two

Speaking Up – Me Two

The Alchemy of Karma

Okay – “The times they are a’ changin’” – (Bob Dylan circa; a long time ago).  I was just reading bulletins from several very high-profile female Legislators, in addition to all the female actors.  Harassment!  Sexual Harassment!   Of course, this is a very important and long-time needed concern.  Totally legitimate.  Courageous and brave.  Needed to happen.

What these high-profile people have begun to include in their messages, is that it is time for men to speak up.  … ! …  I, as an old man, sincerely don’t see much of that happening.  And, I have found, so often in life, even if you might have a different angle on a topic, such as this, that is so HOT!  You can be totally crucified!!  Yes, if you say, “Well, what about this, or that?”  If it is not in complete and total agreement with whatever justifiable cause is involved, you are tarred, feathered and set adrift on a log, in a raging river, just above the falls.

But, as I am in complete agreement with what these women are saying, I just have to make a couple of points.  First – there are millenniums (sp- thousands) of years of tracked and trained-in behaviors, culturally imprinted expectations.  For my own part, my own mother was a terrible homophobe.  She had very deliberate notions of what men did and what women did – or were supposed to do.  And, her homophobia was really weird and disjointed.  She loved several movie stars and musical performers that everybody knew were gay, except her, and she would never accept it!  So for my own behavior, as a young boy and young man, was definitely tracked.  Any shade of femininity was seen as bad, very bad.  And, treated as such with a good dose of ridicule.

When your mother ridicules you, when you are a child, you remember it.  My father never cared, or seemed to care.  He loved jokes and humor and could really shed the tears when his heart was moved.  He never tried to hide his emotions when they were strong.  What I mean here is I was raised, tracked, into a strong sense of what was manly and what was girly.  And, I was not allowed to be anyway kind of girly.  But, I was allowed to show emotion under extreme circumstances.  Many young boys and men do not get that.  Succinctly, there is no balance in their lives from their earliest days.

So – let’s just say a young man is raised in a manner without balance.  He’s not attractive, as men go (I guess).  All his youth, he does not attract girls or women (or men if he is gay).  In fact he is seen as kind of a social looser and treated that way.  However, he is smart, clever and, unknown to most, very very talented.  Time passes, maybe he’s almost thirty before he has his first sexual experience.  Maybe also, by this time he has really been successful in some way.  Made a whole big chunk of money and moved into a position of huge influence, very quickly.

Everybody, men and women, are attracted to money, fame and success.  Whether business or entertainment or the entertainment business, there is crushing competition.  And, here he is, the big looser, at the top of the food chain (all of a sudden).  Suddenly he’s got more friends than he can manage.  He says “jump!” and dozens of people all jump and keep jumping until he tells them to stop.  And, during the period of cultural history when this is occurring, there do not seem to be rules, or anyone with enough position or courage to keep his behavior proper and moral, well … he goes way off the rails. 

Soon he’s not just telling people to jump! , he’s telling, he’s demanding them to do things that are simply wrong, immoral and, worse yet, demeaning.  He has, through the alchemy of karma gone from a quiet, maybe a nice guy, looser, to his wildest dream of a superhero (in his own mind).  There are dozens of persons, who suddenly are willing to do anything he asks them to do.  Persons, who previously would have recoiled in disgust from any advance he made, are now his playthings.  AND then, there are those who are in his circle of life, job or distant social community, who might have to work with him – for him – that are just not interested in him in any other way than what is required by that job, or social connection.

He has never learned to know the difference, to spot the difference, let alone accept that difference.  Part of his simple-minded make-up is getting even.  NONE  of any of this justifies his abusive behavior and when the hammer falls on him because of actions he has committed, well … once again that’s the alchemy of karma.  “What goes around comes around.”  And, what happens to these persons should be a life lesson for others.  Life and career destroyed, maybe even some incarceration time.  The big payback and “payback is a bitch”. 

The cancer comes back to the act of bullying.  Those in a position to override the decent behavior expected of all of us, do so.  Over and over again.  It often, historically, takes a wave of serfs to overwhelm the oligarchy of a few – and, most often, there is heavy bloodshed. 

Every citizen in every country has, most often, very strong identity expectations placed on them and yet times change.  Sometimes times change so dramatically that everything, everything, gets hugely out of whack.  What was not only acceptable in one generation, but encouraged, is totally unacceptable and even contemptible in the very next generation.  What was accepted as just a bump, or mole, in one generation is discovered, by the next generation, to actually be one of those cancers.

I would say you can cure cancer with treatment and medication, sometimes very dire and seriously dehumanizing treatments, but you can cure it.  It is done thousands of times a day, around the world.  You can also stop cancer – with a strategically placed bullet.  Simple morality would indicate that the former is the first choice.  Immorality would choose the second.  And, what we have here overall is not just a matter of the powerful using their power to take immoral advantage over the less powerful.  In one instance.  That is sexually.  Which is where the oo-waa stigma, “can’t talk about it” is off course.

It occurs to me, that, as a culture (maybe even a species) we are going through the treatment to cure a cancer.  It is painful, it is somewhat dehumanizing for the perpetrators, and more so for the brave victims who come forward.  However, if we do do our best to hold onto our best moral intentions, we can -?- find a cure and implement it.

{Author’s note: I realize this piece kind of wanders around a bit.  I’ll work on it and maybe get to a better solution, conclusion at a later time (?).