Language, Action, and Human Rights, v1

God creating according to Michaelangelo

I’m no Bible scholar, but I do know that a whole lot of the psyche of the industrialized West is immersed in the Judeo-Christian myth, or mythology, if you’d rather. This is terribly important in politics, sociology, economics, medicine, community building, organizing, media, interpersonal relationships, international relations – you name it, because on a cellular level we do know that we have built our reality by speaking it into being.

Let me explain: allegedly, the means of creation God used was “the word”. God just went “Let there be light”, and we had light. Apparently, God just went “let’s have some sky, some land, some animals, some plants, a couple of birds, maybe a few clouds” and the whole thing manifested. Damn.

Many people in our culture believe this story, many deeply respect the beautiful metaphor, many couldn’t give a rat’s ass either way. But I bring it to your attention because it IS the genesis story of this culture and it is in the collective subconscious whether we like it or not.

Now, as I said, I haven’t studied the Bible in detail, but I don’t need to in order to know that there is real power in language. I am absolutely certain we speak reality into being. And the current reality for humans, while it has some very optimistic streaks, looks bleak AF in many ways.

So how can we use our creative powers to make this place at least marginally better for most of us? The thing is, because we are kinda God, but not really, we can’t just speak reality into being without following our words with a shitton of action. That’s right, we have a super peculiar talent to handle our affairs here on Earth: action.

That’s why this is not a lecture on the power of language, although language is powerful, or about how if we only thought happier thoughts we would all be happy (that is for the privileged few who think “The Secret” works for them because they have done “the work” rather than because the system favors them profoundly – although “the work” does work – but we’ll get to that some other time).

No. This is a call to ACTION, to take the responsibility that we all have as humans to take care of each other and the Earth and future generations. That’s just part of the deal – we need to show up fully as humans, claim all of our human rights, and in return, offer all of the action in taking responsibility to ensure that all others also get a fair shot at the right to freedom of thought, expression, assembly, family, all the things that come out of agreeing that “all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights”.

A world with enough for all necessitates a deep respect for the concept of human rights. In defense of human rights, it’s a profoundly spiritual concept. We accept it as an axiom. The fact that we are alive on Earth should mean that we have a shot at a decent life, no need to justify ourselves, or deserve it, or earn it. You show up on Earth? Congrats, here’s your chance at a decent life. Everybody that is alive on Earth today is good enough to be alive on Earth today, whether we like it or not, and it is our purpose to ensure we can all have a decent ride here on the rock on and not get in each other’s way. And we do that by taking right action. What that means is wildly varied, but right thought or right intention will only takes us so far. So go DO something that will love someone up, or make their day better, or dismantle the heteropatriarchal system that’s killing us all. Have a great week!