I’ve just finished a biography about  Giordano Bruno  by Ingrid D. Rowland

Giordano was a friar, a writer, a poet and Bruno believed that the Universe was infinite at a time when the understanding of the Universe was somewhat sketchy and that sketchy view was the accepted view.

Giordano studied and contemplated and wrote papers and poetry about the Universe and the Earth and God- and at the point he actually went out into the world and experienced it- the good and the very worst that humanity had to offer- Bruno had been  willing to accept it as it was as it was.

It happened that after studying  with other well heeled young men who were sent to be schooled in a religious order in Philosophy and religion, and law some of his fellow students ended up with keys to the tavern next door and apparently did  they not only carry weapons they carried on with the local ladies too.

Maybe it was at this point Bruno began to realize that people and the world were bigger and less easy to define then he may have concluded.

It took some time but eventually Bruno made the leap from observing the world to participating in it because it was no longer fine and acceptable as it was.

In the end Bruno was burned as a heretic because one of the charges leveled at him was that he did not believe that the bread and wine he took at communion was actually flesh and blood.

An institution demanded blind obedience from him- if he was told that wine was blood and bread was flesh, that’s what you saw and that’s what you tasted and to deny that was to deny God.  End of story. Full stop.

The tragedy was, Bruno was a man of faith and he did see God in all things. It’s just that what he saw was different from the accepted vision.

Now days we are being told that we need to deny what our own eyes see and that unless we see the common accepted vision we are ” Libtards ” or “Uppity “. We are  silly ignorant dupes that have been conned by Scientists and Professors and Teachers.

The common vision being put forth where I live  dictates absolute obedience to a dream world spun into existence by a man and his followers who treat  people who are different from their shared fantasy  as obstacles that they must subjugate in order to have their more perfect union.

So I can rage against this- and I have.  I can back a candidate to the hilt for President and hope for the best. I can keep up with current events.

Or I can do what I have been doing.

I read, I listen to music, I enjoy art and I write. I have been doing that more then I ever because I want to remember that there are good things in this world  and these things deserve my time and attention.

I’m not ignoring that the world is an ugly, vicious place. I will not deny that I have severed friendships with a sense of malicious pleasure because I have zero inclination to ‘listen to the other side.”

Like  Bruno I have come to a time in my life when accepting and working with the world with patience and understanding as it is,  is no longer acceptable to me.

I’ve made that decision because “listening to the other side”  will only work when you’re serious about learning something new with respect and a sense of decorum or you are passionate about becoming enlightened about a topic and frankly, I’m not seeing any of that in the ‘conversations’ people want to have with me.

So why did I chose the picture at the top of this piece? This silly picture of UFO and  Bigfoot riding the Lochness Monster as he apparently flips off the photographer?

I chose it because  the Universe is an infinite place and within that infinite space anything is possible and unless you stay flexible to that reality it’s not going to be a happy place for you.

If you’re going to demand the Universe bend to your will in a predictable way-through politics or crystals or herbs or religion, I’m sure it’s not going to work.

My view is most certainly  not based science, but I think that is how we all got to this cage we are in now.

amm

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