Cows

We can learn something by observing the behavior of cows. They are habitual animals, arriving, departing, gathering, and eating because they did so yesterday. They take shelter in the barn at the same time every day. One day the barn roof begins to leak. It leaks more and more until it offers little or no shelter. The cows continue to gather in the barn.
Our social structure has many leaks, and fails to shelter adequately many of its members. The leaks have grown, but we continue to try to collect under the same structure. Why do we do this? Because is exists? Is it easier than building a new system? What we must begin to question is the design of society (the barn). Is there only one way, the way with which we are familiar to build a social structure? Why is it leaking? From poor maintenance? Partially. Primarily it stems originally from poor design.
We are aware of the imbalances and injustices in the racial, class, economic, and gender structures. We spend hours and hours and billions of dollars studying and commenting on the breakdowns, the shortcomings, the hierarchies of society, but what has changed in the last several hundred years? Nothing. Oppression still exists. War still exists. Decadent wealth and poverty live side by side in the same cities. Inequality under the law prevails. Why?
Because quite simply there is a struggle for power. We have come to believe that if we don’t win we will lose, that we have only two groups to choose from: the oppressed and the oppressors. No one likes to admit that as “wealth” increases for one group, poverty increases for the other. We are either controlled or controllers in every aspect of our lives. It is a system of competition and survival of the fittest.
We have also forgotten the idea of the collective. We are entities in society, the individual and the collective mutually dependent. As one develops so does the other. As one backslides or stagnates, so does the other. To oppress another individual oppresses us all. And energy spent oppressing and controlling is energy tied up and not being used to make our own connection.
Consequently, what seriously needs to be addressed and questioned is the issue of our quest for power. This is the barn that won’t keep out the rain and won’t support the cows fighting to find a place – the best place – inside.
{Gathered thoughts}
Sifu Hayes
Silent River Kung Fu, Stony Plain, Alberta, Canada www.silentriverkungfu.com