Let me introduce you to yourself!
James R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.
© June 1, 2015
NOTE:
A READER WRITES:
Dear Dr. Fisher,
A good handle to grip drawing your
books together. Going against the grain
is innate for me. I never have
understood why this seems so strong a facet, almost a rage, leading me to very
interesting experiences. Guess why my educational life blew apart as followed
what interested me, not what collectively garnered me a degree. What you write defines YOU and gives pause to
others to examine, consider, more so than to follow.
A Reader
DR. FISHER RESPONDS:
Dear Reader,
Your words are very kind, and truly
meaningful, not because they define me, but as you imply, define you, the reader.
A writer in this genre for many years,
my deepest motivation has been to introduce the reader to him or herself
through the most intimate means available, by expressing myself.
For whatever reason, and it might be as
simple as the early trauma in my life, for with the exception of my
Catholicism, I have questioned nearly everything told to me as true or
important or necessary or for my own good.
Then, alas, ultimately, my Catholicism was questioned, but not before I experienced a good bit of life.
My sense is that I've not always been an easy soul to work
with, work for, or simply hang out with.
Perhaps that is because I have never made it easy for living in the lie, or believing the lie,
or promulgating the lie that is our cultural programming.
As I'm sure you know, for people who
understand what they are and what they are not, when exposed to people who wrap
themselves in the lie, they are as obvious as if dressed in a suit of clothes that leaves them naked.
Yet, these people wrapped in the lie are likely to prance about in the latest fashion of the lie with perfect aplomb.
Nature doesn't lie for Nature doesn't
have a conscience.
Nature is, and as you clearly show you embrace Nature and
find warmth and comfort and solace in Nature, living in consort with Nature and not opposed to Nature.
In man's maniacal conquest of nature, man's human nature has
become, paradoxically, his prison (see Who Put You in the Cage?).
In this book, I write about this prison, the prison
of the hubris of technology, a world of towering skyscrapers and egos, and
diminishing souls.
Nature is about equilibrium and not about dominance.
As a consequence of this ignorance, we are not happy campers. We have lost our moral compass and our way.
The irony is that the more we celebrate this loss with man's triumphs the more concretely our self-alienation is confirmed.
Some have taken this position of mine
as my being contrary for contrary's sake, which is not at all true.
Others see me as eccentric, different, which is equally amusing, as I take this to mean that second, third or fourth degree sources have more
validity then their own experiences.
Life is beautiful and people everywhere
are beautiful. For whatever reason, however, our attention through media is on the few who are not
beautiful but grotesquely despicable. Why is that?
You know of what I speak because you
are your own person, and have had the beauty, the pain, the struggle and the
joy of that journey.
Were a bird not to go against the grain
and embrace the wind, it would not fly.
To rise above ourselves requires we embrace our fears, but as the world
we see today at every level, our fears are not embraced.
Instead, there is a frantic retreat from our fears, and so we
grovel in our own and other people's mischief and are consumed with vicarious and gratuitous violence as entertainment.
In another age, this might be considered a sickness, but today it is the norm.
My books in this genre are about people struggling with these matters, people who identify themselves with some kind of work, work that is love made visible.
Work has gotten a bad name, and many people
will do anything to avoid work, working harder to avoid work than to find joy
in work.
We have created a society of high tech,
mid-tech and low tech, and no place for the majority of souls who fail to fit
in any of these categories, people without skills, without education, without a
sense of personal dignity, people who are self-haters,, self-abusers, people treated as
non-persons and dregs of society.
I identify with these dregs. So, I suppose -- with the exception of a few
people such as yourself -- there is little point in listening to what I have to
say. But that is all right. I see myself as their conscience and not apart from them.
Be always well,
Jim
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