MMM...so meaty.

[Salty]

If there has been any one thing my, now defunct, career has taught me, in a very tactile way, it is this:

WE ARE ALL MEATBAGS.

I don't mean that as some kind of nihilism, some depressing, hopelessly existential moping of a confirmed misanthrope. When I first came to this realization I was relieved beyond measure. For once, after years of looking, I found the common denominator, and one so simple, so obvious I was amazed it took me so long to see it. Politics, religion, philosophy, ideology in general, while very important and as tangible as intellectual constructs can be (Their dream becomes Your reality, etc, etc.), have no affect on our meat in isolation. They are GAMES we (WE) highly developed animals play to pass the time and, more importantly, as a way to reach across the gulf of meat the separates us from one another.

It is a paradox that we are social creatures, yet one of the more common human circumstances is searing, vast, enduring loneliness. I think it's fairly safe to say that most people never really free themselves from this. There is always this gap, that only shared experience fills, and never for good.

Maybe this is why we're so prone to acts of violence to one another. Deep, deep down we want to connect in a physical way, to share that basic commonality in a socially acceptable way. Hugging is out for the most part, seen as the flippant circle-jerking action of the soft and weak. Touch, if sexual, is compartmentalized meticulously, or if platonic is either distrusted, paid for, or accepted so long as several qualifiers are met.

Why are we so reluctant to touch? Why are we repelled by the physical contact with one another as strangers and sometimes as more? Perhaps we fear the most common and all-accepted form:

A fist right on the nose or in the gut. Or a bullet ripping through flesh too fast to see, too quick to regret. Or, THE BEST: blind, thundering, all-destructive force unleashed from a safe distance brought on by a sanctified and authentic source of reason. Now THERE you've finally got something. Something we can all understand and sympathize with.

Make no mistake that we constantly seek to connect with one another on as tangible a scale as we can muster.

But that wasn't my point, just things as I see it.

My point is this:

There is ALWAYS this commonality. Meat.

And you can divide people into sheep, and cabbages, and zombies, and THEM, and US all you'd like.

But they're meat. And you're meat.

And that's okay. WORK WITH IT DAMMIT.

[Freeky]

 

[NotPublished]

ILOVEYOUALTY

[Jasper]

[ThatGreenGentleman]

 

Are we tasty meat bags?

[NotPublished]

Fine shredded chinese news paper quailty.

[Salty]

Are we tasty meat bags?

That I don't know. But I was told in school once that sharks, confusing us for seals, will take a bite and then spit us out. So, probably not. But then, sharks think raw seal is tasty.

[President Television]

I think you gave me an epiphany. I mean, I already had the idea that dehumanization was the worst aspect of humanity floating around in there, but sometimes it takes a bit of a push to make an idea click, and this was that push.

[nuclearcabbage]

communication is fun.
dont run. dont run.
enjoy each other, the moon, the sun.
enjoy life. enjoy the  JOY and the STRIFE.

(uh.., i tend to rhyme stuff even when its irrelevant..MAYBE its not irrelevant though, huh..?)

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Make no mistake that we constantly seek to connect with one another on as tangible a scale as we can muster.

But that wasn't my point, just things as I see it.

My point is this:

There is ALWAYS this commonality. Meat.

And you can divide people into sheep, and cabbages, and zombies, and THEM, and US all you'd like.

But they're meat. And you're meat.

And that's okay. WORK WITH IT DAMMIT.

I especially like this part.

[Salty]

I'm glad. I was trying to look for the good in all of this.

This went a long way to make me aware that I could not just compartmentalize people as my mood and experiences suited me. That, if nothing else, makes me happy I learned this skill.

[Jenne]

Love this one.

I used to listen to KFI AM 640 talkradio when I was zooming on the weekends between Santa Barbara (where I was getting my BA) and Irvine (where my husband was getting his MD) through Los Angeles.  There was this guy on the weekends who talked about figuring out once he survived a brain tumor that we're all just MEAT.  Just so much MEAT.  I found this concept intriguing (this was the early-90's, for time perspective), and found it apt when I was giving birth, and they were cutting into me to extract more meat. 

When you have something medical happen to you, this prospect just hits home so much more than anything esoteric on a spiritual level.  I think it saved my husband from a small bit of insanity when he was going through his ordeal 3 years ago with aplastic anemia.