Enculturation

Enculturation

Enculturation is the process by which people learn the dynamics of their surrounding culture and acquire values and norms appropriate or necessary to that culture and its worldviews. As part of this process, the influences that limit, direct, or shape the individual (whether deliberately or not) include parents, other adults, and peers. If successful, enculturation results in competence in the language, values, and rituals of the culture.” wikipedia

Is it possible that you do not fully understand the profundity of enculturation? I think it is. In fact, I think it is probably the largest failing of the human species in its entire history and today. If people fully understood it, the world would not have transpired as it has. If people realize it today, the future will take a sharp turn, and for the better.

Maybe we needed to be enculturated. I don’t know. It could even be that we still need to have our “values and norms” written into us. I think it may serve a purpose I cannot understand or detect. Who know? I was subjected to it just like everyone else. Maybe I am just a product of it. Anything is possible. On the other hand, I had a dramatic experience in 1971 that could have broken me out of it.

I have written extensively about my experience way back then. I have lived blissfully since, so I am glad it happened. One thing about being blissful is the lack of company. I have spent all my life since that day trying to help everyone or anyone become as blissful as I am or more. I have had to learn a lot, and there is still so much to learn I realize I cannot. I am seventy years old right now, 2020, and worried about the survival of life on this planet.

I think we are perilously close to exploding a lot of nuclear bombs. Then there is the ungodly volume of nuclear waste precariously sitting somewhere. Even human caused changes to the atmosphere threaten. Even if we avoid such pitfalls and even if I live to five hundred years old, I probably couldn’t learn enough. There is a not of accumulated knowledge.

I have boiled what I know down to a few points that I think will help. This post is to that end. If we can realize that we are not really independent individuals, it might help. We have to realize that we have been enculturated, (sometimes spelled acculturated) and find ways to become better. It is not enough to parrot our culture. We are in dire need of new ways.

I am convinced that by letting love become what it can within you, that you will be “reborn” in some way. I rather like to think of it as a way to rise above programming, the programming that is also known as enculturation. Doing so makes it possible to recreate ourselves as we would like to be. Love has an effect, at least it did on me, that could be the same for everyone. The problem is that love is different for everyone.

“Love is love and not fade away.” That lyric is a revision of the original Buddy Holly song. The Rolling Stones revised it this way. It says to me that love is love and is does not fade. There are probably as many version of love as there are people. We need a more concreted definition. I don’t know what it would be. I can tell you this, there is a love that can put you into a bliss that will not fade, cannot be destroyed, and comes with so many wonderful effects I cannot list them. That is the love we need. Maybe I was luck, or maybe something caused it for me. Regardless, my experience revealed it, to me at least. I was dramatically transformed.

As the experience unfolded, and there must have been about fifteen minutes involved, I felt myself to be an infant suspended in the air above my twenty-year old body looking down at myself. I realized that I was not a product of my own creation, that I was just full of crap unable to explain most of what I was and what I thought. It was very realistic. I was an infant looking down at me. Subsequent reading has made me aware of “out-of-body” experiences. Well, I was having one, I think, but I was in a body, a baby body. From there I decided I had to start over.

I made a decision to remake myself as I thought I want to be. I was not very old, so there was not a lot to redo. I reentered my body and was almost instantly launched into a feeling of overwhelming joy. It was so powerful I thought my heart would fail. So, I went to the sink and splashed water on my face and calmed down. Since that night, I have lived in the joy that frightened me so much I thought I couldn’t handle it. I call it bliss. I wish it for all.

The years since then are beyond this post. I just want to say that my original intent was to love everyone in the world the way I loved a girl. I loved her so much she was far more important to me than I was to myself. She caught me when I was fifteen and broke up with me two months later. Then she took me back. That happened six times. When I wanted to see if loving everyone was The Answer, I asked myself what is love. I chose the love I had for that girl. I think that was a key element in my transformation. It has evolved a lot.

I now love all living things, the world, the universe, everything that has ever happened, everything that is happening, God, and everything else. What ever that is. It is unconditional love. It has no “because.” It needs no recipient. It needs no return. It is just a general and dominating love. I could write a book about it. Perhaps I will someday. Unconditional love is exactly what the word implies. It makes it possible to love the worst of humans. It makes it possible to understand that everything is unfolding the way it has to. It also makes it possible to influence the way things unfold. That is what I am doing right now.

I hope that it will not be necessary to explode the nukes. I hope and intend. We have to act. Life demands breathing and many other things. This proves the necessity to act. Beyond that the necessity to act becomes so complicated it has defied human consciousness for thousands of years at least. Even doing nothing is an act. If we must act, we must have the power to influence things. If we have the power to influence things whether we do so intentionally or not, I choose intentional. All I want is the total fulfillment of every living thing and a lot more. I will not settle for less. If you knew what I hope for, you would likely write me off. So, I will keep some to myself. I’ll add this, I don’t want anything that is not the absolute best I can hope for for everyone and everything. I am a close son of God. So, I trust him. I do not feel separate from God. I think we can act to assist him. I think we urgently to act. Even if all things blow up, it is not the end, but I don’t want to take that path. We don’t have to. It is really up to us, all of us. I can’t do it alone. Join me.

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