The Rock of Sunset
A close up photo of a dry stone wall. The stones are in various shades of copper, brown, and black. The central stone has a darker band running along the bottom which looks like the sea, and above it a copper sunset sky with a dark black cloud on the horizon to the right.
As you can see, this rock contains the sunset. Apparently, if you are willing to stand there long enough, it might even become the sunrise. But I’m an impatient sort, so for me, it was only ever the sunset. A nice one though, don’t you agree?
I was on a journey from one there to another along the North Downs Way when I found it. After about five minutes of a captivated stare (and the occasional cautious caress), I felt my corporeal existence waning. My body seemed to melt away and then, the next thing I knew, I was on a small boat on that sea, sailing towards that giant black cloud on the horizon. I realised that I was dying, but at the time, I didn’t seem to mind that at all.
As I sailed, all manner of strange beasties jumped out of the sea and over the bow of my boat. At first they said nothing save their splishing and splashing conversation with the sea. But, as I drew closer to the cloud, their voices seem to rise, first as a murmur and then more loud and forcefully.
The beasties were chimera of various sorts: fish mixed with dragons mixed with toads, or rainbows mixed with seaweed mixed with flint. That kind of thing: things we have not seen before and things we will never see again. Starlight mixed with tissues mixed with orchids. Emeralds mixed with olive oil mixed with snow. All of them, to a one, with wings.
At first their voices seemed like syllables, and I wondered if I should string them together to understand what was being said. But, as I drew closer, I realised that each of the beasties had a story to tell me, and were simply speaking incredibly quickly to ensure I heard it. My boat, after all, was small, so they had a limited amount of time in the air as they cleared it.
I was not prepared to have come that far and not to have heard the stories, so I spoke to the wind and I slowed my boat right down so that I might listen to each beastie’s tale. I’m not too proud to tell you that a third were ‘coulda-shoulda’s’, another third were ‘maybe-baby’s’, and the rest were, well, the rest I forget because they were all ‘be here nows’.
Eventually, an elephant mixed with a manual mixed with a mountain arose from the ocean before me. His wings were so vast that the wind from their beating brought my boat to a halt. I knew then, that this was my king beastie, and I shall call him Eliphanualtain.
Eliphanualtain reached forward, grabbed my tongue, and unzipped me mouth to chest. A thousand birds broke free from my throat and lined up before him to have their own chests unzipped. From deep within the birds flew vials and butterflies, words and ideas, colours and sounds, feelings and impressions: all of the millions of things which comprise me.
Eliphanualtain told me that I should arrange all the things into a new story, an urgent story, my story: the story I see so clearly and which I have a duty to dispatch. A story which is the plain and honest truth and the disguise will simply be in the telling. A story which, in its bare bones, is this.
We don’t have to have this life, this society, this world; this hierarchy of ‘haves’ and ‘have nots’ which impoverishes all but the maximal ‘haves’. Crucially, whilst this fact is (deliberately) obscured, you should know that the power and impetus to end the inequality lies exclusively in the hands of the ‘have nots’. Firstly, because only we have a reason to end it; secondly, and more importantly, because it is we who sustain the inequalities through our labour and our subscription to the myth of what might have once been called capitalism. If we withdraw our labour, what exists to hold the inequalities up?
It is our labour which allows for the boot to weigh heavy on our back. Every morning, we line ourselves up underneath it. Glad only that the foot seems to weigh less heavily on us than it does our neighbour. Hoping that our service to the boot might one day mean our children get to wear it.
We labour so much and for so long because we believe that it matters, that it is our way to less scratching and scraping. We believe that the way to a meaningful life is to have all the things the ‘haves’ have, but it isn’t, that’s a deliberately contrived con. In fact, it is our subjection, and subscription, to materialist and consumerist outlooks which cause our lives to operate as no more than an economic conduit. We stand there, our arms extended as if nailed to a cross. One arm receives a paltry sum for the time we have rented out to the highest bidder. The money passes through our body, imparting a fraction of life and energy, and immediately flows out the other arm to our landlords, supermarkets, and utility firms…
Life is more than this.
You are more than this.
We are more than this.
The truth is that we want what we see. This is why the ‘haves’ hold you captive with stories of their lives. They need you to believe that you can become a ‘have’ so that you continue your strivings which sustain the world just as it is: where they are a ‘have’ and you dream of how get there. One day, maybe, or perhaps yet your child.
Yet, if you got up off your chair, walked way from your screen, got out into nature and experienced the wonder, beauty, and awe of the earth, you’d start to realise that your time is more valuable and nourishing than any fancy car or designer bag. Really, why are you bothering?
This is not a call to strike, nor to unionise. Those actions have long since been coopted. This is instead a call to tools down. This is a call to use our knowledge of the system to end it. And by end it, I mean walk out and watch it implode under the weight of itself. It is a call to collaborate with your customers and not your bosses. We are the ones with the knowledge and the power to surreptitiously wipe the debts of struggling customers, for instance. This is a call to turn your dreams into something new: a life which is finally yours for the living. The Dreamtime of the twenty-first century is a nightmare sustained only by our acceptance. I say it is time to reject. Say no. Stop doing. Let go.
We are the enforcers of inequality. We are the reinforcers of the status quo. We are the ones which make it so that a family gets into debt for simply being warm. For simply eating. We are the ones who collect on the debt for our masters, motivated by our fear of being the one who wants even more than us. We turn on each other, enforcing the master’s rules, impoverishing each other, all the while buffing and polishing the boot on our back.
The truth is, we want what we see. So what are you looking at? An unattainable future wealth which is destructive to the planet, or a red kite wheeling in the sky above you? If you want your freedom, you have to start choosing to take it. Piece by piece, moment by moment, grab the play of light on leaves, the wind on your face, and the orange of the sunrise. Be here now with all its beauty. It is here, I swear it.
The more you see your freedom, the more you will want it and that’s why they trick you into ignoring it. That’s why they keep you distracted and discordant and divisive. That’s why they keep you believing that if you work hard enough, if you strive enough, if you try hard enough, you will eventually have the wealth to have the time to peacefully watch shadows stretch and elongate in the stillness of a late summer sun.
Well, I’m here to tell you that the truth is, you had them all along.
Take it.