gods

They’re Not Gods

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I was walking near the ocean recently, and just in awe of the power in front of me. There on the coast, water stretching to the horizon, I felt what men had felt since they first looked out upon it: awe. It was beautiful, powerful, otherworldly. That’s the moment you understand gods and how people relate to them.

The power runs deep, and you give it a name to talk to it.

This led me, sadly, to less theistic pursuits as I contemplated the men who would act as gods. Titans of industry, dictators, Influencers, and the like. People high on power who act as if they are geniuses, are divinely touched, as if they can steer the world. But they’re not gods, not at all.

They don’t love their element, their domain. Do they delight in the play of clouds as a sky-god would or feel desert winds in their blood? Are the creatures of their territory something they protect, bringing curses on the disrespectful? Do they adore something so much they are it?

No, they’re people who own, who want to hold it in their hand, but not care or respect, or be.

They don’t wield real power, there’s no divinity, or the mystic virtue, Te of the Tao Te Ching. They use existing systems and hacks and PR teams and the like. Many of them are people who, quite frankly, would be irritating to deal with, and only got lucky or had an inheritance. All seem small, desperately clinging to power, to the system they learned to manipulate, kowtowing easily.

There’s no power there. I can at least think of some scientists and businesspeople and philosophers who had a spark, a confidence, a power. These false gods don’t.

Can these aspiring godlings be actually loved, or appreciated beyond syncophanty and propaganda? They’re not anything. Gods at least are something, even if some are unpleasant. They have their spheres, their powers, their reality. The men who would be gods are in the end just faking it, and don’t care.

It’s all bottom lines and ego boosts. There’s nothing there. A god at least feels and is.

If anything a lot of our modern would-be gods feel like they’re aping the jealous god of the modern Christian, that old no-daddy. Jealous, manipulative, insecure, yanking people around, demanding obedience. The abusive father figure so many chose in place of Jesus and Christian mystics and the like.

They’re nod gods, and are all the more pathetic for their pretensions.

There on the Ocean I felt small, but these would be-gods were so much smaller.

There on the Ocean, I knew the joy of the Truly Large.

-Xenofact

Look For The Avatars

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We’ve often heard the phrase “look for the helpers” from Fred Rogers. I’ve seen this simple bit of advice deconstructed, believe it or not, but instead of adding one, I’d like to add a recent, similar lesson. Look for the Avatars.

Recently I’d been contemplating the divine, as I’m prone to do. As stated previously, I believe there is something to the idea of gods, that there are great powers out there. We “connect” with these great powers and patterns with creative ideas – stories, rituals, and so forth. Art is kind of the bridge (which I need to write about more).

However, there are times my divine contemplations do feel rarefied. There’s those powerful experiences of the divine, those presences that make you realize something is there. At times I wish I had more of them, that personal experience, though I am rather abstract by nature.

A few days later, I was at an amazing exhibit about the amazing Amos Kennedy Junior, an engraver and artist. In his decades of work he’s spoken to issues of racsim, abuse, bigotry, and more with powerful and impactful text and designs. Maps with block text about the oppression of people. Pithy statements on simple posters. He’s a master of many things, but all of them get into your head.

There was something about his work that was deep and powerful. It wasn’t just art, or protest, or history. It was divine in its truth.

On my way back from the gallery, these words came to my lips: This man is an avatar of Thoth.

Thoth, god of writing and magic, of science and art. . The husband or father of Seshat, lady of libraries and archives (and thus I consider her goddess of bookstores). Thoth is the power of words, and Kennedy’s words and text had power.

That’s when I realized that there, in the museum, I had a religious experience. I got to experience the power of writing and words, artistically arranged, a kind of magic, spun by a master of writing and creativity. He embodied Thoth, the principles of Thoth, he had power.

I had a religious experience there, contemplating this engraver. Something powerful. Something unexpected. Something which taught me a valuable lesson.

Look for the Avatars.

If you want to see the divine in the world, look for embodiments of it. They’re all around you. They’re in art studios and making your coffee, composing music and making videos about food. They’re everywhere. There are people who embody the very thing you’re seeking if you give yourself space to see it.

We can argue what gods “really” are, we can argue minutae and we can try to grasp the ungraspable that-which-is. But the power of those things behind the world, the great principles, are there right now. Look for them in your fellow people.

-Xenofact

Saints Not Gods

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We all hear people accused of “treating people like gods,” from politicians to tech entrepreneurs to actors. We may make such accusations, and might even be the targets of such criticisms. It’s something that got me thinking recently, noting the worshipful way people approached individuals over the years.

However, when I think about it when we say people are “treating others as gods” we’re actually not saying what we think we’re saying.

Consider when people approach another human being, from a podcaster to a writer, in an almost religious way. They praise their talent and vision and knowledge and whatever, but they also treat them as infallible. Such worshipped people aren’t just talented or beautiful, but morally accurate and superior.

Know what? Doesn’t sound like they’re gods to me.

Even a passing acquaintance with any mythology reveals that your average set of deities isn’t perfect. They are powerful, they are beautiful, they are wise or talented in their sphere of action. However they’re not what we’d call perfect in a moral way, because they are beings of specific spheres and inclinations and powers. Indeed some of my favorite myths are of the peccadilloes of the gods, from Thoth’s wordiness to Hermes’ tricky plays to Lu-Dong Bin’s post-Immortality love affairs.

Gods may have something to say but they’re not perfect creatures in the moral sense in most cases. Maybe that’s what makes them so accessible, since neither are we. They’re relatable.

I think when people get strangely religious about other humans and attribute to them some great moral meaning, they’re being treated as saints. They’re being treated as some morally perfect being, unquestionable, the same way a saint is seen as some approved-by-a-superior-being creature. They are being treated as perfect.

Which let us be honest, is often hilarious because people find some of the biggest dinks to worship. Like the more messed up they are the harder the worshipers work to act like they’re some moral paragon.

So next time someone talks of another human being who is treated like a god, ask if they really mean saint. Because it seems too often that’s what people really mean.

-Xenofact