I am indebted to Palmer Kelly and to Glenn Fry who inspired this
conversation.
I like the way Robert Lee Frost distinguishes what's right about
Earth.
What's right about
Earth
is right, right now - just as it's always been right about
Earth
through the millennia, even when it doesn't look like it.
Wait! What do you mean Laurence by "even when it doesn't
look like it"? Are you suggesting when Life is wrong, when Life is bad
and horrible, are you suggesting when Life on
Earth
clearly doesn't
work,
that it isn't really wrong, that it isn't really bad and
horrible? When Life is wrong and bad and horrible, are you suggesting
it isn't really this way? Are you suggesting it only
looks like lt?
In a word ... yes.
And in case you missed it, my suggestion that it only looks
like it, goes both ways. The quality on
Earth
which Robert Lee Frost distinguishes as right, doesn't come from
Earth.
It's not inherent in
Earth.
It's not intrinsic to
Earth.
Let me say that again: "The quality on
Earth
which Robert Lee Frost distinguishes as right, doesn't come from
Earth.
It's not inherent in
Earth.
It's not intrinsic to
Earth.".
That's the second part of this equation. Here's the first part (which
is the essential communication in this conversation): the quality on
Earth
which looks like it's wrong, which looks like
it's bad and horrible, which looks like it's not working,
doesn't come from
Earth
either. It's also not inherent in
Earth.
It's also not intrinsic to
Earth.
Especially if you're skeptical (and if you're skeptical, you may also
call yourself a realist), you may say given the dire
circumstances and diminishing quality of Life on
Earth,
Life on
Earth
isn't right at all. You may say Robert Lee Frost is just making it
up.
If you say that, it isn't a stretch. It's easy. There's a lot of
agreement for the
point of view
that Robert Lee Frost is just making it up. But what's not so easy to
see is the
point of viewopposing Robert Lee Frost's ie that the quality of Life
on
Earth
and bad and horrible, is also made up.
Earth
is the perfect medium for Life. It's also the perfect medium for
love. And perhaps what's so perfectly fascinating about
Earth
is whether you see this perfect medium as wrong or whether you see it
as right or whether you don't see it as perfect at all,
Earth
has no qualities, be they wrong / right, bad / good, not
working
/
working,
other than how you say it is. And why this is such a
god‑damned
hard conundrum to grasp is when you get it, it puts youfair and square and front and
center in charge of the quality of your life on
Earth.
Robert Lee Frost is quite right:
Earthis the right place for love. It's also the right place for
everything else we human beings choose to get up to while we're here.
But that he's right is only my
point of view.
And if you say he's wrong, that's only yourpoint of view.
Earth
itself is too busy being
Earth
to bother with any inherent or intrinsic qualities of either being
wrong or of being right. That's what there is to get from
this conversation: neither your
point of view
nor my
point of view
are wrong and neither are they right. They're just
points of view.
Granting each other the space to have differing
points of view
without being righteous about them and without confusing
them with "the truth" is the genesis of the possibility of
peaceful
co-existence.
I like the way this confirms
Earth's
the perfect medium for Life. Indeed
Earth's
the right place for love.