You can't yet appreciate harmony.

Evan Pugh

Schuh, English 101-15

December 1^st, 2006

Gods of Realization and Actualization

Although it may seem, as in Waiting for Godot, that we as people are generally sifting through the madness of everyday life and seeking our self in its cyclical repetition, the truth is that, unlike Waiting for Godot, our self often comes. And often with great force.

Using my previous essay as a catalyst, I will further synthesize the idea that Adrienne Rich put forth in her essay “Split at the Root,” and the media’s influence on these ideas as presented by Howard Zinn in his essay, “Stories Hollywood Never Tells.” Between the two, we get the sense that self-realization is a road often hindered by life whereas our existence is constantly pushing us forward, constantly trying to get us by these road blocks and into the greater depth of ourselves.

The stories that Hollywood never tells are those tales of dissent and of passion against the grain, tales of what the enemy was thinking. Zinn states there have been few exceptions, mentioning All Quiet on the Western Front and The Slaughterhouse Five, but how appropriate is it that they were both adaptations of novels because most, if not all, revolutions were started by one man’s writing. From John Locke to Upton Sinclair. The trend has been, throughout the ages, to have great ideas start out in words.

The story that Hollywood would tell is that of Adrienne Rich: Half-Jewish and confused, going to Radcliffe with the Jewish intellectuals, becoming a lesbian, having her husband die. It would make for a good movie, even using the biographical cinema tool known as “rosebud,” which is where there is one central theme running through the movie. That central theme would be her Judaic roots, and her searching and spelunking to figure out how she fits together.

In that vein, though, it would be a long movie, and one without an ending, because that’s what this road is: unending, save for those few who, according to Buddhist faith, become one with God. According to that same article, “Becoming one with the father is the experience of Self-Realization, which cuts the chain of death and rebirth once for all.” Zinn cut the chain of death with his activism and his publications, becoming immortal in the literary canon. Rich performed the same. Self-Realization comes when you realize that you can live forever in your own way through the remembrance of others.

However, that is only one view, and one that I tend to disagree with, because the article goes on to state that Self-Realization comes when someone states that they are God, much like Jesus proclaiming, “I and the Father are one.” But, then again, on my own road of self-realization, I have also hit this road block, the questioning of my relationship between my Father and I. This has lead me to question that, if all things are of God, created by God, God breathed, God inspired, and loved by God, then are we not a mere extension of he whom we are imaged after?

In that vein, then, Bob Dylan, in his song, “Blowin’ in the Wind,” asks the question of “How many roads must a man walk down before you can call him a man?” How many roads must a man walk down before he can proclaim he’s man of God? That he is God? The political aspect of this song ties into what Howard Zinn talked about in essay, in the sense of, “When will these people who are enslaved and hated and segregated have the chance to have their side of the story heard? When will their collective image and their collective struggle be heard and break free of the chain of death, and into the chain of remembrance?”

Therefore, the unending waiting and waiting and Waiting for Godot has been actualized and realized because it is eternal, it is unending, and Godot will never come but their acts and their nonsense will long be remembered.

Suddenly, it becomes the idea of, “If I do not become a self-realized human being, if I don’t become immortal in some way, will I then become reborn and reborn until I then am remembered enough to the point beyond Déjà vu and, ‘Do I know you from somewhere?’ and into the canon of those that are the most important figures of our gilded age of internet and rock ‘n’ roll?” The questioning that began because of one woman admitting that she was Split at the Root, has extended beyond her own questions and into my own, as any and all and only great literature can do. Great literature and great writers assert their ideas into your life and pray upon your soul for only in depravity can true knowledge and true realization and true need be realized. And the true need will become your self-actualization and your own remembrance until Kingdom Come.

So, yes, in a sense, we are all gods in the making. But not in the sense of, “I am God,” but, instead, “I cannot come back for my soul has already fulfilled its purpose.” But the souls of those not actualized and realized just may come back and be reborn and start again until they have made their mark. For every great generation needs great leaders and ideas and revolutionaries.

If someone always remembers you and your essence, how can you and your ideas be reborn? And then when that soul feels dejected because every one of their ideas has been taken up by some guy named John Locke, whom they actually were in a past life, they commit suicide and thusly cut the chain of death again. That’s another possibility.

I will admit that this train of thought is completely against my own WASP ideals, my ideals of one life and eternal life. But if I do not change the world, and I do not change all things and all thought beyond comprehension, then what has this life been but a sad and destitute prelude to a long summer?

Our Christian media tells us and tells us of one side of the story, the American side, the Protestant side of things, but not the circular, back and forth of the Eastern thought, and how everything comes back again until actualization and realization and only then can you and the Father be one.

I am God.

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The essay that I used is only available to CSUSB students. However, if you want a copy of it, just go ahead and ask.