Global Climate Change! Black Lives Matter! Antisemitism! Vegan vs Omnivore! White Slavery! Gay Pride! Putin vs. Ukraine! Hamas vow of Death to Israel! Trump a threat to DEMOCRACY! QANON!

There is an awesome internal feeling of spiritual power when consumed with righteous indignation. The correctness of your vision does not waver, it does not falter. In such a powerful manic state the air itself is purer, sweeter, and exquisite. There is no reason to question. You are on a ‘mission for God’ and nothing can stand in your way. At least that is your view, buoyed up by resonant feelings emanating from your comrades in arms or philosophy. Drunk on your certainty. You cannot imagine how anyone could question your mission. How can those blind and unreasoning fools that are following such obvious lies and distortions of reality ever even sleep at night? If not for the anger, you feel for their temerity you would simply pity those miscreants. You are even willing to die for the cause that owns you.

If you find yourself filled with blind rage at anything, and I mean anything at all, you are coming from a place of hate and not a place of love. To abide by the perceived atrocities in the world, one needs to adopt a certain level of UKETAMO or ‘acceptance’. Without that attitude, there is a danger of sliding into justifying actions that are not justifiable and filling yourself with mental bile that affects every fiber of your being. You start to level the playing field with acts and words that incite anger and justified responses from the ‘other side’ in a dualistic descending vortex of vile acts and thoughts. When a passion rooted in hate exceeds your reason, you have charted a course of mutually assured annihilation. A passion rooted in love however changes the tone and reception of the message. It often creates a bond between the messenger and recipient.

Reasonable disagreement devoid of passionate emotions can provide a reasonable dialogue and discussion without resorting to diatribe. A key to successful resolution and compromise is understanding common needs and desires, with the emphasis being on common needs. Position based bargaining or negotiation ends up being fruitless and frustrating. Neutral terms are also important for the meaningful exchange of perspectives and paradigms.

UKETAMO is a balance point between opposing views. It does not take sides. It is a state of being that accepts without judging or ‘owning’ a point of view or even to be ‘owned’ by a point of view.

H.L. Mencken said “Moral certainty is always a sign of cultural inferiority. The more uncivilized the person, the surer they are that they know precisely what is right and what is wrong. All human progress, even in morals, has been the work of people who have doubted the current moral values, not of people who have whooped them up and tried to enforce them. The truly civilized person is always skeptical and tolerant, in this field as in all others. Their culture is based on ‘I am not too sure.'” – Mencken was a writer, editor, and critic (12 Sep 1880-1956)