A Leaf Blowing On The Wind
February 04, 2005
"We consider the animals to be lower, and to me, that makes no sense at all. If you look at a tree or a mushroom or a squirrel, it's perfectly in tune with itself. It has no problem being exactly what it is, and it does what it's meant to do without any complaints or problems. Because we create all these problems in being, we think we're somehow higher than the animals. But it's we humans who have a difficult time even caring for our children, or anything."
Jeff Mangum said that in an interview more than a couple of years ago. I agree wholeheartedly. Jeff Mangum, in case you didn't know, was the lead singer and spiritual leader of a now defunct band called Neutral Milk Hotel. If you haven't heard of them, I'm not surprised. I first heard of them a couple of years ago. They're strange, different, and odd ... but in a good way. Very good stuff. Pick up their last CD "In the Aeroplane over the Sea" and give it a listen.
He also said:
"I think the reason I love Eastern thought so much, and mysticism in general-- but especially Buddhism-- is because it seems to me an attempt to look life squarely in the face, as it is. And to try to deal with the brute facts of the suffering in life, and the joy in life. I'm trying to find peace in the world, as it is. I'm feeling this sort of slow stripping of my mind, like the layers of an onion. I'm starting to see through all these little structures that have been imposed on me by my society that tell me how I'm supposed to view my life and the world. What I'm supposed to find to be important and what is not. Sometimes you see through so much of it that you feel like you're just a leaf blowing on the wind."
Sort of a modern-day hippie. And I like it.