Reply #22: the organic community [View All]

[sweetheart]

Your post is inspiring and i would have written exactly what you just wrote as a life scout aged 16. Also i had straight A's and a scholarship.

I found in truth that scouts was a community outside of my disfunctional family where i learned about life... and that could have been any community just that the BSA existed and did the job... it was funny when i turned 19 and was "too old" to be a scout anymore... that that organizational family disappeared from my life to be replaced over time by spiritual cults where i was even more profoundly honoured to meet some of the world's real heavyweight enlightened guru's... and to live a life in their grace.

If my family had been really functional, i don't know if scouting would quite mean the same as a teenager. Also, in my emotional neglect, i became a straight A scolarship overachiever goody goody eagle scout... all to be ruined by cannabis :-D

If i were to write a message in time to myself in boyscouts at 16, i'd say: Everything you are learning right now is based on people who believe that life is about "doing something". This comes from the prodestant culture in boy scout propaganda of a british army man baden powell. In a prodestant culture, you work hard in life for lotsa attaboys, pats on the head, and in adult life, this is supposed to be the paycheque, morally higher for being a "hard" worker.

This entire ethos is a lie as it is based on suspending "living" for a future achievement. Boyscouts is indoctrinating you in prodestant christianity subtly.

I am now a buddhist. I don't believe that life exists outside of this moment... that life is a series of moments like pearls. I spent many years un-learning "doing"... that in being still and "not doing" is sublime. Life is complex and takes care of itself if you do not "think"... and in fact "thinking knowledge" is secondary and trivial next to sublime awareness without thought.

As the BSA is really about religion, i mention it. Good luck 16 years old straight A premed berkely boy scout. :-)