Attachment is the great fabrication of illusions; reality can only be obtained by someone who is detached.  (Emphasis added.)

Simone Weil

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Saw a PBS Frontline documentary about boxing promoter/manager Don King.  It was fascinating.  King made a fortune-plus but those who fought did not.  It was pretty clear to many (TV executives, Congress, law enforcement officials, state boxing commissions, fighters and their trainers, etc.) that King was getting rich at his fighters’ expense.  But no one did anything to correct the abuses.  Sort of reminded me of Washington and how the Clintons and their minions get a perpetual free pass.

That brings me to Simone Weil (one of my wife Sylvia’s favorite writers).

Weil makes a very good and wise point – in a world where compromise and corruption take up common residence “being part” of “elite” structures is best avoided if you wish to live in contentment.

The wise person puts himself or herself in the best position to survive independently.  It is far better to be largely self-sufficient than encased in an organization, an onerous structure.

I worked by myself as a lawyer.  I now live in solitude.

While social (I knew all kinds of people), I was never a joiner.  Never had the desire to climb the ladder.  I enjoyed being a friends to many, yet a level of self-sufficiency was my route and allowed me to be a confidant to others.

Was asked one time by a Judge if I was interested in applying to fill a vacancy on the local Court.  My response: “Thank you, but I’ve never been a fan of Pontius Pilate.”  Pilate was stuck in a system that required his compliance with its ways.  “I see no guilt in this man” but … “Good bye, Jesus.”

I see many who are tethered to a group, a system or such, and so often I see them discouraged at having to comply with the culture that pervades their milieu.  Imagine a life of daily discontent – it is bound to make for long days and serious angst.  Some prisons have invisible walls.

In life you have time and a grant of dignity in your sacred birth.  Wasting time you cannot get back again, or besmirching your dignity and the sacred gift of your birth seems like a poor choice.

One makes haste slowly in life.  The purest sound is often a holy silence.  Detachment is often a better course than attachment.  Be a friend to many – but include yourself in that.

Early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up and slipped out to a solitary place … Mk 1:35

Shalom.

Imagine – Imagine how the local F.B.I. must feel in watching the those at the top of the ladder mishandling everything and anything related to the Clintons and their associates and having to see the rank partisanship from those at the top of their pyramid.  Difficult to see and experience.