A
Romantic Manifesto
by
Mario Kamenetzky
I
find satisfaction in
the pursuit of love, and a life that gives
full expression to the powers of my mind and
my body, while keeping open, uncensored, and
unmediated lines of communication with the
spirit that dwells inside me.
It
is a satisfaction not free of sorrow, but I
let neither melancholy fill all my moments,
nor allow my heart to steep in ennui and
misery.
It
is playfulness that fills all my moments. I
play with all parts of my body, all ideas in
my mind, and all emotions of my heart.
It
is playfulness that makes me accept sorrow and
death as normal, inevitable parts of life. I
accept sorrow and death when they are brought
naturally into my life by accident, disease,
and deception. I refuse to produce sorrow and
death artificially through oppression,
exploitation, conflict, and war. I also refuse
to produce sadness and pain by fencing love
and life with dogmas and prejudices.
The
long evolutionary process of human
consciousness has increased my abilities to
work in partnership with the creator in
further improving human love and life by
integrating and harmonizing what rationality
has separated and opposed. Love and life were
blind necessities in our archaic origin. They
became ruthless competitive sports under the
rationality of my parents and grandparents. It
is my task to help love and life to mature
into playful cooperative games.
I
do not feel sick of civilization. I feel sick
from the physical and mental poisons created
by a civilization whose social metabolism went
out of balance while it was guided by a drowsy
rationality. I do not feel that to find a cure
for this sickness I should lose myself in the
chaotic wilderness of nature, deluded by ideas
of returning to an archaic past. Neither will
I find a cure by giving up my individuality to
become absorbed in the amorphous, inflexible
masses that political and religious leaders of
the old consciousness still try to assemble
for warring in defense of particular interests
or for building repressive utopias.
I
also reject the psychedelic delusions of
intoxicants, which add misery and suffering to
the misery and suffering from which they
promise escape.
Aided
by the inner push of the creative spirit, I
want to pull myself into giving more careful
consideration to those things that really
matter to life. I will achieve this objective
by transforming, as much as I can, painful
labor to earn my life into joyful work to
fulfill my life. My transformative instruments
will be love, laughter, tears, knowledge,
observation, intuitions, and instincts. I will
free all of them from the restraints that
ideologies, dogmas, and prejudices created in
the minds of my parents and grandparents.
It
is not just because I breathe and think that I
am human and alive. I am human and alive when
I breathe to make love, be in love, give,
receive, and feel love. I feel human and alive
when I think on how to wisely master the
forces that arise from making, being, giving,
receiving, and feeling love. I am human and
alive when those forces help me to produce and
create for myself, my beloved, my community,
and the world. I am human and alive when I
feel that I am still a part of nature, having
grown from being one more of its submissive
creatures to become her respectful and loving
partner.
 This
article was excerpted from the book
The
Invisible Player: Consciousness As the Soul of
Economic, Social, and Political Life
by Mario Kamenetzky.
Reprinted with
permission of the publisher, Park Street
Press, a division of Inner Traditions
International. Copyright
1999. www.innertraditions.com
For
more info or to purchase this book
About The
Author
MARIO KAMENETZKY is a former
science and technology specialist for the World Bank. He tackled socioeconomic development issues for nearly fifty years as a
professor, corporations officer, independent consultant, scholar, poet,
and writer. He passed away at the age of 79 (1927-2006).
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