I found this in Wikipedia, and I thought it was worth sharing -

People make use of suffering for specific social or personal purposes in many areas of human life, as can be seen in the following instances.

(I’m only including one of the many instances listed)

I’ve been interested in the state of income and wealth disparity in the United States for some time now.  The gulf between the rich, the middle class and the poor is obviously massive, but I’ve wanted to see numbers that truly represented just how massive.  I’ve looked at income disparity before, and it has shown part of the picture, but it didn’t seem to portray just how insane the difference between the rich and everyone else it.  So I’ve looked elsewhere and found what I’m looking for in numbers on wealth disparity.  Here, I’ll share -

Here are some numbers I’m working with here -

Total population of the US: 300,000,000 (actually it is a bit higher, but this is close enough for these calculations)

Average household size: 2.6 (from US Census)

Therefore, the number of households in the US should be: approximately 115.384.615

I found a number of sites stating that the top 25% of households in the US own 87% of the wealth, and the total wealth in the US is approximately $50.1 trillion.  The same sites state that the bottom 25% own no wealth at all (thier debt cancels out thier wealth).

This means that the average household in the top 25% owns about $1.5 million.  The average household in the middle 50% owns about $112,926.  And as stated, the bottom 25% of households have no net worth at all.  But wait, there’s more!

Let’s say we did something CRAZY!  We force the top 25% to give $100,000 worth of wealth to every household in the bottom 75%.  Truly crazy talk, and certain to impoverish the rich, right?  After such a transfer, households in the top 25% would still own $1.2 million.  Hardly impoverished, I think.  The middle 50% of households would own $212,926 each and the bottom 25% of households would have $100,000 of wealth each.

Anyone care to pipe in on how much poverty would be reduced if every household in the bottom 75% recieved $100,000 worth of wealth?  And remember, this are assets that already exist, so there is no reason for inflation to occur.  Giving every homeless family enough assets to purchase a home seems like a good way to address the homelessness issue, I would think.  And that is only the most obvious problem that would be addressed.

So, I’m riding the train home yesterday, feeling really, really low.  I was thinking that I had completely painted myself into a corner, as far as my life’s challenges.  I spent over an hour before getting on the train trying to think how I would go about ending it all, I was feeling so overwhelmed.  On the ride home, I talked on the phone to a really good friend of mine, and came to some conclusions -

1) I need to expierence estatic joy in my life.  To do this, I have to stay completely open to the world and all of its stimuli.  The cost of this is that I have to be willing to expierence intense pain and sorrow at times.  I accept this.

2) Pain is an essential teacher in life.  It helps us focus, and often helps us make the hard decisions in life that we need to, even though we’d rather put these decisions off.  Pain can be overwhelming though, and work against us, robbing us of our ability to do the things to make the pain stop.

3) Joy and pleasure can act both as excellent goals to achieve and as tools to withstand pain.   There is nothing wrong with seeking out pleasure as a way to handle pain, if you use the relief so granted to continue on the road.  Sometimes extreme measures are called for in relieving pain, and it is each person’s right and duty to do what they need to in order to continue on thier road.

All of this put together means that the road that lays before me will certainly include great pain, but there are ways for me to withstand it and continue on my quest for estatic joy.  I also realized that I really do have the inner fortitude to overcome the obstacles that lay before me.  I don’t know what my pace will be on the road, and I can’t let slow travel frustrate me so much that I give up.  The pain that I expierence on this road often hurt others as well, and sometimes the methods I use to gain relief from pain will fill others with discomfort as well, and I hurt because of this as well.  However, while I need to take the lessons in the pain so expierenced, I can not let it overwhelm me and keep me from being able to progress in my travels.

The road will be difficult, but I can do it as long as I look out for myself and my needs, and the rewards are more than worth the costs.  I am incredibly thankful for everyone who helps me, either by helping me find perspective and focus to understand what is going on, or by helping me expierence joy, both just for joy’s own sake and to keep me from being overwhelmed by the hurt I’ll run into.  It will be a hell of a trip, but it sure as hell won’t be boring 

I realized recently that there is one thing more dangerous, more self destructive than daring to consider the Great Rite something that can be enjoyed whenever you choose.  I’ve engaged in that madness, but an ex partner of mine pointed out to me that she is an even bigger fool than me.  She went so far as to fake her participation in the Great Rite.  Lucifer lived in me when we would have the Great Rite together, and at the time she acted as though her goddess lived through her.  There are times for deception, even by a follower of Lucifer, but not in ritual.  Not when you are offering yourself as a vessel to your deity.  She has had plenty of pain and hardship come to her before, but she has no idea what will be coming to her.  I don’t either entirely…..I don’t even want to contemplate it.  I’ve been punished by my deity more than enough times for far less to know that this is not a place to go.  I don’t know how you fix a mistake like that, and the path she has chosen is one in which there will be no one that help her correct such an injustice.  I don’t wish upon her what will come to her, but it is defiantely coming.  When it does, she will look back upon the horrors of her past with longing.  No one should have to live through the horrible vegence of thier deities’ wrath if they don’t have to, and I’m still willing to help her find a way to balance the scales of justice and avoid her judgement.  However, she is so sure of herself that she laughs at my offer of help.  Well, I certain hope she’s right this time when she says, “I’ve got it covered”.  I’d at least offer her good luck, but she needs way more than just luck.  May They have mercy upon her soul.

Let her torment to come act as a lesson to all of us: go into the Great Rite with truth, or not at all.

During the Great Rite, we and our partners remove those barriers that seperate us…..from each other, from the rest of humanity, from the rest of our Universe, and from our gods and goddesses themselves.  Together, we find our true selves, each other and the true nature of the divine.  Some would think there are expierences that are outside of that which can be made a part of the Great Rite…..there is no limits to the divine.

Unfortuantly, I am a fool, and treated the Great Rite as a play thing, something to be expierenced whenever the opportunity arose.  There is a reason that the Great Rite should only be performed on high holy holidays.  When you recognize that the expierence is only for specific days of the year, being seperated from the divine can be understood and tolerated.  When you dare to think it can be expierenced any time and any place…….you are confronted with the terrible lonliness of being trapped inside yourself.  Knowing that absolute religious esctacy is always just slightly out of reach.

Do not follow me.  If you practice the Great Rite, do so carefully, and never believe that it can be yours whenever you wish it.  The expierence is estatic, more seductive than any drug, and the pain of its loss……well, don’t find out what it is.