Speed up the actions of your days and they would be seen as tight little circles. The commute alone is just a fossil fuel squandering feedback loop. The widgets you're screwing onto the rim rams at work is just an endless circular conveyor belt, designed to make the three people at the top as much money as they can grab. And the culturally sanctioned drugs of the work place written into every labor law for two 15 minute breaks are either cigarettes or coffee or both. They keep you "stimulated" enough to conquer the longest most hellish parts of the work day. And this lifestyle is so cleverly designed to feed the largest money-making companies in the world.
All this circling (the drain?) eats up material that must be replaced. Plus what would a Saturday afternoon be without a stroll down the flourescent-lit isles of your local box store--just for the shear heck of it? It is a sick kind-of entertainment for the middle classes of America; buying useless imported crap. I mean how many storage bins, scissors sets, tacky jewelry and plastic cups can each of us stand?
Fortunately the largest money-maker in the world is there waiting in every major town and city on earth, ready to sell you more chintzy junk next Saturday: Walmart, with $418.95 BILLION in annual revenue. (That's ONE company pulling in nearly half a trillion dollars each year.)
Should you be worried that the automobile you think you NEED or your furnace require gas or oil? Fear not! The second, third, forth, fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth largest money makers on earth are oil and gas providers, with get this, 1.96 TRILLION (just for those eight--keep in mind that a trillion is a thousand billions) in annual revenue. And there are another 26 further down the list just in case the big eight (as happened with tiny little BP, at a mere number 24) have their oil rigs blow up. It's a good thing that the biggest one of all - Exxon/Mobile - is funneled a constant supply of subsidies from the US government, oops, sorry I mean from our back pockets. The total amount of money that one of the typical widget screwers makes in an entire lifetime wouldn't even buy the proper polish for the typical oil executive's hood ornament.
Thankfully, when all the legal drugs - TV (AT&T is number 28) red meat, sugar (Nestle is number 39), transfat, cigarettes and alcohol - finally do their job on you, there are the bloated American industries of Healthcare Insurance (McKesson Corporation is number 47) Pharmaceutical Industries (Pfizer is number 151) to take care of you. If you're lucky they'll just pick your pockets and/or run you into personal bankruptcy. If you're unlucky they'll deny coverage. Most bankruptcies are healthcare related. And you thought the credit card and financial industries (Allianz is number 19) were bad!
Now I'm not naive enough to think that people are going to rise up and introduce brand new, sweeping models that will transform all of capitalistic (as opposed to free enterprise--they are different animals) schemes into democratic, life-affirming entities that genuinely care about each individual. But it is still important to THINK about the big picture. Frankly most people don't think about anything at all. There are too many other people and mechanisms to do our thinking for us. But, this is poison to the soul. This reliance on the flimsy hope that some "expert" has it all figured out, thinking that if we could just find the "right" expert the answers would come flowing in, is raping the natural world and sucking the potential of the human will out of its ability to make major changes--en-toto.
I guess this is my desperate way of making you stop, even for a second, to think. What IS it really all about. We say family is the most important thing in our lives. But our actions speak otherwise. More than 50% of marriages end in divorce. This statistic leads one to wish that gays and lesbians would be allowed to marry so we could see what lasting marriage actually looks like. We say we want to spend time with our kids. But they warehoused in daycare centers for the first years of their lives, then we force them to fill every waking, non-school hour with sports, violin lessons, tutoring and homework. That is all just daycare for bigger kids.
Let's face it the widget screwing job is at the top of the priority list, and in some kind of twisted non-logic the premise becomes one where parents must do nothing but continuously work ("ideally" for 40 years), so that they can pay for daycare for the younger kids and "extra curricular activity" daycare for the older kids; which will then allow the parents to continue their slavish work schedule until their kids are fully brainwashed with twelve years of rote memorization (methodically killing all creative thought) and readying them for college; where, instead of the classic notion of a culturally relevant, liberal arts education filled with literature, history, philosophy, science and art, INSTEAD, business, economics, financing and accounting will be stressed. Why? So that the kids can get widget screwing jobs for themselves, marry partners they too will never really see and thence inevitably divorce, all of which will allow them to have kids of their own to heap upon the new generation the same satanic abuse their parents heaped upon them. Is it a wonder that we are socially insane? It doesn't need to be this way.
For people older than 30, I'm afraid it is probably too late. You are falling into the trap. Those social outcasts like me, who have delayed marriage have a little bit better chance, but not much. Eventually - if you are paying attention - you WILL wake up to the fact that culture has been screwing you and your parents, priests, teachers and bosses were the ones handing it the screws. If you are fortunate enough to reach this rarified realization, and you have managed to wiggle your way over into the soft shoulder of society every now and then, you MIGHT find a way to escape...even if you are married with children. This post WWII American Nightmare that was supposed to be a "dream," will eventually be conquered by our children's children.
People shit all over the so-called "Millenial Generation," sometimes called, "Genration Why." But they are not fools. They are learning from the fringe, just exactly what must be brought into the mainstream. They don't see it as such yet. But they will by the time their own children are reaching adulthood. And then THOSE children....will Wallk.
Still, we older idiots could make things a bit easier for them. We don't have to punish them for being right, where we were wrong. We can lead by example, though we might be covered with the scars of our own parents mistakes. We can Wallk too. Start by just going outside and staying there for a few hours. I know what being forced to be outside has given me: HOPE. Hope that the world is changing, turning itself inside out.
The breeze, the temperature, the patches of rain, the blazing sun, the buds-turning into leaves, the birds (and squirrels!), other people walking by and saying hello, teenagers peeling out from intersections, clouds, grass, flowers, trees... It's the REAL real world. How could I have ever forgotten its profound beauty? How could I have ever been isolated from mother nature? NEVER AGAIN!! Even if I break my back or become paralyzed, put me out on the lawn. No hell or death would be more horrible then to be trapped inside the sterile confines of a hospital. I'd rather starve to death on the front lawn. Anything, but to be force-fed the world of synthetic, rubberized, tube-filled, isopropyl-alcohol stench. Let me die in nature's full embrace than to merely survive in mankind's labyrinth of white coats and beige walls; beeping monitors and lukewarm care.
The destiny of our species will be found among the rivers, grassy plains and forests of our world, not among the extracted and purified metals and glass stolen from it. We are on a one-way ride into destruction because we have separated ourselves from our Mother. The future will be filled with the internalization of the positive effects of our technology and the externalization or our SOULS. So *I* choose to shoulder the heap of criticism required - even at this primitive stage of human evolution - to proudly display my soul as garment, the finest there ever was. Let the others throw scorn and kick me out the door for breaking through the bubble of conventional assumptions. Yes, let them kick me out the door. There is no more beautiful mansion than the out-doors anyway. I'll take it all for myself.........and YOU too, if you dare to follow me...
Somewhere in the cobwebs and dust bin-graves where my broken songs lie buried, there is a chorus worth ressurecting...
Take the longest road
And pave it
With the finest gold
To save it...
It is not the efficiency of your mobility. It is not the speed at which you travel between points. It is not the choosing of the present pathway over the past. It is not the frequency of your trips. It is not short stays and briefly-viewed vistas. None of that lasts. It is the everlasting movement, the slow appreciation, the whole story, the whole journey, the view from above...THOSE are the things that last. Choose to take the longest road, and no matter how long it takes, pound it with the finest gold of your life experiences, carefully, with intention. For it the last steps of life each of us must take alone. What could be better at the end than to look back over your shoulder and see that beautiful road that you cared enough to construct?
Yes...
There were times when you walked until your feet were swollen, but you didn't stop. You slept on the ground in the cold air of uncertainty, but wished to still dream. You found the energy to rise back up each day, even when it seemed that the whole world wanted you to just lay down and die. You hungered while you passed those who were eating until they were filled, but your small meal was still enough. You were lonely and watched families play together, but you remained friendly towards other people. You were told that you weren't necessary anymore, and still you fought to be counted. You were expected to give up but you would not rest. You were the target of cruelty and injustice, people walked on you, struck you, hit you from behind, but you silently stood up straight; weathering every blow. No you are the goldsmith.
Each of these is a nugget of gold, pounded into your pavement. Each is a patch of colored light stitched into your spirit. And when you fly on to the next life the memories of this one with be exquisitely preserved for the rest of eternity. You were awake and walked through the world while others slept. And I think I will be there too.
The insight and expression here is brilliant. Impressive and well written. A lifetime spent observing possibilities and questioning everything. All the greatest truths are indeed simple.
ReplyDeleteI just read this for the first time since I wrote it. Wow! Seems written by someone else. But you have re=presented it to me. And it makes as much sense now, maybe more... THANK YOU!
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