Gimme Shelter

If anyone truly admits the scale of our impending adjustment to themselves, then inaction turns into something worse than denial - one becomes an accomplice in their own hardship and possible demise. We need to recognize that fact and either go into further denial or take action OURSELVES, rather than wait for some "critical mass" to gather or just-the-right group to form to properly deal with all the challenges we face. Sure there is strength in numbers, but where are your allies? Where is the posse? I hate to say it, but while we're all in this together, we are also very much on our own, too! Going to work and paying taxes while still shopping and supporting the structure that threatens to topple and crush you doesn't make sense, at least to me. There is a certain lack of obvious (easy) alternatives and many obstacles to truly detaching from this Beast, but one has to ask why that is so and what you are trading for the "security" of the current system. Sure, it looks scary "out there", but is it any less scary where you stand? I use scary only to address a common reaction when I tell my friends and family of my own plans to change things, and the methods I am choosing to employ to do so. Fear has been told to stay out of my house, but it is a persistent foe and has some tricks up its sleeves for sure. I also have the benefit of a certain freedom that others might not have or see as a benefit, but this is only me using words to voice my own version of "truth" as it has presented itself to me.

I used to soothe my inner spazz by saying - "well, we are going down hard soon, but at least we're all in this together so we'll be forced to finally look into each other's eyes and figure it out as the community we are intended to be". While I believe that some of this may be true, I also looked around and saw who was comprising my immediate "community" and figured that my chances were better relying on different potential allies than what surrounded me. My fundie Christian neighbor scares the shit out of me and she and her son are armed and not afraid to display their weapons if they feel threatened, as they obviously did by the contractor who, while surveying roof damage last summer in our neighborhood, was unlucky enough to put his ladder up on the wrong roof and climb up (the ladder was taken down and the guns were drawn, leaving the guy stuck on the roof being told to "get down from there!"). There are kind and thoughtful folk all up and down my block, but you would never know that anything is different today than a decade ago. We have been spared, and all that bad stuff happens elsewhere to people that are not like us here in the "gooder part of town". Or so goes the attitude around these parts.

Solutions? Ways to save our system and tweak it a bit so it is just right his time?
The programming is DEEEEEP, so we wait for the email telling where to meet up and what we are going to be railing against that day, and maybe even get the chance to fill your name in on the end of that protesting Email that was already written for you outlining your deep concern. "Virtual" activism in every sense of the word. Congress got a whole bunch of Emails when they launched their TARP program - how did that work out for those with "strong feelings" that turned them into "activists"?

Why are we always "protesting" against things instead of promoting or implementing positive alternatives? Why does our energy get spent "fighting" things instead of creating better things and demonstrating their worth? Is it just easier to be reactive and to vent, and then hope that your indignation is recognized and your deep, passionate feelings about the thing will soon be transformed into the change you wish for by someone/something else?

I'm glad to be a simple minded person who deals in the way I do. It isn't easy, but it saves me from convincing myself that calm, rational thought, or just reading the right book or manual will get me anywhere I want to be. If I want to get somewhere, it has become obvious that it requires raising up from my seat and taking steps. And it is still a struggle to even do this consistently.

Change happens whether we are prepared for it or not. Things and systems break or become obsolete, and they get fixed, improved upon or discarded and replaced, hopefully by something better. I think it is most important to not let someone else determine what "something better" looks like for us as individuals. If we are as smart as we think we are, the dots connect and lead to a certain model of existence, and the best we can do I think is to start living that way RIGHT NOW to hopefully avoid the feeling that someone else made the choice for you once again, and gave a huge shove to get the momentum started. I don't like being pushed that way, and other things have pushed me to the point where I have nothing of any value left to lose, because none of it had any value to begin with it seems. The few thing I have left are worth saving, and I'm attracted to something that may accomplish just that if I am lucky and properly focus the intent behind it. We shall see how all this shakes out, sooner rather than later.

I can only speak for myself, however. But that's exactly how I want it these days. No more support for those who would presume to choose what is best for me and mine. I don't think they have our best interest in mind.

Z