Friday, February 16, 2018

What the Hell do I Know

I couldn't sleep last night.  What little rest I did have was unsettled at best.

There was another mass shooting at a school on Valentine's Day by a white supremacist.  17 people, students, teachers, tutors, were murdered.  

Facebook was filled with chatter.  It is a terrible thing.  It is a gun problem.  It is a people problem.  It is a problem.  It never happened....

And I find myself feeling sick.  Our country has always been made up of individuals who thought differently about all kinds of things.  Sometimes we kept our thoughts to ourselves and sometimes we shared them.  I have stood in marches and been gassed by tear gas... in America.  And my heart ached for our country.  For the hatred and prejudice that permeated our society.  And my heart was touched so deeply when we swayed and loved each other, though we were complete strangers.  We stood together and arm in arm faced the spital and hatred, "America!  Love it or leave it!!"  What did that even mean?  All of this because we wanted to everyone to be able to vote so everyone was fairly represented by those elected in our government.  It didn't seem like it should be that landshaking of a concept but it sure as hell was.

I've felt the shaking of all that stood strong when the Cuban Missile Crisis took place in Florida, where we were living at the time.  I remember the sonic booms shaking the house and the tanks and carriers in the air and on the ground and sea bringing all manner of weapons of mass destruction through our neighborhood and sitting in our closet in the darkness, listening to a transistor radio and being prepared to duck and cover ourselves into oblivion without even understanding what the hell was going on.  A few years later we moved to the Chicago area and I remember reading that we now had enough weapons to kill everyone and everything on the planet over 300 times and I remember thinking, stop.  Just stop it.  I remember thinking we could build through change.  We didn't have to keep knocking people down or off the planet because somebody said they were different and they had to go.

It was then, when Martin, John and Bobby and Malcolm X and Russell Means awakening all of us to the possibility that maybe, just maybe we could all learn how to respect each other and live in peace with one another.  

I remember that horrendous war, the Viet Nam"conflict" and organizing and marching for peace in Chicago.  I remember the billy clubs and running, just running, gas pouring into the air, clouds of gray and pain.

All we wanted
was to give peace a chance

Let's try going in a new direction.  How's about people can't be drafted into a war on foreign soil?  How's about giving people the choice as to whether or not they want to support a war.  Or conflict or whatever.  This? Was revolutionary?  

The flag and God was the weapon of choice to try to silence us; the press did its part to make us look like fanatics but the truth was we were all kinds of people that understood that when you can blow up the planet maybe it is time to take another look at how we can resolve our differences and learn to genuinely respect and value each other and this planet, our Mother.  Every bit of what we create is dependent on our planet.  Everything.  

And there is a Cause and Effect to everything.  Everything.

Being reckless with our planet and its finite resources is folly.  The worst kind.  

Corporations, businesses and we have polluted this planet.  I mean big time.  And the focus on our country is on a buffoon.

We have some serious work to do.  And to solve these problems we have the most amazing to join together and work together.  We need science and humanitarians and builders and occasional sceptics too.  We need communicators and creative people to make something that never existed before.  We need each other.  We need to plant healthy, unaltered seed, into our planet that grew everything all on its own, without our help or interference and we need to respect that way.

Instead people are spewing vomitous waste from one computer or phone to the next.  Repeating how terrible things are but nobody is doing anything about it.  Yes, this Valentine's Day 17 people were murdered at school for no reason.  Oh the person who did this was a terrorist.  A White Supremacist Terrorist.  Another shooting.  It's a gun problem.  No, it's a people problem.  No, it is an insane people problem.  But nobody says anything about how gun violence has slowly permeated the fabric of our culture through movies, cartoons, music, TV.  Let's just show people reality shows where people act out the lowest common denominator crap people are capable of and call that reality TV?  Really?

Games are filled with violence.  And it isn't just being involved in a survival exercise, no, the player has to totally annihilate the enemy, the one that is different.  Films a d TV follow the same formula.  Identify the difference, that is a treat and destroy it and kill all of it.  And to me, it looks like people are sitting on their hands.  They'll talk about it but where is everybody.

Women need to march with their children and tell lawmakers we want gun laws in place so we as a society can function without stress and terror and fear at the fore of our consciousness.

Some people contacting each other and showing up like a Flash Mob and peacefully making a stand and saying, No more.  And turn off the damn TV.  Watching that crap repeat over and over and over again, everyday; it is propaganda.  Other points of view that express reasonable ideals and approaches to solving problems; without trying to defeat or destroy somebody sure would be a good place to start.  Just go and be.  No leader is needed.  No particular chant needs to be repeated.  People can just join hands and hum and see what happens.  We need to unify to solve the issues that are only going to get more complicated and worse, if we don't start facing them now.  

I mean think about it.  We can learn to share and stop killing and hating each other.  We are not born with hatred in our hearts.  This is something that is spread like a disease.  It is taught and regurgitated from one generation to the next.  Giving more and more people a reason to continue to really hate each other for even more reasons.... and for what?  To what end?  So we can feel justified when we choose to be stubborn and greedy and ignorant?  It's like driving a car and with the engine on just jumping out of it and see what happens?  I mean havoc is havoc.  It doesn't have to have a meaning.  So long as a bunch of people can nod their heads at the same time we are going to really feel okay about destroying the planet, the water, the air and all of life when the last one of us is dead?  How does that even remotely sound viable?

Or we could stop fighting each other and instead of slugging somebody with hatred or words we could reach out and everyone who can could contribute to making this life here amazing.  We are capable of living that way too.

I know this because I have learned a few things.  I am not an idealist.  I am a realist with an imagination.  I can 
Imagine
that we can be different and have different ways of seeing life and appreciating it and all of that is cool
because we can respect each other's traditions and just chill out

We are never all going to see life the same way.  This is never going to happen.  Get over it.  We are never going to all look the same so get over that too.  In our genetic makeup all of our generations before us have left a cellular trace in what makes us who we are.  When we hate each other we are also hating ourselves.  When we don't respect each other we are sadly missing out on how enriching life is when we just appreciate each other.

We can make different dishes and have different holidays and we can go to places where we can share religious or philosophical ideas and we can still love each other.  

I have been very sad lately.

Because so many people have accepted the arguments of extreme points of view over reasoning things out.  We have a Constitution that is truly amazing.  We have had many great teachers on all continents.  We have made extensive rules and tried every different thing we could think of to try to make us all the same way.  We guarded many secrets and coveted many traditions and touted we know the way to God or there is no god until  we are all useless noise.  Or
we could reach out and just smile.  Just acknowledge the life of someone once a day.  Say please and thank you and hold a door open or give one the right of way when you are drying.  Little things.  They don't seem like much.  But these little things form connections.  And we begin to understand that we are all just here.  Even a life long lived is relatively short.  And let's face it, by the time you get old enough to really have something to say, you begin to forget what you have spent a lifetime learning. 

No-one owns righteousness.  We are all ignorant.  We all have thoughts we can contribute to make the world a better place.  We can plant seeds or study at a library and write about ideas and approaches to making our lives here on the planet good or
we can blame guns and people and greed and ignorance
we can do that
but it won't change anything
not one thing

or
we can try
just a little bit
to take one step towards understanding each other
and respecting each other
I mean
isn't that the biggest problem we face?

We can't possibly find our way to each other unless we do this with an open heart.  

I remember thinking
one day I'll know something
one day I'll have the answers to these questions
why do people hate
why do people kill 
why do peoples destroy so much of what has freely been given to them

when will it all end

questions

I used to think I would have the answers to something by now
but the only answer I have is this
I'm ignorant.  I make mistakes.  I don't know everything.  I will never know everything.  Hell, I'm getting old.  I'm lucky if I remember to brush my teeth.

Life really doesn't have to be this hard.  We allow it because we don't know how to stop it.  But we can stop it by reaching out to each other and making a difference.  We can come together and let special interest groups or corporations or big daddies know that sorry, you can't beat people up or kill them for not wanting you to strip their land of its natural resources. 
Especially, since we have the air and sun and movement and Cause and Effect all going in our favor.  I mean, there is so much to do.  All of this destructive stuff going on doesn't solve anything.  We can be sorry when we realize the last bee flew and the last flower blossomed and the last fish was living in the water and the last tree fell or we can just do something.  Marching is good.  Non-violence is important.  We can carry a sign or carry a thought or a kindness and just speak out mind with our presence.  Clearly, the government does not represent all of us.  It seems to be feeding off of hate and furthering its causes.  People can continue to do that.  But it is so short sighted. 

We don't have to wonder if there is a purpose to our lives.  All we need to do is start moving.  And you will find it.  You will trip over it with your immense ego but no worries.... we all do.  We get quite self important when we can make something happen.  Or make a change.

What matters is how we live.  How we love.  What matters is being honest.  Doing our best.  Being compassionate.  Being honest with ourselves about our own flaws and mistakes and we can learn from our mistakes.  We can be humble.  Because no matter how smart anyone is, we all need each other to make this world a lovely compatible place to live.  

Or destroy all of it.  I mean, that can happen too.  Sure does seem to be short sighted, yes it does.  But I have a brain injury.  My whole life has been turned upside-freaken-down and I had to start everything all over again.  And I walk funny.  When I'm fatigued its even worse.  So what the hell do I know.


  

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