You're the voice

A midsummer night's dream

I dreamed I wrote a rather long and rambling essay on the economy, ecology and equality. Long because of the amounts of cause and effect and problems and solutions I managed to cram into that one piece, rambling because of the myriad associations, the links and bridges I managed to build. Full of pathos, I went from global warming to refugees to immigration, from nationalism to fascism to racism, from global trade to global warming and back to refugees again. My theory of everything.

Too bad I don't remember half of it but I do remember feeling a strange but strong sort of relief getting it all down in writing, as if I hadn't quite known what I thought on the subject before I wrote about it and had now laid down a burden, the anxiety that comes with the feeling you don't understand the world around you, the hows and whys, the implications, the consequences. In my dream I had managed to collect my thoughts, observations and opinions, arrange them in a well-structured manner and lay them out coherently and elegantly. (One can dream, right?)

He built this garden for us, they were called, my nocturnal notes, a slight but quite deliberate misquote of a Lenny Kravitz song, I presume, since I opened with a picture of our garden, a garden I gladly work on but one my husband has had a heavy hand in creating. So he doesn't bring me flowers every day. He built me a garden. I realized this is the longest I've stayed put, and not the least because of the garden that grows around me, a house that's like the tropics in the arctic, the peace and happiness I feel in both.

Who has the right to peace and happiness, or prosperity? On what terms? On whose terms? Who promised life would be easy, fair or happy, a man once asked when the question came up, a man who'd never suffered or struggled, who'd never been and never would be any type of minority, an outcast, disenfranchised, displaced, the underdog. No one had ever denied him, crossed him, belittled him, stomped on him or stood up to him. I understood his question. I just don't think he did. I don't think he gave a second thought to where his wealth came from, to whom or what he owed it to.

Taking a close, critical, honest look at most anything usually makes you focus on the flaws and the problems in something, then promptly sign up for a transcendental meditation class, learn mindfulness, go buy one of those adult coloring books, whatever takes your mind off the fact the world is a pretty fucked up place getting worse by the second, now that you really look at it and think about it, so better not look too closely, better concentrate on things closer to home such as you, yourself and, well, you, Jon Lajoie was right: Fuck Everything. Wait, what?

One of my university professors believed cultures evolved in cycles, all cultures following the same cycle but at a different pace. All clashes between nations, cultures, creeds and even individuals stemmed from our conflicting values and views, our place on the cycle, and our need to impose those values and views, our will, on others. I've seen such forces in action, determinism, relativism and entitlement at its worst. I've seen evidence to the contrary, kindness and compassion and selflessness at its best.

Maybe authors and artists can't change the world but they show us what it's like to live in it, what it feels like to be human, living under the same sun and moon but very different stars.

Be kind, rewind

'Tis the season to be jolly... Well, it is, sweetie darlings, carnival season! Followed by lent, which is all about penance, abstinence, giving up, letting go. Of what? Carne vale means a farewell to meat but there are better ways to fast than a forty-day vegetarian streak.

What if we gave words a rest this lent? Spoke less, listened more. Wrote less, read more. Rich coming from someone whose livelihood depends on how one uses words and language? That's just it, dearest denizens. How do we use our voices? Are we all mouth and no ears? All busy fingers and blind eyes? It sure feels like it as you move around the World Wide Wildness.

And it is a jungle out there, isn't it, one where words and sentiments such as pity, remorse and mercy play but a bit part, so it seems. How easy it is to cut someone down. All you need is 140 carefully chosen characters. Or just brush them off with a swift swipe. Or round up some friends and go after them, pitchforks sharpened, torches a-blazing and scathing scythe at the ready. You'll never have to face them. You don't even know them. You know nothing about them, all you have is a personal opinion and your private soon public emotions and we are all entitled to ours, but that's as far as our entitlement extends, isn't it?

At least it should be. But we take freedoms in the jungle, and what a free-for-all it is, one where entitlement knows no bounds. I feel some David Bowie coming my way... Oh man! Look at those cavemen go / It's the freakiest show / Take a look at the lawman / Beating up the wrong guy / Oh man! Wonder if he'll ever know / He's in the best selling show... All the world's a stage and everyone wants their fifteen minutes, and so what if someone gets hurt, bleeding hearts of the world: unite! 

No, I'm not saying some don't deserve a good tongue-lashing, but that's an art right up there with every other form of using and choosing language. Start screaming and the opposition will only scream louder to make sure it's heard. Hiss and curse, vilify and objectify, and the opposition will only come up with something lower and lewder. Silencing someone, or attempting to, is the surest way to draw attention to them.

No, I'm not saying that banning words or the ones who misuse them is the answer. Quite the opposite. Freedom of speech, freedom of press, freedom of opinion and the right to dissent are under constant attack all over the world, even in our parts. You know it's bad when your government, your government, starts distorting facts, suppressing truths, killing people based on metadata and attacking freedoms it has sworn to defend.

You know the end is nigh and that they're only getting started when they flash the for-your-own-protection card. I don't feel safe, I feel violated. I don't feel reassured, I feel hoodwinked. Utterly hoodwinked and disgustingly violated. The hubris. The hypocrisy! You want to rule the world you better listen to your subjects or else you're just another dictatorship.

There is nothing more dangerous than a freethinking human who refuses to be silenced. There is nothing more powerful than a freethinking person who demands to be heard. I hope that this carnival season, you celebrate your freedom and rights. And I hope that this lent, you honor your responsibilities.

Put the fork down

Oh the restlessness. So much happening at once it's a deluge in a thimble. But it's the little thimble that could, can, Have figurative gun - Will travel. Methinks. Mehopes.

Hope. There's that word again, right up there with Pa Kent's truth, tolerance and justice. Short supply, great demand and Superman missing in action. Yet Hope Dies Last, as Studs Terkel will tell you. Pick up that book and be blown away by what that great humanist, humanitarian and oral historian dug up: everyman's everyday heroism, wisdom, faith, worth and dignity. Traits we all carry, qualities that sometimes make you feel you need that superhuman strength to live out and help face some cynic's or 'realist's' ridicule, characteristics that could easily pull us out and pull us through anything if we didn't dread so much and think so little of them.

I'm dragging that soapbox out again, I know, my apologies, but it troubles me. Not just the economy and the voices of doom and gloom. It's the people being deafeaned and downtrodden by them I'm worried about. You probably know one or two. You might be among them. Neighbors, colleagues, brothers, cousins, laid off or fired, looking for a job, graduating to unemployment, right, left and center. People who used to have places to go and people to meet with nothing but bills and loans to pay and creditors to negotiate with.

Some have never been in that situation, many never even had nightmares of such a thing happening, and now they're paralyzed by what they feel they didn't deserve and couldn't see coming. It's unnerving, the level of unexpectedness, or should we say incompetence. Anyone in the know: Tell the truth. By all means, tell it like it is and leave in all the ugly parts as they were. We only wish we'd been told a little sooner or that those who tried to do so had been listened to instead of silenced.

But you didn't happen to pick up some proverbial coals by the tracks when the coal train passed by? Or did you? Don't get me wrong, I have a fierce protective streak my loved ones and innocent bystanders alike are free to take advantage of twenty four seven. But I also happen to believe everyone could use a little more of the Superman mentality and a little less of hiding inside Clark Kent, to say nothing of Lex Luthor. Superman was born Superman, remember? Weren't we all until we were stuffed in a power suit, and I'm not talking about those primary colored tights?

You have to be self-reliant in the sense that you have to believe in yourself, look after your interests, yes, but look after your loved ones too since it has been proven time and time again no one else will. You can't count on your government or that trust fund to float your boat. What if it's in the hands of some mad dog or other? What if it runs out? Greed never will. If there's profit to be had, if there are people to be had, someone will always be waiting in the wings to take advantage. (You did snatch some of those coals, didn't you? I saw you; I was there, too.)

Accessories after the fact, enablers and people willing to look away; victims, underdogs, losers big and small. Aren't we all guilty by association? Avarice, remember? Most do, on some level, understand what makes the world go round. There can't be wealth without poverty, you can't advance without leaving someone behind, and Western progress now spreading through the East means the end of our planet as we know it. So tell the East to stop making progress or cutback and downsize the Western way of life like never before? Which would be easier? Which would be wiser? Which would be fair?

There's much to be said about globalization, but if anything good has come out of this new deal it's maybe a newborn awareness of how very interlinked our lives are, and how very similar our joys and sorrows. Centuries of living apart, of seeing others as not quite human, as Others, or at least not as good and righteous as ourselves, it has happened on all continents, on all sides. The borders are still there, some grudges haven't been forgiven or forgotten. But like a crisis is what it usually takes for an individual to re-evaluate things, the same seems to be happening on a global scale. Methinks. Mehopes.

Too bad if it turns out to be too little too late. Too sad if we don't make a conscious effort to walk a mile in each other's shoes, try to make this planet and each other's lives livable, learn to feast on kindness, stock up on compassion, hunger for some higher mutual ground. Lay down the cutlery when gluttony and silent despair are the special of the day and give Superman a fighting slash flying chance, or you'll find a dead end at the end of the tunnel, not the light you were hoping for.