Each morning, I take a quick scan of the summary of yesterday's news and overnight events. Inevitably, I end up shaking my head wondering what the hell has happened in this world. I wonder why it has become so difficult to talk about one's feelings or reasoning or beliefs in delicate areas of life. For example, talk of Israel raises the pressure and temperature in the room, never mind the universe!
There are many oh so very delicate 'tread light' topics and new highs and lows once unthinkable are becoming everyday events. Shock category bars are raised higher and higher even as we barely notice the cumulative change effected within us and society at large. People seem to have grown thicker skins when discussing possibility of empathy and sympathy, of rethinking one's position, and thinner skins when it comes to meeting a challenge to one's beliefs, even the opportunity to explain them. It is all seen as an attack by the enemy directly impacting you, aimed directly at your core. This totally negates any possibility of give and take, of moderation and compromise, of an understanding and recognition of the importance of shared traits and commonalities among humankind. And so, we continue on our not so merry ways, ignoring connecting roads and possible improvement in traffic patterns. We are all the worse for this.
Hence on to my own inner campaign to redefine and realign thoughts, manner of thinking, accepting a growing understanding that much as one would have it so, it is impossible to achieve any positive forward movement if we maintain the standard belief that is 'all or nothing'. That position is diametrically opposed and greatly hindering of any compromise and understanding of another's opinions. Nothing good ever comes of that. All we do is fight and argue, literally and figuratively, and mess up the world even more than it is at present,
Inevitably, the victim or the victor will feed into feelings of anger and being cheated and the whole ugly process begins once again. Machines of war are restarted. only this time with more devastating power. Bloodcurdling shouts of triumph override terrifying, heartbreaking cries of the dead and dying, the horribly wounded, and those who mourn the grievous loss of loved ones and their former lives. At some point there will be those who recognize the futility of this constant back and forth battle, of this up and down without any gain, only loss. They will try to present the truth to the world. For all their efforts, they will be stomped upon, discredited and discarded. Back to steps one and two and three. Ad infinitum, ad (great) nauseum.
Think not that these proposed peacemakers take their defeat lightly. They are human, hence their emotions, their anger, their anger, are piqued negatively. They become extreme in their words and in their demands. They turn supporters against them. Ironically, too often they find themselves fighting on the same side with a once upon a time enemy. This all bodes no good for civilization. It bodes no good for relations between nations nor in relations between members of a local society. When one sees the 'others' as something not human, somehow of lesser quality and importance, we are, again, fruitlessly, at it. At each other. And once again, nothing good ever comes with this, only rising fears and tensions, increasing pressure upon society's defenses, ever more challenged and in existential danger.
Here we are today in America. A once vibrant, glowing, ideal chasing, flawed nation. Replete with dreams and nightmares, but always sure that no matter how far apart we swing, the pendulum would always bring us back again. Together, to shared understandings and beliefs, to the status and condition of being American. A term of pride, a term which carried with it the implied command to share with each other and the world the bounty and privileges our country has conferred upon us, and the hard work necessary for that status, for that gift.
But we do not. Nor have we done so for too many years, decades even. We have. grown fractious and selfish. We make the demands with self interest in mind. We deny to others the privileges granted to our ancestors - to come to this country, to help build it, to make mistakes, to get past them, to grow, to breathe free. We project our fears upon them and make real what is not. As a result of this and other dystopian beliefs and projections of those beliefs, we have become a society tortured from within. We have delved deep into the abyss of that monster and taken on many of its characteristics. We eye each other with the eyes of an enemy. We refuse to grant any possibility that a germ of a good idea might exist within those with whom we are at constant battle.
A more open society would have avoided a Trump. Honest statements people made in 2016, before and after, would not have been rescinded and their souls denied. Evil has become real, tangible, and its ominous portent for our future allowed to thrive, rather than having been recognized, trashed. Set aside. Dangerous overblown clowns of disaster would have been kept in place, received no position of influence, and the outlook for our future would have been brighter, more hopeful, more optimistic. We have so erroneously looked backwards to a time of ugliness, of schisms within society, and the inevitable bloodshed which followed immediately upon the footsteps of a challenged nation which could not see the forest for the trees.
At this point, we are carrying a huge mortgage on our life as a nation. The interest rate is high with no possible anticipation of any realistic refinancing. Our bills have come due. The question now remaining is do we have the courage to stand up and say the truth, speak the truth, know the truth. Can we carry it forth ahead, fight the Don Quixote battles awaiting us. Do we have the courage and stability to look within and assess honestly?
I don't know. I really do not know. But as long as we cling to wrong leaders, cede ourselves and souls and independent thinking to those faulty flawed leaders, or hinge our acceptance of said faulty leadership, hinging it on one issue only, ignoring the reality of interwoven facts and aspects of life, impossible to artificially deny those connections, we will fail. Abysmally.
I have decided to continue the fight, even if friends and family might disagree with me. There are many others out there in the wider world who have spoken up, are on the same tracks with me. Even as I disagree with part of their ideas or platforms, I must do as I preach. I must sort through all the verbiage of all sides. and take from them the best of what they are. I must acknowledge there are valuable grains waiting to be reaped from all fields. We must see clearly through the pretenses and scams meant to harm us. If we pick and choose carefully, if we truly seek understanding, perhaps we can eventually achieve a true possibility of a good future for our kids. To find all within that is worthy, important, and necessary for an America worthy of that name. I must be honest with and to myself, to strive to be the best I can be, to be faithful to myself and to lifelong beliefs. I must for otherwise I am not me.
More tomorrow
. Bear with me.
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