Wednesday, January 28

Back in the Biz-United States of Disunity

It's time to get back at it, being creative and thoughtful. Not that these things ever cease. But to be so publicly? A different matter entirely!


Here's something I've been thinking about.

I've been thinking about how un-unified we are as a people. How afraid we are of true community-true reliance and trust in others, which, in fact, is the way we were meant to live I think! Consider this bit of a stream of a conciousness entry I've written about this:

"
We, as a people, and I’m talking mostly to the largely Anglo and non-recently-emigrated minorities who call themselves Americans, are taught that success and good living is achieved alone. Let me rephrase this, that to be a successful American is to pull your own self up by your bootstraps and make something of yourself-to not depend on anybody else for anything but to use people for what they give to you, not for the community that is possible. To have a woman be your wife to you, to have your grocer give you goods, to have your doctor give you medicine. But you are your own person who has chosen to accept these things and you are an island, just like Donne liked to say. You are alone and that’s truly the best way to be. The American way, in fact. To be independent
"


I'm thinking about writing a play about this. There's more to these thoughts, as well. Mostly about what the hope is, not the criticisms, what life should be about. Consider this as well:

"

LET ME POSIT SOMETHING NEW: DON’T LIVE SO YOU CAN MAKE MONEY AND THUS COUNT YOURSELF SUCCESSFUL. Not just an anti-materialism rant or something or some trite summary that “true wealth is in friends” or “the heart” or in “non-monetary things, etc. etc“. BUT that we, as Americans, have been lied to about the meaning of success and sadly have built our society around that meaning, which is to say, we’ve built our society around the structure of hard-working individual people working hard and making money and spinning the wheels of capitalism round and round thinking that that is the only true purpose in life AND THAT by fulfilling this American freedom of individual success, we can be ANYTHING WE WANT and eventually, if we work hard enough, be able to afford WHATEVER WE WANT which will make us feel happy. BUT this isn’t true. It is simply NOT TRUE. Not everyone can have all that much money, most people won’t get to work a job all that close to what they truly enjoy doing, most everyone will struggle and toil to make ends meat for years and years, and the American dream just isn’t possible for a large amount of Americans. But here’s the deal. Instead of pointing fingers and blaming the founding fathers or Ronald Reagan or Adam Smith or Karl Marx or whomever for creating or challenging and thus renewing with vigor this, our fair country’s sorely dissatisfying capitalistic success, instead of getting angry for being duped or feeling hopeless because you’ll never get that raise or that yacht or that house, instead of all that negativity and bitterness and blame and self-loathing, FORGET ABOUT THE MONEY. Because guess what, IT’S NOT ABOUT THE MONEY. You don’t believe me? Walk out into the street and get hit by a car. IT’S NOT ABOUT THE MONEY. Because it isn’t. What is it about? It’s about brevity. It’s about preciousness, immediacy, present-tense, look-up-at-the-sky-and-breathe-in-the-free-beautiful-air-all-around-you-ness.It’s about the fact that having enough fiat money sitting in a bank vault just doesn’t make you feel any better deep deep deep deep down where the human in you lives on, yelling at your heart and your brain all day long that it all just isn‘t enough.
"

What do you think?

1 comment:

Lauren said...

Amen to that!---Couldn't've said it better myself! Wow....

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