TURNING IN…TO THE STORM

Planes try and fly above them, cars try and run away from them but ships… turn in towards them hoping to minimize the damage and possibly avoid sinking altogether. All are occupied by people yet, depending on their circumstances and what space they happen to occupy at that moment in time, they can behave quite differently when faced with an impending storm. Some will try and rise above it, some will run away from it but, most of us will simply turn in to it and try to ride it out with no clear idea of how to do that. The best they can come up with many times is a foolish notion that they are impervious to the storm around them by staying small and quiet allowing them to get through it all unnoticed. The stench of death will grow stronger as we go deeper into the storm but rather than deal with it we’ll whip out some Febreeze to try and mask the smell. “That’s someone else’s problem…” we’ll smugly think to ourselves and then, assuming we survived, get mad at everyone else for not taking care of it for us or, worse yet if they did, not fixing it the way we wanted it fixed. I have come to realize we have all grown accustomed to standing in quicksand glaring at each other waiting for someone to figure out how to get us out of it! Worse yet, we want someone to plant a tree for us so that we can have shade while we drown! We have ceased to be humans. We have become the “Raptor” of our age devouring anything and everything that gets in our way in our quest to be the last being standing when everything is gone. We cannibalize buildings, machines, ideas and people in an effort to “re-invent” everything without really doing much of anything because the effort needed to do something new takes too much time out of our desire to satisfy our hunger for wealth, power and the choice cuts of food. Nobody wants to work for it… they just want the rewards and they will lie, cheat and steal to get them… well intentions gone wrong aside. I don’t know a single person on this planet that hasn’t done that at one point or another in their lives… including me. Hardly something to be proud of yet, in spite of our moral bankruptcy, everyone likes to beat their chest and proclaim how Godly and moral they are. They are aghast that the rest of the world doesn’t see it THEIR way and will kill those that disagree to prove their right and attempt to challenge and regulate those who choose to peacefully live a life different from their own. Our government (along with many other countries) is bankrupt… not because they don’t have any money, but because they’re incapable of managing what they have smartly. They insist working on a nearly three hundred year old economic model filled with band-aids, staples and duct tape. It has never occurred to anyone to create a new one in spite of how many Nobel Prizes on the subject has been given out over the years. I’m not clever enough to do that but there MUST be SOMEONE out there who has the skill set to take it on and help us. If they don’t… sooner than we might think, this house of cards we all call an economy is going to permanently collapse with no chance of resurrecting it. If that happens those so-called “One Per-center’s” won’t be able to sneak into the front of the line at Disney World anymore because it won’t be open. No one will be able to afford to go there. In spite of that absolute… the government wants everyone in the country to pay for health insurance they can’t afford if they don’t already have it… hmmm. I can’t help but wonder who had this brain fart and why they thought it was needed. It’s not a Democrat or Republican thing… it’s a stupid former human thing. Change is coming… whether we like it or not. You can see the storm clouds building on the horizon. It will affect us personally, socially, communally, professionally, nationally and globally. Being quiet and small won’t be an option anymore, Febreeze won’t hide the reality around us, we can’t run from it, we may not be able to rise above it either and it clearly won’t allow us to ignore it. Forcing change through violence only proves how inhuman we’ve become. Change, as often is the case, starts with one person. Many changes have happened in my life over the past few years… some by choice, some by necessity to stay alive. Regardless of the reasons more, I fear, are still to come yet I find myself cautiously optimistic of what the changes may bring. For one thing hope. A hope that I (and everyone else) will figure out a way to regain our humanity, compassion, understanding and tolerance towards peoples uniqueness. For another, a way to reduce or eliminate an obscene desire more of everything than my neighbor has and a way to appreciate the simple things in life once again like good food, friends, family and life. There are many other hopes and aspirations to be sure but they’re personal and specific to me. The changes will, hopefully, be faced privately and positively as well as with those close to me that might be affected in some way. You, I would hope, will have your own laundry list of potential changes to deal with. Regardless of that fact we will ALL have common issues to deal with and the only way there will be some resolution to the change is if we get together and talk it through. That conversation can happen anywhere at any time. All it takes is a “What if?” instead of a “------- is to blame for this” rant accomplishing nothing but possibly proving one’s ignorance. I, for one, am willing to fully participate in that conversation. The important thing is to try… right?