So just as i sat down to write, my friend and her friend who come periodically to clean my house - appeared; i was not prepared and have no idea how their presence will affect the narrative i’d been contemplating throughout the day. The essence of my thinking about this essay had been how to organize the planet against the successful oppression and near complete destruction of our species. I have trouble with cliques and social groups of all kinds and so am not the most effective organizer for obvious reasons. The challenge for me is how to use what native intelligence i possess to contribute to the greater good. I tend to the acerbic which if you don’t find humor in someone finding a way to drag their nails across your chalkboard, can be very off-putting. I make no apology for this it saves me time in distancing myself from shallow self-serving individuals of which the world is just about up to its rafters. So what to do if you are not given to glad-handing charlatans? For a long time i sought to distill the danger into understandable for lack of a better expressions jingos, or in today’s vernacular, tweets. There are too many in the media spectrum to distinguish one message from the rest. Early on in the day it occurred to me that Jesus of Nazareth faced the similar challenge and you can see how the advertising world has spun his message into the most lethal killing machine on the planet.
What then, fear is of no use, for humanity is so full with terror today of a microbe, it is hard to induce more caution than most families feel just touching doorknobs. Love, as Mr. Cohen pointed out so clearly is the only engine of survival. Yet from my experience this useful emotion has been so conflated with romance as to render it more toxic than healing. Barack diverted hope, back into lockstep with the corporate overlords piggybacking his own avarice into the greatest missed opportunity for leadership of the 21st century to date, so much so that his 2nd in command is now deflecting quite plausible sexual misconduct allegations. It’s as the the goddess of irony is going to ride our election right into the box canyon we’re running for. It is sad beyond measure for the simple fact that with some intelligence and a little heart we could avert certain disaster, but just now asking the nice cleaning lady through googol translate she looked at me like i was from another planet when i asked if she had any way to repurpose the cache of plastic containers i am loath to discard.
Earlier in the week i was tempted to ridicule the poster in the cloistered expat page who was trumpeting the possible opening of an apple factory here in VN. This zeal was of course accompanied by the hick from Missouri explaining to the Russian objector who pointed out the obvious. This stalwart yank wanted to point out to all concerned the backward nature of this country, who with bicycles and sharpened bamboo stakes handed Uncle Sam his ass on a plate. This young acolyte who was likely indoctrinated by the Koch Bros representatives who have infiltrated every educational institute in the country, simply by paying the registration fees for anyone who wanted to join A.L.E.C. and mouthing the epitaph “Liberal” as though it was synonymous with traitor or coward, however given the behavior of the DNC toward the popular leadership of Bernie Sanders, their imprecations are entirely accurate and earned. Yet all of this verbiage amounts to one more “talking head” holding forth with little or no hope of accomplishing what is needed - a sea change in the heart of humanity.
If it is love, or a better understanding about how love can change our future, i will be of little help as a 3-time divorcee and no prospects on the horizon. If it was a question of pigheadedness i might be of some use, having a stable of stone carvings and a lifetime of failure to show for it. If you don’t believe me about my lack of tact - when my friends arrived to help me to keep a house that contains a rat in the attic whose shit cascades into my neat-freak world, i suggested they needed to be more “thorough” than last time they helped. Now i cannot get them to cease their efforts an hour and 1/2 into the hottest part of the day sweeping debris which will come cascading down this evening when the rat moves its infested self over the room i sleep in because the cool air which i must use to sleep. Maybe i’m blunt, maybe emotionally retarded to be unable to find wiser language to get my wants fulfilled. I don’t know, what i do know is if i cannot encourage good-hearted people to reach a little higher when dusting how the fuck am i going to stop some armed hick who is willing to kill to open an economy that hasn’t been his in 4 decades¿ that is a question?
If questions are all i can leave behind i will not feel so bad in a world that has forgotten how to ask such things. Everyone is in such haste to be on the inside, to know what the masses don’t to trade in stocks that are about to fall - we have forgotten the biggest question of all · why are we here¿ what is the reason we have been given paradise to without strings; plant life to nourish and mend us, and animals to teach us lessons about humility and compassion. How can we have allowed ourselves to be so mislead by a pissant crew of carnival barkers led by the bozo bezos who care only about their flim-flam and nothing about our families¿ that is a question? and i welcome any cogent reply - but find most trolls to be wilting lilies hiding behind their gov’t stipend as keepers of the faith to actually mix it up with those they are ostensibly keeping free. The more i reflect the more i realize they are the childhood bullies who would invariably prey on the weakest child in the schoolyard to aggrandize their supposed superiority. I fell sucker to one such as a 6th grader, 7th grader, 8th grader, etc. · you get the picture. The saddest part of my too personal example is that my cowardice did not originate in the schoolyard, but in my home the very instant i conceded to the bad opinion presumed upon me by those who discovered they could evade their own fear by convincing another to be afraid.
jts 11/05/2020
http://stoanartst.blogspot.com
reprinted with permission - all rights reserved
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