7/21/1997 (Rage On)

 

7/21/97

(Rage On)

 

One more day.  One more day to walk dazedly through the wasteland of my life. Occasionally, I find an artifact left over from a glorious time long past. The loneliness is crushing.  It is like a great void.  An emptiness that doesn't ever seem to go away. The hardest part is the waiting.  Not knowing if the phone will ever ring.  Not knowing if life has any hope.  Or any meaning.

The world is so fucked up.  People hate each other for no reason other than their own pain. We have all been tortured beyond any reasonable hope for healing.  We languish in our misery and we seem to wallow in the feeling of hopelessness that confronts us.  We are nothing but cannon fodder for an apocalypse long overdue.  If we had the guts, we would just cease our existence.  Instead, we trudge along waiting for something to end our suffering and take away the shattered dreams.  We cling to our precious few moments of joy like life jackets in twenty foot seas.  We know they won't save us, but what else can we do.

We are told we must have faith.  But where do we seek this distant shore?  Which way do we look for it?  Does it come to us like a hand suddenly thrust to us out of the dark?  Or is it an inner peace that comes with the final acceptance of our lot in life?  If we seek truth and are able to perceive to the moment of clarity that gives us a glimpse of it, how then do we not become cynical?  How then do we not say "fuck it, it just doesn't mean shit anyway"?  In looking at the glory of God that is left in this world, it is indeed a small flicker of light in a great field of darkness.  The yearning inside never seems to abate itself. The hunger never dies.  But, do we have the right to eat that sustenance which is so sweetly longed for?  Do we dare beg and reach for it like starving street urchins, just to have it yanked away at the last second?  Yet another cruel trick.  Or do we become arrogant and try to take what we feel is ours, only to be smashed to bits, our hopes crushed by our own insolence. 

I don't know how much more testing I can endure.  I hate the way I feel.  I feel like crying and laughing at the same time.  I want the gentle loving thing, but I want to rip the heart out of some of the people I see.  How can I pray for everyone and yet curse all I see.  I hate the conflicts within my being.  I feel weak and tired and I despise this.  I can not stand being weak.  I fear growing old more then I fear Death itself.  And I loath the lonely feelings I have had for so long.  These conflicts have driven every thing good away from me.  Damaged goods.  I wasn't keeping score of all the hits I had taken.  When I was little, I used to cry about them.  Then as I grew older, I fought over them.  Now I just try to tough them out or blow them off.  Sometimes, I ask God for the strength to carry things with me and I try to find a way to get rid of them.  But, it doesn't always work and my faith feels even weaker.  The dark side pulls at me very hard. It knows how much I liked it when I lived there.  It's a good place to hide.  Not safe.  Just good.  Nobody good ever goes there.  They never look for anybody there.  But, now when I go there I see faces that look at me as something that I am to them.  A hope for something better.  Because they look at me as a way out of the darkness, I know my being there hurts them.  I can't tell them the truth of what I see around me.  Or within me either.  Both would hurt them too much.  I care for them too much.  I guess I always have, but didn't admit it.  So I can't quite step into the darkness either.  No place to go.

 

No retreat...No surrender...No peace.

Illusions

Where do our illusions lie?
Are they in our souls?
Are they born in us or created around us
First by others and then by ourselves?
Are they the warm blankets we put about us on a cold night?
Do we hide behind them afraid of the dark unknown to us?
Are they a necessary part of us or can we shake them off and find a new way to fly?

Identity issues

I see so many people worried about their "identity". Worried about how people see them, what they call them, and how important it is to their existence. I am only going to be human. And simply being human I can change my identity as a I need to just by what I pick up and put in my hands. I can pick up a hammer and saw and I can be a carpenter. I can pick up weapon and be a soldier. I can pick up a book and be a teacher. I can pick up a paint brush or a musical instrument and be an artist. I can pick up a pen and be a writer. Others can ask me to pick up responsibility and I can be a leader. I can pick up all kinds of medicines and be a healer. I can pick up a child and be a parent. I can pick up someones hand and be a good partner. All the identities are open to me now. And I can take all that energy that I used to use trying to prove who I am and instead use it to actually get something done. Free yourselves. There is way too much to do to spend so much time looking in the mirror.

yin and yang

A call for peace too often falls on deaf ears. A call to war is too often heeded. But both are rarely led...or bled for... by those that call for it. For victory of either both peace and war need to be led by those that believe in them and are willing to make ultimate sacrifices for them. For this end we have both light or darkness.

Cooperation

Cooperation and community is harder to do then division and dissent. But it sure builds things that are much more worth the effort and that last much longer. Most kids get this. Anyone who understands or has ever been on a team of any kind knows this. So who can teach the people that are our leaders this? Too many of our political, social, religious and economic leaders don't understand it. Even so many "tribal" leaders don't get it. Everybody trying so hard to win. Nobody trying hard to win...together.

"Our society has hit rock bottom and we need to DO something!"

Generally in my usual cynical manner, I would tend to agree with the rock bottom part.

The only problem is that if it is true, at that point humanity would be pretty damn powerless to do much about it anyway. It’s pretty hard to rise up against Apache helicopters (or something equally as deadly) with rocks and sticks. It can be done (and has been) but at one horrible cost. And then would those that did manage to rise to power be any more humane about how they led the new society? History has shown us many times, that most likely they would not. No revolution has ever done much on a humanitarian side after the fact. Most move right to control, subjugation and retribution. And so the cycle repeats itself. So force, although tempting and perhaps inevitable is probably not the answer to solve the bigger problems.

No I think there has to be a real evolution of some kind. Some way for us to unite with a common goal in mind. Maybe its environmental issues, maybe it political or spiritual, maybe it’s defending the fucking planet from evil aliens or big space rocks hurtling towards us to make us the next great extinction. What really makes us dumb is that we have united in the past, as neighbors as communities and as countries to fight against huge odds to defeat all kinds of problems and threats. So. We know it can be done. But yet in all of our historical wisdom, in all of our religious and political fervor, utilizing all of our many diverse spiritual beliefs, we cannot find a way to act globally as people. Could it be that the "People" at the top of dare not let us? Could this be their greatest fear? Because we continue to have fear of each other, could it not be that this is their single most powerful tool used to keep us in their control? If we ever find a way to bring down those barriers and keep them down, the tables would be turned forever and the next phase of our evolution as a human species and as a society could begin.

In response to yet more endless debates on a serious issue and problem

Some more kids died in a school. Guns were involved. Again. Both sides of the issue are getting out there sabres and rattling them. Including on Facebook and other social mediums. As usual I will be one of the folks in the middle. But of course nothing will change because nobody really offers any solutions beyond absolute measures that neither side will budge about. So the likelihood of a repeat of the problem will continue. History doesn't repeat itself because it is an unbreakable force but because we do not use it to our advantage. The answer is not in the extreme views. So it is not in "take all the guns away" and it is not in "give everybody guns". Both of these views do not move towards a solution. In fact they continue to get in the way of one. I am posting this just to share my observance of this issue, not to start a public debate on my page. That would be pointless. But people DO need to start looking for some kind of middle ground answers and it will probably show up as something neither side has even considered as an answer yet. Being myopic about an issue causes that kind of blindness.