I’ve had those two words running around in my head for a few weeks.
It feels like our current state of “affairs” are beyond the pale. In some instances maybe even insurmountable in terms of feeling that there is any resolution or solution to an end result that doesn’t harm or disenfranchise someone. Anyone.
I get it. There is a ton of crap to take in these days. It’s hard to know where to go and how to know where to go to be of value for an end result that supports all inclusively.
Shutdown, walls, immigration, taxes, conspiracy, collusion, no collusion, corruption, protests, stand-offs, anger, hatred, finger pointing, accusations, innuendo, assumptions, perception, no facts, alternate facts, health care, choice, freedom, inclusivity, care understanding, openness, compassion, fairness, love … just love.
After having these two words roll around in my head for a week or two I saw a post on Facebook. Someone was voicing their anger, their outrage in the treatment of boys from Covington Kentucky and their encounter with other at the Lincoln Memorial on January 18th. And I wondered where was the outrage and anger of how some in society treated the students of Marjorie Stoneman High School. Double standard? Hypocrisy? (I’ll come back when I get the answer to the question.)
Our arch of purpose is bent. It feels to be bending toward a divide so deep that the gap of separation feels un-mendable. There is no middle ground. There is no thought that there could be a middle ground. Devoid of that space today seems foreign and not natural.
But is it natural? Are we exactly who we all appear to be? That this is “who” we are. That we are no different than we have ever been, some of us now feel safe in voicing what feels like counter culture. Counter intuitive to a life lived with the best of intentions. A life that if there is a heaven, entrance at the Pearly Gate is unencumbered and wide open, all are welcome. Or are they? Imagine if it were a wall. Or you had to sit and wait in a box or cage until it was your time to explain or review the things you did in your life to pass. Or maybe it is just like that nice moving with Meryl Streep and Albert Brooks, Defending your Life.
These things that are happening to cause us to say these short loaded statements, “we are better than this”, “who have we become?”, did not start, did not just happen or materialize one night, one day or even after one election. But the shine is off.
I’m not sociologist or psychologist but will say this, while my opinion of course, I am not alone in this. It has always been there, it has always been there and unfortunately it is who some of us are. It’s who some of us have been for a lifetime. The freedom that some are fighting, is the very freedom that allows us all to decide for ourselves what, in our opinion, is deplorable and what is not depending on our own internal moral compass. Which in my opinion is severely irretrievably askew.
It’s the undercurrent. It’s the idea. It’s the grabbing of attention that someone needs although they don’t understand what it is they actually need. So they seek attention in anyway they can. You know the saying, any attention is good attention. And when you are self-involved or have narcissistic tendencies … your compass has no true north. No truth. No comprehension of consequences. And I will be so bold as to void of morality period.
I feel that when one lacks the level of confidence in who they believe they are, fear steps in and shakes the shit up. Creates the assumptions and lies that feed those fears.
It’s one thing to want to change things. It’s another to change them for a single purpose with no foundation of reality, truth or purpose that protects those things, those truths that we hope to hold self-evident, for all! Not just a select few.
Selective indignation. It is rich with hypocrisy. We all have our limits. We all have our causes. What some dig up, in my opinion, in the grand scheme of things are small distractions and not the issue. A small selective event that supports their cause, their beliefs. Even if it a fraction of an issue. Or they focus on an object instead of the treatment of people of color. But it supports their indignation of how horrible some are or someone is. Your outrage is lost on me. Focus. What can we, where can we make a difference for the greater good?
But then I guess with those limits we each have to measure how much we take in. How much despicable and deplorable we allow in our view. And if we are, as I am, so overwhelmed with what is going on, what else can one do but worry about the garbage barge* floating in the Hudson River that we, in reality, can do NOTHING about.
*Sex, Lies and Videotape – Ann’s obsession with the world’s garbage is her way of avoiding her personal problem-the fact that she doesn’t enjoy sex with her dashing lawyer husband, John (Peter Gallagher).
