Monday, February 23, 2015

You Have Failed Us

The birth of this blog was actually several years ago, and if I can track down writings from that time period, I'll share them. The inspiration for it was simple: there are social diseases running rampant and the infrastructure put in place to curb them and reduce their harm are failing. In other words, previous generations have failed us, and we are failing ourselves. As a whole, we're simply perpetuating past failures that have resulted in whole new ones, while anyone of above average intelligence can see that the System is not working. It is breaking down and we are racing toward a cataclysmic Event.

These words are vague and apocalyptic, yes, but if you're reading this, you've probably felt It and know exactly what I mean. Our culture is more concerned with comfort and convenience than curing cancer. We manufacture pills to treat depression and anxiety when the very world we live in is cause to be depressed and anxious. We sweep our problems under the rug, into hospitals or the prison system. As Ani DiFranco once put it, we "criminalize the symptoms while (we) spread the disease."

This blog was originally founded, by myself and my ex-husband, on the principal of another quote by Mr. DiFranco: "Every tool is a weapon, if you hold it right." The tools we intended to employ were, of course, art and the Internet. His photography combined with my writings would attempt to open the eyes of anyone willing to see how we've been failed in the past, and how we are failing ourselves in the present, while promoting ideas for solutions, if there are any. Realistically, it's very likely that we are too far gone to avoid a major extinction event. It may not be a sudden and drastic apocalypse such as the increasingly popular disaster films and post-apocalyptic survival television series envision, but a vast majority that is steadily increasing are envisioning it, and starting to prepare for survival. From the comedic zombie apocalypse survival guides to the Christian crisis response units, many are starting to prepare. It's almost as if a collective human consciousness is slowly having it dawn on it that we, indeed, are fucked.

A very pessimistic point of view, yet I was raised being prepared for the end times by my devout Christian mother, and the left-wing is angrily flapping about climate change, the pharmaceutical industry, the death of the electric car, and wars over sources of fossil fuels. Personally, I think I'm perceiving a gradual alignment of the left and the right over the issue of imminent disaster. Trends that were originally popular among the "damn hippies," such as Going Green and Natural Medicine are now increasing among the "progressive" conservatives. Go ahead and chuckle, bicycle warriors and earth mamas, you've earned it, but isn't this alignment fascinating? Doesn't it suggest a collective unconscious? Couldn't that be an aspect of God? Chew on that, my atheist friends, for "magic" and the "supernatural" is quite often thought to be science we just haven't learned to quantify or qualify yet.

Theological and science-"fiction" notions aside, this could also point to unification in the face of disaster, which may be cause for optimism. We may yet learn how to work with nature instead of exploiting it and learn how to cure social diseases instead of turning their symptoms into an industry. But we have proved that we're pretty slow learners, and that we must focus our attention on what's right instead of what generates a profit. Our moneyless Roddenberryian future is still, probably accurately, two or three centuries away, and currently we're boldly going down the tube with tablets in hand and emoticons on our faces.

I sometimes fantasize that Earth Seed, Octavia E. Butler's fictional "religion" in her two Parable novels, holds the answer, that we must take root among the stars. We must shake off this comfort-and-convenience based profit-generating System and learn the truth: that God is Change and we must partner God and learn to adapt. In the novels, the solution is to take root among the stars. Kind of makes sense. The violent climate changes are likely a result of overpopulation, and the social diseases that result in suicides, murder, and war probably are as well. We need to spread out and take root among the stars or start exercising some Nazi-ish population control measures that are the antithesis of a fee society, which would probably result in an apocalypse anyway.

On the subject of taking root among the stars, didn't I just read that the launch date for colonists to depart for Mars was just set? Is it already happening? Society beginning to right itself, I mean. Are we approaching the beginning of a new era and I'm just another statistic in the medical industry for depression, anxiety, and suicide attempts, being kept alive with therapy and pills while pathetically trying to purge myself of social poisons through art and social media?

Whoa, there. There are two possible conclusions. Either there's really nothing to worry about because we're already adapting for our survival and only an egomaniacal fool would believe the Earth won't survive us, or it's too late, and it's all Bush Jr. or Obama's fault, depending on which side of the political line you stand on. Meanwhile, I'm doing what I have to to survive, because living is a habit and other people think suicide is a sin, while I believe it's an issue of freedom of choice.

But that's a topic for another time.

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