As we close out the year it has seemingly become a time for extreme concern again. Maybe the concerns should never ebb and flow as they do, but this year just left me feeling like I was blankly staring out and wondering what is the point.
I watched a documentary earlier in the year about FDR in which I could hear almost verbatim the arguments used against his plans for Social Security and other social programs we have come to accept as saving graces actually, being used today against Obama today.
Are we really so dumb as a society that we cannot look to the past to learn and move forward with out spewing the same rhetoric over and over and over again?
And another terror network has surfaced seemingly more sinister than the last?
Racial divides?
Decades and decades and the same old stuff?
Is it a plan somehow to keep us at bay?
Seriously how is it that we have not overcome many of the same obstacles that had plagued us throughout the 20th century and yet we seemingly were moving forward like at no other time in history.
Surely we can move even further forward can't we.
Look at this child's face for a minute and ask yourself this question.
Can we do better?
I began 2014 with a simple little thing. I talked about Elevating our lives. I had grown weary of seeing the sponsored viral posts of top 10 celebrity butts or videos of Wal-Mart patrons in thongs and sweatpants etc… All absurdities that get our attention and allow us to look at life as a spectator and judge!
Shouldn't we live our lives as a participant and produce? No judgement, just make and build for yourself.
We have become too fascinated with famous or the 'viral' -- consumers of the mind-numbing minutia that advertisers and the wealthy 1% want us to be distracted by. And we fight over it somehow and drag each other down. We share it like candy!
What we are not doing enough of is giving to ourselves our own self worth and making work that benefits mankind in some way. How great would it be that the price of milk wasn't governed by a marketplace, but rather by the need of the milk? and producers of milk didn't have to worry about said marketplace because they were producing something essential to mankind!
Here is where I get labeled the idealist that i am. But really isn't that what we should be striving for--ideal?
We have too many uneducated people in this world. This is a problem and we consistently cut back on education.
Again is this by design to keep us at bay?
I don't know.
We need to not give up on those who find learning difficult, but rather find more ways reach people who learn in different ways. We each have something to give, we just need patience of our educational system to find it. Why is school based on a 13 year system? Surely we can change that!
I was saved by art. I was pretty bright, but i got disillusioned as my world got bigger. Art allowed me to be in a bubble I could manage despite not having the traditional technical tools associated with being an artist. Art allowed me to have a crackly voice that was listened to and then with the help of a few 'kindreds' or just solid individual humans, i was able to refine the tools enough to gain a voice.
And oh the voice is a wonderful thing to have and use and we all have one to use!
I will continue my Elevate notion into 2015 in hopes that it gains more traction and more people in my circle spread to their circles and beyond to not settle for the mundane, but push for the extraordinary.
It is out there!
It is out there in very cool ways in every possible direction you stare--you just have to look! In science, in poetry, in music, in dance, in history, in archeology, in math, in social sciences etc……. there has never been a more advanced time than now, but it gets buried.
Look for it.
Expand your field of vision. Shut off the radio stations that play the same songs ever day, turn off TV news programs and talk radio. Try silent contemplation once in awhile. Seek out the best of the best and not just the popular or the ones with the highest ad revenues or that boast they were first. Seek out those who are most accurate consistently.
Elevate!
Maybe we need more NPR stations like we have so many ESPN stations. NPR that focusses on different aspects for everyone????
I'll hopefully post my favorite photos of the year very soon. I just want to do it right, not fast.