As a person who has delved into my psyche in order to try and understand myself better, I have found that we have other people stuck in our systems. As a mom and grandma I am somewhat happy about that. My kids and grandkids go off in the world and they may not know it but they are taking parts of me around with them. My grandma (therefore I myself but not officially) was a DAR. And my great grandpa was in the civil war on the Southern side. So it should not be a surprise that at one point I found myself with two (imaginary) lil ole ladies yelling at me "BE NICE, BE NICE"! They probably were the feminine counterpart to all that bellicosity from the male side of my ancestors.
I discovered these lil ole ladies when I was trying to get a divorce from my first husband. I made a deal with them. I knew I needed my anger to give me the impetus to finalize that divorce and I told them so. I told them that I knew they meant it for my own good but I needed very much not to be nice at that moment in time.
We are noticing more and more projection coming from the rethugs. They say they are moral, they say they are pious, but what they are throwing out there is really really awful stuff. Let's try to ignore what Santorum is and just listen to what he says. He is opposed to contraceptives because it gives people a license to use sex in ways other than sex was intended to be used. Now really Sanny, I know you have seven kids. Did you only have sex with your wife 7 times? And how do you know how sex is to be used? Humans are amongst the rare species that enjoy sex as other than procreation. If we have the ability why is it you think using it as enjoyment is not what it is intended for? Sanny, poor boy, is mouthing stuff his preacher might have said. And it is possible that his family as a clan believes that claptrap and he is also being loyal to his clan. But it says volumes about Sanny that he slavishly follows and is totally unable to delve into his own psyche. Scary things those psyches! We had George Bush who was much the same and was easy for Cheney to manipulate. George never had a profound thought that I ever heard about while in office. Do we want leaders who have no ability to think?
But enough about politics for a half a second.
Now we also have voices in our heads that might have some relevance to what we do need at any given moment. I used to sing and songs would pop into my head and I would listen to the lyrics and think oh yeah, that is so where I am now. And there is that wee small voice of our spirit or the part of us that yearns to do something else other than what we are doing. That wee small voice might have some relevance as well.
And there are our emotions. If you follow an emotion you have, it might surprise you that it is pointing to something that needs to be changed. And if you just follow the thread and not succumb to the emotion it might surprise you how easy it is to make changes without a lot of sturm and drang.
We have a ton of voices going off at the moment. People are really ready with ideas and solutions and worries and complaints and observations. We know that the news media is fracked (although I have some favorites now where I didn't before). We know that corporations and the media are in bed with each other and so what we get we have to really sift through other sources. But those voices too will stick to us. We hear the smears and don't always understand that the smears are not so relevant to what we want and need. If a group like Move On or Acorn gets smeared, it is bad news if we let them die because of the smears. We need to have the backs of people who are on our side EVEN THOUGH THERE ARE TIMES WE DISAGREE. All too often people will cut others off and never ever revisit the reason or the group's relevance to what we need and want.
Those of us who grew up in dysfunctional families have a whole thing going as well. A need to keep things under control or maybe a need to keep the peace or maybe a "fix it" attitude that means a comment may get a barrage of advice or admonitions. AND despite the hype the economy is not well at our end of the pool. Maslow's hierarchy of needs (Needs diagram ) says that physical needs and safety needs have to be met before we can love each other. We have done an excellent job on this site taking care of each others needs as well as being able to love those in our community.
So what we need for each other and ourselves is honesty, being there for each other, caring about each other even to the point of allowing disagreements and knowing that disagreeing ISN'T the end of the world.
A lot of folks grew up in clans and families and the ultimate hold that those had on us was the fear that we would literally be disowned. Some of us more than others. We need to avoid using language with each other that evokes those old fears. We need to be aware that we have these old fears and when we get triggered we understand it is a trigger not a real threat. We've had pie fights and people have gone off in a huff and in very rare cases sent OFF in a huff. We need to look out for each other and let each other and others know when the line is starting to be crossed in a very gentle way. This is not a gotcha moment. This is not something that needs a medal. This is something we do for ourselves more than others. And it is scary to accept criticism and it can be scary trying to give a gentle nudge without being scary.
Now I want to touch on the Occupy Movement. Oakland has been a flashpoint in this movement. The people on the ground - Allie and others like Scott Olsen and so many others - have been courageous and audacious and awe inspiring to me. They have literally risked their lives for this movement.
I have watched OWS and I have watched Oakland. I wish those of us in the middle had their mettle.
Things will not turn around until all of us are out there with them. And while it is true that the movement has to recruit people, has to inspire people it is also true that people come in a huge spectrum. Some are old activists and understand and care about the movement and what people are having to endure. Some have never been activists but some injustice, some sense of fairness has pulled them into the game. Others may never come out. But the events in Oakland cannot leave very many in doubt that Oakland people are tough and caring and they care about the whole community. They care about the black community, they care about the homeless, they care about the truckers that cannot get a union certified.
The movement is there because there are so many things we need to rethink and it can be daunting. I would urge people on this board to review in your minds the systems that you know are broken. Now assume that nothing, no barriers stand in the way. How would you fix them. How would you fix even one?
If you want to have your mind pried open: Sustainable future
I got waylaid by this blog entry because I watched the lecture which was long. He talked about what we would need if we were to go to Mars. And along the way, talked about what we need here on earth. I found it absolutely fascinating.
Amongst other links the fellow gave was Khan Academy Their motto:
Learn almost anything for free!
Open Source Ecology Front page says:
A Network of Farmers, Engineers, and Supporters Building the Global Village Construction Set
The Zeitgeist Movement
From their mission statement:
Founded in 2008, The Zeitgeist Movement is a Sustainability Advocacy Organization which conducts community based activism and awareness actions through a network of Global/Regional Chapters, Project Teams, Annual Events, Media and Charity Work.
The Movement's principle focus includes the recognition that the majority of the social problems which plague the human species at this time are not the sole result of some institutional corruption, scarcity, a political policy, a flaw of "human nature" or other commonly held assumptions of causality.
Rather, The Movement recognizes that issues such as poverty, corruption, collapse, homelessness, war, starvation and the like appear to be "Symptoms" born out of an outdated social structure. While intermediate Reform steps and temporal Community Support are of interest to The Movement, the defining goal here is the installation of a new socioeconomic model based upon technically responsible Resource Management, Allocation and Distribution through what would be considered The Scientific Method of reasoning problems and finding optimized solutions.
Think about it. Whatever we would need for the space station, for a mars station, we need here on earth. We need abundance and we are capable of creating abundance.
What if we change our world view to where everybody has the potential to save our planet, save our communities and in the process give us a new life and energy and purpose? What if we no longer allow barriers to stop us from doing those things? Do we even know what all the barriers are? It was said about Japan that even if they panicked they would still wait until the light changed before again running away from Godzilla. Do we do that? Are there red lights that stop us? That exist only in our minds because of our upbringing?
This diary illustrates what happens when barriers are gone:
Barefoot Grandmothers build and install solar gives us another look at how the world could work and be.
We are all right. We are all whole. Even as we celebrate our humanness with our silly or bellicose or drama queen/king way we are whole and so is everybody in this boat with us. And even though a lot of us on this board are not so springy any more, we are capable of learning and we are very necessary to this era. Our younger folks are also getting the brunt of this whacky economy and we need to cut them some slack and give them some love. And, since so much has changed and so much is happening cut all ourselves some slack in our efforts to keep up with it all. But above all we need to exercise our minds and our imaginations.