A Journal of Movement
What up party people!? I’ve returned from my vow of digital abstenence and bring with me deep realizations, shallow epiphanies and nuggets of truth and dingleberry. While I saw some breathtaking beauty and some gut wrenching ugliness, most everything was just plain old beautiful ordinary life.
When you really think about it, life is almost always a front. How often are we not hiding, shielding, shadowing, skewing, or shading the reality we face, the reality we project, and the reality we live in? How rare and beautiful an occurrence it is when we can actually let go of our vulnerabilities, our insecurities and come clean to anyone, to ourselves, about the struggles and triumphs of our hidden lives. How often do we share something real, raw and boring? How often is what we share curated to be the most likeable, the least threatening? Can we handle the reality of our own mediocrity? Does the chaos of the world at large have an effect on the self image we promote? Media’s influence is powerful, subtle, invasive and widespread, I’m taking a moment to dive in and see how it settles, or more accurately, to dive out.
For whatever reason, the other night I found myself in the middle of writing a longish, frank, open-ended conversation or “post” on Facebook. This was not something I planned or edited but after an initial burst of energy I discovered I was three paragraphs deep into what my friends would only really consider a rant. I read what I had written, and realized I had more to say, that my feelings were important for me to share, but that they also demanded something extra; an introduction, an explanation, and hopefully, an epilogue (although that part will be written by us all). This is my best attempt to that end, I don’t expect to hit the mark and I don’t expect everyone to read, comment on, or even acknowledge some what I have to say. I understand that the subjects I’m talking about are controversial, but I hope it is clear that I do not mean to impose, to blame or to implicate with any of my words, and that hope is best reflected in my effort to frame the essay with this title.
We’re all in this together, our civilization has grown for hundreds years to create our present situation, our complacence does not equate with guilt, indeed it’s just the opposite, as our current understanding of the principals and habits of this broken system allow us an advanced perspective to it’s biggest problems and best possible solutions. Dream Big, Demand the Impossible.