Sputtering

It's difficult for me to fuel a rage at the world sometimes. It's not that there are not things which outrage me; every day, I find new things to inspire my spite for certain aspects of our world. However, at the same time, I find that I see so much around me that is wonderful, so much that is alright with the world that we live in. Somewhere, a voice inside myself tells me that all of the injustices I see are still peanuts compared to the injustices which have come before my time, to the crimes of global scale which predated my awareness.

Even as our economy falters and slips into god knows where, even as wars rage and starving peoples cry out for help, even as nature itself lashes out against humanity, relentless and unprejudiced, I find that I cannot hold anything but appreciation for the times in which I am, and for the life which I have been given the opportunity to enjoy. Even as I see friendships waning into nothing, even as I hear tales of abuse and ignorance, I can only be awed by the fierce manner in which these things occur; the sheer force of life that is required even in moments of destruction.

It is easy to be angry at the world, to be angry at life, at yourself. It is easy to breed contempt or jealousy or that seething, searing hatred by which we seek to elevate ourselves above the things to which we bear witness. It's a simple thing to click on the evening news and find new, scathing things to rail against to burn a fire against the rages of what is not fair and just and true. It is as nothing to let grow within oneself a fear or an aversion; to pour our own derisive comments out against the swelling tide of that which we percieve as wrong with the world. Mankind seems geared to creating this sort of emotional shell; we separate ourselves from those things which we despise by fostering that dark energy, we focus ourselves on being known to feel a certain way about certain things -- our social identity is almost never known by our actions, but by our words, and whichever of these is true, I think it is most interesting that we are not known by what we agree with, by what we believe to be the honest manner in which the world should turn, but that we identify ourselves by our anger, by those things which we would wish to be furthest from. Activism, political rallies, blogs -- we focus ourselves on making it loud and clear that there are things which we see as being incorrect, we exemplify the very things we wish to change, often in the name of social awareness and decrying the despots and infuriating realities that they envision upon the land.

This is not conviction. This is not belief. This is not virtue.

And so, even while I weather the storm which we all must face, even as the harsh existence of starship Earth tears at us, I say, we should stand not for what we refuse to believe in, not to bring to light those ugly things which we cannot abide, but to appreciate the things for which we live; we should forego our anger, at times, and breathe joy and appreciation for the very soul of ourselves and pierce light against a darkness not by bearing the darkness down with fury, but by embracing any glint of light that can be seen, by showing that no level of fear will be allowed to destroy the good in the world, that we, as people, are still capable of knowing that, while our situation grows dim, it will never be black, and we will never falter.

Sputtering

Contentment

I've heard that the best things in life are free. For the life of me, I can't rightly figure how this has been decided; nothing, truly, is free -- monetary cost is only one consideration which, for many Americans, sits at the forefront of all other components of existence, fuelling the need to enrich their lives through a cycle of purchase and consumption, purchase and consumption, purchase and conundrum.

The best things in life are free of direct monetary subsistence; those things which truly mean something to us are much greater than the slips of paper and metal scraps that seem so important by their form and purpose; intent is the only thing which creates a value system around these units of exchange -- the sole bestower of worth is perception, and insofar as we percieve objects or experiences to be valuable, so they are, if only to ourselves. When you take into account the multitude of intent and perception all bent towards believing in the value of a certain anything -- in this instance, money -- then it becomes more valuable in a societal sense than anything else; consentual reality is a self-correcting system, wherein that which the masses deem as most important to the masses becomes most important to individuals seeking to acquire greatness above the masses; the real goal, I think, is to make a name for yourself through establishing greatness by excelling at the things valued by society until you've reached the point where your own preferences -- the things that you, personally, value -- can be brought to the front and inserted into the consensus; that is to say, although society will only recognize those who achieve their definition of value, the definition of value is easy to change once one has established a mastery of the existing infrastructure.

This is why our celebrities are wealthy, and why they proselytize their pet causes. World hunger, global warming, foreign wars; these become the flagship causes of a population enamored with a god-king of the silver screen who speaks to his people and commands respect be shown for these efforts. Most people refuse to create their own sense of worth; they follow the trends, the latest new hot thing being touted by the emergent American Idol champion or whichever female celeb is willing to strip her clothes and let her airbrushed, ever-so-perfect looking flesh advertise a cause; this is the new disease of a nation which denies its own responsibility to itself through vicariously existing as the select few elite, the banner-waving people who were willing to adhere to their own structure of worth -- to a point -- and now champion their endeavors with zeal and gusto, like only a true dreamchaser could do.

We seek to find solace in something. Those who are leaders among us imagined a goal, or saw something which they felt was desirable, and they achieved it; the dejected hordes who have surrendered their thoughts to these avatars of nationalism seek that same fulfillment of desire through accomplishing tasks on behalf of the Ba'alesque beings that straddle the sky from their glass and steel towers; we serve their causes so as to feel that same sense of worth, as if we have done something, and it mattered -- a legacy can be built on nothing more than charity if the spin is right and the cause is popular.

When you chase a dream, are you certain it is your own?

Contentment