Long Since Coming

I'd like to take a moment to reflect on change, leadership, and the common misconception that Barack Obama is either a messiah or the devil himself.

A lot of people have been pretty miffed about the way that America has been run for the last eight years; in case my previous postings aren't indicative, I'm among that number myself. A lot of us have been waiting for a change, for things to be different, for a fresh new face to lead us forward and help fix up a lot of problems which may or may not have been the fault of the previous administration; some which have existed since before anyone involved in that administration had power, some of which are relatively new. Now, last week, Barack Obama, the selected representative for this change, was sworn in (twice, even), and we can get down to business, right?

Maybe.

People seem to think that because he's President, Mr. Obama will be able to make good on a number of promises that he made while vying for office; things like tax reductions, stimulus packages, economic relief, advances in medical science, reduction in torture propogated by a nation that doesn't torture -- a lot of good stuff, really, when you get into the heart of it. He's even started his term by taking some strides towards these things -- but that's all he's able to do. I don't know why people think that the federal budget is at the hands of the Preisdent, or why they'd buy into the idea that he can personally reduce their income taxes, or that he's capable of the broad-swept changes that we need, that he promised, that are arenas far beyond the control of his office and those of his fellow administrative folk.

Sure, he's got a congress built on his own party's backs, but even there -- well, partisanship isn't the only name of the game, and he's ruffled a lot of feathers amongst his fellow Democrats as well as Republicans with some of his plans for change; that's going to make it difficult to achieve what he told us would be done as if by magic, and we lapped it up -- the messianic revival of the voting populace flocking to this newfound truth-bringer who shall bear down with light upon the darkness spread by every other politician before him.

Oh, wait. There's a precedent there, isn't there? That every president, every politician, every single man to wield national power in the history of the United States, if not the world, has always lied. They've always failed to deliver on promises made, they've spread untruths, fallen victim to corruption, felt the sting of scandal or flaunted the influence of their position for their own personal gain. Without fail, each of our leaders has faltered, has slipped, has said or done unsavory things better swept under a rug and forgotten. Of course, with the digital age booming, you can bet your life savings -- if you still have any, that is -- that no scandal, no word, no slip of the tongue will exist in obscurity for more than five seconds before it's screaming across the internet by way of mobile-upload Twitter-screeching, Facebook status-updating, MySpace bulletin-shoving instant-gratification superculture.

I'll say what nearly everyone who's being vocal anymore seems afraid to say: I cannot wait for Obama to fail. I am literally abuzz with anticipation for the first blown-out-of-proportion report of possible scandal, of campaign promises crumbling, of our ever-so-exalted perfect leader as he stumbles, falls, and fails to rebound with the same elastic infallibility afforded him during the course of his bid for the office he now holds. It will bring a great and solid joy to my heart the first time that his imperfectness is shoved into the noses of holier-than-thou Leftists who bestow such accolades as are due a God unto this man, and they are forced to remember that, at the end of the day, he is only human. And a politician, at that. No savior shall hail from their number in my day -- of that I am absolutely certain.

That said, I hope that he doesn't. I hope, for all our sakes, that he's somehow able to work the miracles he's foretold, to push his agenda with dogged and unwavering perserverance, to strike at the corruption, inconsistency, and incompetence that plagues our nation, our government, our world. I would like nothing more than to see him pull it off, blaze into the global stage full of this promise and bearing an olive branch that none refuse. It would be the most fantastic thing I've ever known to see this happen.

But, I'm certainly not holding my breath. So, here's to hope, and keep those bomb shelters stocked in the meantime. You did all build those these last few years, right? Right. I thought so.

Long Since Coming

Rite of Way

I've only got one chance at this, so I'm taking it now; it's nearly a new year, and I can't very well just let that slip by without my acknowledging it.

Rites and rituals all around this time of year, after all. It seems that everyone has their vision of the perfect holiday season -- a white Christmas, a warm fireplace, a creamy hot chocolate on a crisp winter night. Gathering with family, or with friends, or curling up alone and dwelling on the events that have gone before us, and those which lay ahead. A quiet contemplation or a raucous year-end bash blasting music until dawn.

Each of these is a personal journey, and one into which we invite our loved ones, our friends, our colleagues. We all form our own ideal, and attempt to achieve that alongside those with whom our ideals may clash, may coincide, may be alien to. Rites and rituals, storied traditions and emergent trends, and always a call to the past with each frosted breath curling foglike into the air. We seek to embrace the future, ever hoping that it will outshine the past, never mindful of the fact that we perform these rotes in cyclical repetition, always thinking that this time, it has to make things better, make things bigger, make things greater than they have been. We always seem to hold to the childlike faith that "someday" is better than "today" and that when the clock strikes 12 and a new year unfurls in moments, hours, breaths ... that the change must be for the better, that we can leave behind each unpleasant memory and unwanted regret, and that we cast aside all that which has passed in favor of a new, improved existence.

Rites and rituals, whether we come together as a group and celebrate the successes of a year well spent, or stare coldly into the stars above alone and pondering the breadth of our own mental landscape as we feel the spinning of the wheel bringing us back around for another try, another turn at making the most of our 365-day lifespan. We turn our eyes to the heavens, or to the TVs blaring garish throngs of screaming revelers waiting for a ball that dropped two, three hours hence, to displays around the globe of partiers rushing headlong into the unknown, we turn our eyes to the faces of our families both here and gone, to eyes that once held that same youthful exuberance, to eyes which strain against the growing time-worn wisdom, to eyes which flare and sparkle and burn for something better, for something forgotten, for something not yet known.

It is not often that, through our disparate cultures, we approach an event as a planet, as a race of people rather than people of different races. This moment, this crease in time, transcends our nations and our religions, upends our fractuous desire for unique identity for a moment to connect with all around us, to bring together neighbors and friends and strangers and enemies and everything in between, shedding our petty disputes if only for the few weighted moments that it takes to say, "Happy new year".

Rites, rituals, rememberance; 2008 draws itself closed to the tides of time, and a new dawn bears down upon us. Let us hold to the hope that it will be a better one, and let us, in our own ways, live our prayer to see a brighter tomorrow.

Rite of Way

Catastrophic Awareness

The world is crumbling around our ears. Earthquakes, floods, and other disasters change the landscape like some mutating beast shaking the scars from its back. I can't help but wax poetic on the iconic metaphor in my area recently as raging wildfires screamed across the hillsides until the inferno licked at the foot of Paradise, CA. Over 23,000 acres devoured by the flames in a few short days as the acrid stench of smoke settled over the valley; I have family who was evacuated, though I believe they returned without a hitch once the blaze was contained. Some say that the end of the world is upon us, that the apocalypse is nigh; some say that we are entering a new age, where nothing will be as it has been, and the world as we know it will fade into distant memory against the troubles -- or the pleasures -- of a new global destiny.

Of course, some also say that they're the incarnation of a god, and build cults who, in blind faith, kill themselves to ride a comet to Heaven. I guess it's hit-and-miss, these things that some say.

For my part, I don't believe that the world is ending. Changing, yes, but that's nothing new; this planet has never known anything that was not flux -- the preconception that anything is eternal is a fallacy. Even a ballad of this change, 'Dust in the Wind', fails to recognize this, claiming that "Nothing lasts forever but the Earth and sky" -- these, too, shall come to pass, for nothing can be eternal when entropy is the order of the day and chaos springs from the wells of universal truth. Of course, ordered chaos it may be, and it could be our limited scope of realization which causes us to percieve some shift in things that we deem as important, ever forgetting that, in the grand scheme, even the solar system which houses the planet upon which we build our cities to surround our homes that we huddle in for safety is insignificant. We claim that catastrophe befall us, and yet, we have never even seen the thread of the tapestry that is The All. We have never known God, or whatever the nearest approximation to that being would be when translated from the breadth of our ability to know such entities, and we have never once gazed upon the merest reflection of a shadow of Truth.

That's why I can't believe that the world is ending. Simply put, I see limitless potential in humanity as a whole; unrealized, largely, to be sure, but it is there, and it screams through our own ignorance and incompetence in the most bizarre ways. I cannot accept that this potential will not be realized before its time is up; or rather, I believe that the end of our time will coincide with the actualization of this very essence, with the ascension of our own ability to perceive ourselves as we truly exist in relation to the Great Unknown. The depth of all mysteries must come to pass, and in that knowledge we shall find not doom, but something which we might now, in false assumption, consider to be doom, for surely it shall be the collapse of all we are able to consider in the Here And Now. Knowledge will be our end, and our beginning, for once the full potential is known, it cannot be said that anything can stop us.

And so, even as the Earth itself struggles to dispel our curse upon its flesh, even as we enter into petty wars and global conflicts, even as everything seems to hurl, crashing against the never, reckless abandonment sure to destroy all that we are and have been, I say that this cataclysm is not our end, but our beginning; we are legion, for our numbers are many, and our will can not be denied.

Catastrophic Awareness

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