Awaken!

It's easy not to think; to really just not think about anything that matters at all.  I admit it, I am guilty.  It's too scary to take an honest look at the world.  It's easy to lose yourself in mindless endeavors; television, movies; the girl next door who wears her dress too short; the guy at work with the dreamy eyes, but don't take a look at the world around and really see what matters.

How rare is it for a person to come to their own sense through sheer determination and will-power? My friend Barbara is one of those people, self-aware and strongly opinionated.  She doesn't own a tv and never recognized popular cultural reference that I try to relate to her, but at 61, she's more into the art revolution than the social and political revolution.  I happen to have picked up from small inferences here and there that she does contribute donating here and there, but she is more into the art revolution that the social revolution.  Perhaps she is just tired of beating her head against a wall, like the Wall Street Protesters.  I've been surprised by the comments of the newscasters (why are they allowed to have opinions? What happened to objectivity?).  Apparently, anyone unhappy with the state of their union is "Un" or "Anti" American."  This country was founded upon the backs of revolutionaries, but now, apparently it is American to turn our back and pretend not to see the ever widening chasm between they that have too much and they that have not enough and un-American to point out the hypocrisy. 

Self medication is society's pathology; the abuse and overuse of legal and illegal drugs; television, movies, sports, sex, pornography, gossip, money, power, politics, technology, work and religion.  All have the power to divide, all have the power to put our minds to sleep, causing us to lose track of what is really important in life and forget what really matters.

What are the real issues of life?  Food. shelter, health, security, safety and then happiness.  Who am I, you ask, to tell you what the real issues of life are?  I am nobody.  I will not be the one to tell you what the real issues of life are.  Life will.

Until something rudely awakens us out of our slumber, our sense of justice, right and wrong, fairness and what is really important in life lays comatose, snoring under the influence of apathy.

It's almost as if there is one gargantuan force, creating many smaller forces to keep us from forming a formidable united front. That's crazy, isn't it?  Yeah.  When the events on 9/11 occurred, the nation, at first and for awhile, was united, happy to hate just a small faction of the Middle East, but we were further divided by an agenda and some of us convinced to hate the entire region, the entire culture.  We were not only divided from them, but from each other; those who knew and were not fooled, those who were fooled and were angry at being fooled, those who were fanatics about revenge for any reason, it didnt' matter what or who and if we didn't, we are  "Anti-American."  At least we were united for a little while.

When someone gets cancer, is sick, has a life-changing event or dies, then if there are families, they unite, not all the time, but many times, there is unity and peace at least for a little  Sometimes, minds are awoken and priorities are assessed and reorganized and life-changing, life lasting decisions are made.

For those not already self-aware or willing to try, what we have to have in our lives, either individually or united, to overcome the tsunami of diversion and crush the principle of "divide and conquer", is a tragedy.  It's the only thing that brings us together, individually or as a nation, and that is a shame.