September 14, 2011 - I'm writing this as the 14th dawns. Some thoughts have been coursing through me as we start to smell the advance of Fall and Winter. Near my house there is a Steller Jay that knows when we are here. Yesterday I heard him making his cawing sounds and, when I opened my door, he was on the rail waiting for me. He knows we put peanuts out for him and he is no dummy. He'd called me to the door. When we first met him, he was reluctant to come around and waited until we were gone. Then, still wary, he came closer and closer, recognizing that we meant no harm. Surely I will hear from some of you about not making him (or her) too familiar with humans, and I understand that - we often destroy those who trust us. But this bird had an affinity and certainly not a fear. Yesterday I grabbed my camera and waited until he returned and then shot the video (AVI format), uploaded on Facebook. Could not upload it here, but here is a picture of our friend...
A metaphor of sorts of trusting nature...
While a pleasant distraction, other thoughts bubble near the surface. THe shouting, the anger, the hypocrisy of those who seek power and not public purpose, who use trust and good will to siphon off what is left of a person's belief in what is right... I read in a Harper's piece earlier this year about the misuse of Founding American's quotes - the making up of quotes that sounded as though they came from these historic leaders just to suit the purpose of gaining power and control. I'm struck by the un-Christian attitudes of those who claim to lead churches and attack those with charitable attitudes claiming they are socialists or, worse, liberals, as though caring for others, helping the destitute, caring for their fellow man were not Christian-like ways of being. I guess Christ must have worn a business suit when he preached, read from a book of statements that were unchanging, persecuted any who strayed from the path, and collected money from the already desperate to pad his bank book... At least, if I were an outside observer looking in at the gruesome, predatory practices of many of our popular religious leaders I might think that. I'm not willing to paint all with that brush, but would not be surprised that some of those mentioned below in an earlier blog were painted as anti-God for their support of the disenfranchised....
But I am not stuck simply on religion. I'm driven again and again by the seeming incongruity of the two types (broadly speaking) of humans that we are around - political party, denomination, race, nationality not withstanding. Those who believe in good faith that they should seek to improve the condition of all as a common goal of humanity - the essence of being human; and those who are driven by a desire to simply accrue more for themselves at any cost - often using the words of those who care in a way that gains them power, but who share little in the way of belief. Two different views of humanity - you need not be religious to believe in the awesome gift of our humanity. You need not be a-religious to care for nothing but your own place of power.
Words control us, co-opt us, are used as weapons, and rarely as a defense. It is this that troubles me and that I hope to write more of in the coming weeks. We as humans thrive on our common words, though meaning evolves. Words flow through us almost organically. I have talked with many of my friends about this over the years - how certain words ebb and flow in our dialogue, almost taking on a life of their own.
In the mid-Nineties it was "wonderful", stretched out. Prevalent these days, though on the wane, is the phrase "I mean" placed before every other sentence. Listen for it. You do it yourself. The bored or rushed person has a new way to move along conversation: "right" repeated again and again. Historians use of the word "narrative" picked up now by every social scientist and then the mainstream media was hardly uttered a scant two years ago. The current beginnings of the use of "conceit" increasingly as a part of our diminishing of motive is the next step: "...it seems to be his conceit to believe that..." Once you know this, that words take over a place in our subconscious collectively, the next step is easy. Control words. Make "liberal" a bad word - forget that our Founders saw this as a word of revolution and change - of a break with monarchy and the embracing of government by the governed. Now it is spat in a breath or whispered as a curse. Or that "media", once the bastion of freedom, has devolved into a synonym for elitism along with a college education and a university instructor.
I marvel at the success of those who are wealthiest and who seek to aggrandize themselves with more and more power, who are able to convince those who are poorest to vote for them, while those who struggle to improve wages, working conditions, and our twilight years are somehow vilified and held up as examples of un-Americanism. I profess to not understand it, as others also do, but, in fact, I do understand it.
Ours is no longer a nation that reveres education or learning. Ours is no longer a nation that aspires for a common good, or a basis in fact and science that leads us there. Instead we have set out on a new road, oddly a proto-Darwinian story - a "Lord of the Flies" like survival of the nastiest. While those who would dumb us down and tear away our foundations of a just state may profess they don't believe in evolution and that they do believe in God, neither holds true. Under their guidance we evolve, but into a more brutal state that has little left of charity. We compete for everything, for everything has become competition. We even watch the struggle of new releases of movies to see who is number one and who number ten... It is all a race. And here is the craziest thing about it those who do care, who fit the human condition I described above, accept this competition and dutifully play by the rules "of the game". But the other side never does. They don't need to. They don't care about the game, they just care about the power, the winning. If they lose, they change the rules. Or the words...
So listen you poets, and singers, and writers... Push through these thieves and steal back your words.