This is Not a Dream, It's an Outburst

Picture from www.auldedinburgh.co.uk

What tired string do we dangle from which prevents us from getting angry; requires us not to complain; makes it a weakness to be unsatisfied with all the shit that’s going down around us?
Unsatisfied with customer service; management and managers; lawyers and accountants; politicians and megalomaniac businessmen.
Why shouldn’t things be better?
To say things could be worse is to will that worse upon us.
Why should it be too late to change ourselves; to change the way we live within our families; to change the way we deal with authority; the way we create authority?
To say that it is too late is to surrender the very thing that keeps us stumbling on; wounded and jaded.

Hope.

We hope our way through life anyway… hope I get that game for Christmas; hope I pass my exams; I hope I see her again… you get the picture.
We can make things better.
By better I don’t mean more: more money more technology more horsepower; more bathrooms more bedrooms more sugar more pleasure more thrills and excitement more fast food faster bigger bigger more more…
I mean better.

Don’t believe the message ingrained in every advert; every political soundbite; we can make things better.
Better equipped to deal with life; better equipped to deal with those who would exploit; not to live in fear of losing everything; not having to swallow the crap handed down by people with no skills other than the vertical climb into positions of control where no control is required.
Not to do better is to lose everything; to lose ourselves, that which makes us human in a very positive way: our sense of self.
That self that we are so afraid of exposing to the light, that unique collection of hurts and joys; words and gestures – that educated being.
Better education. Yes. Continue with the science stuff; the maths; the languages. But. How about adding lessons on constructive thought at school level, elements of philosophy; questioning and how to reason your way through argument. Doesn’t have to be at school – do it at home, take the time, work less.
Better education means less mass control, more self control.
Better educated to understand ourselves; our motivations; our place in the world.
Better able to appreciate what we have inside and what we can get from the world without taking.

We labour under a yoke which disguises itself as progress; with achievement. The yoke is painted in widescreen surroundsound splendour; telling us we never had it so good; progress and democracy will make it all right.
Where is progress in Africa? Where is democracy in the US and Europe?
When will the images of skeletal children with dead eyes and open hands cease to be associated with our charity?
When will the bullet-holed cars and blood spattered walls; floors littered with childrens’ shoes be faced up to as crime?
When will the war on terror; the war on drugs; be exposed as lies?
When will non-consential global pharmaceutical experimentation be outlawed?
When will corporate politics be exposed as gangsterism?
When will the stolen property be returned?
If we pull on the string from which we hang, will it pull back?

The yoke of achievement, the house and shiney car need not disappear altogether, but greater achievements may be found in working in that house to make it good and warm; a nest. Or in creating some thing for yourself.
Even if you do believe in a god then surely the act of creating something is the highest tribute to that which you believe created everything.
The act of creating is not some occult or specialised talent. The act of creating begins when we create in our children the will to say their first word.
Create a nest for yourself.
Create an arrangement of furniture in a manner that pleases you; that makes your environment just that little bit more pleasing.
Create a conversation that talks directly to another person on a level deeper that the weather or facts and figures.
Wake up!

Pull on the string.