Wow.
What incredibly terrific responses! You are all such wonderful people; I do hope you get to hear that from lots of other folks often. Very often.
I wish I had more time, but in the brief space here I'll try to share my reactions to your reactions.
First, all the kindness; heart-swelling, truly.
Second, empathy, which suggests to me that I really am not alone in these maudlin miseries. Of course, as ever, if one is not fretting, one is not paying attention. Still, the level of compassionate comprehension of the specific distress is stunning. We really are all out here in this cyberspace 'together'!!
Third, the Su Tung P'o was perfect; thanks for that reminder!
Fourth, yeah, I DO all those things, drive a Prius, never do WalMart or such, haven't had a credit card for about a year, live very modestly, all that stuff. Still, I feel so dependent on the grid, despite the resistance. Looking for some way to disconnect, but then 'this' would ...evaporate?
Fifth, ART!! YES!! Would Shakespeare not have a field day with these characters and their shenanigans? We have truly entered the theatre of the absurd; how about a script set in the late 18th century in France, written by our current press releases?
And meditation. The way to set that example is to purify one's own sorry self. (I surely mean that in the all-inclusive!)
And finally (for now; the cafe closes in ten minutes, and I haven't even checked email!), anicca; everything changes. Also as per the Tung P'O poem so eloquently shares. I was struck that I am not the only one who wonders what the Germans were thinking in the thirties, how they made the decision to leave if they did, what were the tipping points, and how they survived while maintaining their integrity. Brings to mind a great novel (title escapes me now; will find it) about a dwarf in rural Germany that touches on these things. Which then returns me to the Paine quote: we stand, and we do what is right, and we will prevail.
We have all been here before.
To give an idea of just how similar this is to that time now less than a century ago when the Nazis were taking advantage and taking over, .....
"The ruling class has the schools and press under its thumb. This enables it to sway the emotions of the masses." ---Albert Einstein
Standing may not necessarily mean staying, in this country, at least. Increasingly I find I am more wed to my priinciples than I am to this land and even to these people. Though it's a close call with the people, YOU people.
Keep sharing all this goodness, as this will be our salvation, and our redemption.
Peace.
dr. elsewhere
4 comments:
When ever I think it's hopeless I run this Kipling poem through my head and stand a little taller:
A Pict Song
Rome never looks where she treads.
Always her heavy hooves fall
On our stomachs, our hearts or our heads;
And Rome never heeds when we bawl.
Her sentries pass on -- that is all,
And we gather behind them in hordes,
And plot to reconquer the Wall,
With only our tongues for our swords.
We are the Little Folk -- we!
Too little to love or to hate.
Leave us alone and you'll see
How we can drag down the State!
We are the worm in the wood!
We are the rot at the root!
We are the taint in the blood!
We are the thorn in the foot!
Mistletoe killing an oak --
Rats gnawing cables in two --
Moths making holes in a cloak --
How they must love what they do!
Yes -- and we Little Folk too,
We are busy as they --
Working our works out of view --
Watch, and you'll see it some day!
No indeed! We are not strong,
But we know Peoples that are.
Yes, and we'll guide them along
To smash and destroy you in War!
We shall be slaves just the same?
Yes, we have always been slaves,
But you -- you will die of the shame,
And then we shall dance on your graves!
We are the Little Folk, we, etc.
-- Rudyard Kipling
Take heart!
Apparently I'm out of the loop (again). Who is 'dr. elsewhere'?
The dwarf book you referred to is Die Blechtrommel – The Tin Drum – written by Nobel Prize winner, Gunter Grass. The dwarf is actually one, Oscra Matzerath, who at the age of three decided not to grow. The book is almost single-handedly credited with the redemption of the German soul after the post WWII moral vacuum created out of the defeat of Hitler and the Third Reich.
“Only by confronting the uncomfortable truths its crimes, its delusions, its silence, and even its loss, could Germany exorcise the past and prevent becoming ensnared within it or doomed to repeat it. A kind of collective psychoanalysis was needed to guide the nation from insanity to normality, but it would only gain real momentum when Grass took up Joyce’s call “to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race” with The Tin Drum”
- Darran Anderson.
The Tin Drum is definitely recommended reading for our age as well.
Would that I had Oscar’s little tin drum and could rat-a-tat King George back down the fetid rat-hole he cralled out of!
Bob Boldt
anon, thanks for kipling; another great one.
and bob, thanks for the ref to 'the tin drum', as i'd forgotten about it, but it is actually not the one i was thinking of; it's more obscure. i'm looking for that title.
and i as dr. elsewhere am augmenting joe's incomparable work here as he has a deadline in his 'real' life as an artist. me? i'm just another concerned citizen, like all of you.
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