take a load off

compartmentalizing my life has never been easy, and yet focusing on the tasks at hand usually is.

i like the idea of wearing different hats, because it speaks to the fact that beneath the accessory is the same person.  roles we play.  hopping in and out of contexts.  responding and reacting and conducting business as usual.  performing in the ways that make sense to each of us.  developing rituals and routines, and finding ways to interrupt the threat of monotony, or embracing it to the point of numbness.  seeking highs, avoiding lows.  and i know that to live fully is to embrace it all--the array of absurdity.  the irony of realities.

bob kedanis and i spoke about capitalism today, and i passionately reiterated my disgust for how it has contributed to the changing behaviors in our country.  accentuated how my sadness is not limited to the struggles i experience personally.  the whole planet is suffering, and i feel it.

and so i have to work a little harder sometimes to get at the presence of joy.

money doesn't matter.
debt doesn't matter.
title doesn't matter.
borders don't matter.
laws don't matter.
ideas don't matter.

it isn't nihilistic; it's isn't anything.  but we're experts at assigning meaning.  at distributing dogmas.  at subscribing to select voices rather than strengthening our own.

our actions devastate and damage and hurt, but they're all projections of the ways we have not yet learned.  they're all shadows cast out across our potential by our ignorance.

there is so much potential.

but it doesn't always translate to something directly kinetic.  our efforts are misplaced.  diverted.  distracted.

we turn to scripture because we don't have faith in our own ability to reason.  to interpret the simplest of truths--thou shalt not cause harm to another form of life intentionally.  love thy goddamn neighbor.  thou shalt learn from his mistakes.  thou shalt use thine own motherfucking brain to sift through the messages and commands and suggestions and blueprints in order to revise the story we use to explain how things are the way that they are.  throughout history there have existed glimpses of transcendence.  glimpses of peace.  glimpses of utopias.  but we are obsessed with hubris.  with the idea of dominating.  our egos so fragile they need wars to feel better about themselves.  we need something to fight for.  something to die for.  to leave our mark.  and so many marks have tarnished the face of humanity.

there are so many stories.  but the art of the plot is lost to the entertainment value, and producers have used our psychologies against us to market the most recent trends.  replicating and rehashing, beating dead cliches to death and making other messages too difficult for the masses to digest or access.

i wonder about common languages.  i wonder about cultures less inhibited by such a big vocabulary.  free of the weight inherent in the constructs we've evolved.

i wonder about our tendency to forget that nothing is as simple as black and white.  and how that includes people.  how the real villains aren't full of only evil traits.  how the heroes have their faults.  how within defeat is the victory of survival.

i wonder about the earth swallowing us all up and starting over again.  letting some other life form run the show for a few millennia.

i wonder how many stories i've forgotten to make room for the ones i need to get through tomorrow, like dreams that have lingered momentarily, faded as the day comes into focus.