Supposed Realities & Sinking Feelings

Thankful as I remain for my brief but satisfying bout of euphoria over the latest round of elections ... the backlash has occurred. My favorite columnist stated many of the feelings tumbling & gurgling around in my brain http://www.commondreams.org/views06/1117-30.htm. Nice as it is to have a better majority party the state of politics & American culture at large is still shitty. The vast majority still don't care where things come from or where they go. In the type of selfishness that would make any decent social philosopher in history grit his or her teeth people insist on more without regard for waste, economic ruin for others, moral injustice, interconnectedness, & the legacy of living their few years leaves behind for their offspring. For all of our advancements humanity as a whole is still largely clueless, mean, selfish, & seemingly without the fire to improve.

Now wasn't that a breath of fresh air!

Whoo!

The bronze bust of Shakespeare shows a man with a balding head, indistinct eyes, & a wrinkled forehead probably meant to emphasize how much thinking he put into his astonishing achievements. Shakespeare lost his son of nine years old & spent years working on his masterpiece whose protagonist's name, Hamlet, was one letter away from the name of his son, Hamnet. The play was largely about--- everything. The state of Denmark. How one generation can be so much less than the previous. How in judgement we can falter & recede seeking safety or ease or delusion. How youth is precocious. How death surrounds us. How politics & war are outward manifestations of our inability to be humane & consider the implications of our actions. How love can be false. How parents can ruin their children. How ancestors can overshadow their descendants. How friendship can be true. How friends can play on our weaknesses. How consciousness can rise above all these traps. How story is all we have. How circumstance paints our story around our choices. Shakespeare, a peasant who thrived before packed theatres of riffraff, peasants, wannabe aristocrats, lords, & the royal family. Shakespeare, a man whose prime years are lost to history a decade blank slate lost just like Jesus before he emerged a complete force. Shakespeare, a man presumable bisexual because his sonnets profess love to a Dark Lady & a mysterious male. Shakespeare, who could write a rogue or a simpleton or an epic king or a murderous villain without broad strokes but stunning detail & complexity. A man who helped forge what it means to be human. Since God none has created more than Shakespeare James Joyce writes in Ulysses. Falstaff for President!

Christopher Cooper, Wendell Berry, Bill Moyers, Jack Gilbert, Dennis Kucinich, Amy Goodman, Saul Williams, Thom Yourke, Ani Difranco, Katell Keineg, & so many more including wonderful characters in your neck of the woods yet we still fall for lesser people too much of the time. I should become a Montessori School Teacher in a progressive setting & teach Heraclitus, Lao-Tzu, Marcus Aurelius, Confucius, Buddha, Joseph Campbell, Ryokan, Sappho, & Jefferson. Humankind is meant to be kind with integrity, working hard with joy, creating, nurturing, strong but gentle, vulnerable but resilient, honorable, charitable, & loving. This bigotry in the name of Christ & Muhammad is killing me as is the quest for the almighty dollar & smart decorating that is so 2006. You know the color coordination that just pops. Every time I see people holding hands warmly I'm thankful. Every time someone pets their dog lovingly: thankful. A well-tended garden ... you get part of the portrait. Brush in those lines with care, this world is hurting.