Amidst the skimmed burp of information daily perused, inhaled and sifted like a bakery on alert for weevils, Everyman ponders the sensibility, sensitivity, and viability of the Renewed Possible.
........We have called it many things: The National Dream; Hope in a Handset (having tired, heretofore, of the other "wringing", and, thus, accordingly, seeking both feedback and the rest of the shaking and gesticulations bursting forth in a "moment and meant" of seemingly futile postulation);The New Deal (modern accoutrements and accompaniments notwithstanding, translation-wise) - and yet, what we seek within a larger framework of societal structure, stabilized, a new "pattern and possible" in geopolitical, industrial and economic growth, and a "better tomorrow" - which includes us, as human beings, as well as what sustains us, flora and fauna specifically - is indeed, that elusive thing called "definitive viability."
We need a plan that is workable, both short and long term; kind to the sensitivities and predilection for encouraged optimism and individual entrepreneurism, (however snuffed out, spiritually, in the best possible sense, notwithstanding) - which responds to both change, immediate need, and economic sustainability, generationally; but also one which sees the present day within the context and framework of both gradual - and immediate - change. In some cases, this might just be the best possible combination - much to the astonished surprise of the current tech gurus - of something much, much more than "the latest and greatest."
One seeks to assess, (like any immediate reality), both strengths and weaknesses, whilst recognizing both the significance of a very real "World Political Forum"(which is a reality very different in the age of technology, than what was known by our forebears, in the age of Globe-shrinking communication), while simultaneously building, encouraging, and including those progressing and those struggling, within what we, as human beings, might sensitively term, our "Shared Garden".
What is true, known, and inherently contingent upon our ability to simply "get along", is our acknowledgement of this, JOINTLY, in something which the ardent environmentalist vehemently shocks to enforce, in an age of both renewed effort and recognition of our surroundings, and our very continuance as a species.
......But this is simply not enough, and without the complementary approach of presenting both problem and viable paths towards help and renewal, this often creates the "us and them" mentality upon which so very many political screaming matches are based. Sadly, both are breathless at argument's end, but no closer to actually solving the problem.
While the lauding of financial efforts and genuinely heartfelt, charismatic, singularly focused, and mountain-moving protections about which one enthuses will meet with the necessary considerations by the Everyman of Everday, at the very least, we must, needs be, make it POSSIBLE to achieve these things in the average person's life, in everyday, but MADE POSSIBLE by means of the political tools at our disposal.
Anything else will simply not make enough difference, fast enough. This is not a defeatist attitude, it simply requires that the recognition of it means gradual change - not necessarily in patterns of movement - but in the kinds of things we do and the kinds of ways we move about - in order to truly prove our merit as a society of creative and intelligent industrial artistry. The grinder will hone his craft, even as his tools change with the structure upon which he bases his fine tuned skills and eye for specific detail and structure. The craftsman delights, and is reborn.
It is within this framework that Kyoto was born, and many embraced and ardently incorporated it in the ways and mean by which they sought to begin these efforts on an individual level. In that way, it was both laudible, and possible - not just on a large scale, but in the way in which it stressed the very real effects of individual efforts towards a twenty percent goal really DID - and DOES - make a difference. In doing so, it began to empower people beyond the stasis that insists that one person cannot make any kind of difference. This is a lie.
At the same time, we cannot destroy economies by alienating the very industries and geopolitical industrial machines and cogworks which give Everyman, every day, every pay. He must work, must feel moved to do so, must feel an important part of the larger framework, and must still feel free to both discuss, develop and make possible the kinds of solutions which our forefathers saw as something as simple as "meeting a need for a thing".
Our needs our much more complex, crowded as the Earth is with "things discarded and never used, other than the sure knowledge that we are as good as the other guy, now that we have one, too, whether we needed it, or not" ethics.
Both industrially and socioscientifically, as Einstein pointed out, we must always consider the reality that invention, however well meant, might well be exploited in harmful ways, too. In translating this towards human development, the recognition of this in industrial creativity, at its rewarded best, must begin to include these ethics, but also, to begin to INCORPORATE this brilliance within the everyday PRODUCTS which the consumer is able to afford. We are not lacking in brilliance, only in large scale overhaul, made impossible by absurd absences of economic responsibility at the CEO level, goal sharing that ignores the public's desire for that same, and refusals to make it part of the "economical family transport with the latest smart design". It IS possible - and sustainable - because it also fuels a quality of life, a social system, and an expectation of continuity which engenders loyalty, not greed, and which ensures that the idea of "neighbourhood" also includes your bank, your grocer, your hardware store, your clothier, and your restauranteur - all of whom actively participate in, want to continue to operate in, and celebrate, the activities, lives, and people who make their ability to make a living possible, too. Excessive wealth does not happen accidentally; there is a targeted, relentless elimination of competition on a smaller scale that ruthlessly exploits poverty, eliminates ideas like "layaway" at a local store level, and in so doing feeds the excessive and egregious greed that is finance which further feeds on poverty and desperation, all the while calculatedly planning out the final, consumptive, goal.
This becomes readily apparent with greater demand for skyrocketing stock gains, impossible targets, and oblivious and insulated shareholder threats, when demanded progress creates worker hardship, exploitation, and terrible abuses, at every level of all organizations involved.
That fine line we walk between progressive scientific development and what we "ought not" to do grows complicated in an age of gene-splicing, DNA mystery plundering, and a new internalization of the map of ourselves, but we must not, I fear, be consumed with the fantastic majesty of the miraculous complexity of humanity, to the detriment of its continuance.
Others might well call this, in a considered age of astounding consumerism, an expected lifestyle, an expectation of plenty, (sometimes without much effort, frankly), as a matter of course, and "extended navel gazing", but I like to think of it as unfocused healing: in our "mapquest of ourselves", we have, oftentimes, actually lost sight of what actual goal we were headed towards, rather arrogantly, in many cases, and, in combination with the predilection for all things technological, lost sight of electrical impulse and renewed mobility (much to our amputees' dismay), and thought ourselves the Gods of replication and route, achieving, ultimately.......a large consumption of capital wealth and not very much bloody healing. The result? The poor embrace the contraction of venereal diseases as a viable way out of poverty, having abandoned any real hope, in their lifetime, of the education, everyday work, and impetus to continue to achieve both, towards what we like to call a "balanced lifestyle".
That ten years of a shortened life could have eradicated cancer, but needs to pay skyrocketing student loans with no practical opportunity for "real time" spent in "real life" - not (do pardon me, with the greatest respect for those making burn units the first step towards a new face, and a new hope) the latest "lift" because we need to still look 29, when, dammit......we are bloody well 52, and should be creating a respect for it, not a denial of its reality. This is a symptom of a lack of respect for all things which should be cherished for what they ARE, instead of remaining, like the man who thinks nothing of himself if he is not the Pride and Prowess in Performance, and can only ever go out, in his own mind, with a bang, because he can never be allowed to mellow, like fine wine, and comfortably and warmly walk gently into that good night, happily swearing up a storm in the dust of his legacy - and missed, in his absence, unapologetically. He has suddenly discovered the imposed perfection of Today's Woman - and discovers that he might actually like to have a witty conversation, after all....even if she does have wrinkles, and her breasts do not point skyward, impossibly. He suddenly realizes resting your head on anything like that might cause brain damage.
Leaders like President Obama, recognizing the significance of both everyday necessity, having not either lost touch, or lost sight, of the working poor who continue to operate within the "serving generation" - which will only grow, as the populace ages - take on the monumental task of both bolstering the infrastructure which empowers society, while simultaneously trying to ensure the healing of its broken, the care of its aging, and curbing the sometimes antagonized Establishment who has, (having been placed in that role on so many occasions)become weary of being referred to as "The Source" and "To Blame", while simultaneously still being expected to carry the burden of societal economic stability. I call this the "I'll take the cheque but slap the cheek" syndrome: not a particularly healthy daily reality between Everyman, and Everyday Work - and, frankly, achieving nothing but widening the usual finger-pointing gap between what we conveniently label "the Problem", while doing nothing to help what we automatically assume is to blame: ourselves and each other. How could anyone possibly love us as Ourselves? So imperfect (unlike anything produced by AI); so obviously HUMAN. One of my friends calls it the "Trisha Romance" attitude towards art: precious and magical, but without the grief and guts of some of Marilyn Manson's most startling watercolours, which you simply never WANT to discover are "just like the photography". Michaelangelo disturbed and moved people by art, too - perhaps not with the path of excruciation taken by Marilyn Manson, but certainly not shying away from it, as far as Crucifixion and the Agony of Experience extolled by all the Innocence and Experience lost by Blake's Tyger.
One such example is the Auto Industry. Bolstered by the recognized irresponsibility of a seemingly unaccountable Wall Street hierarchy which might well have engineered its own - never mind everyone else's - economic implosion, were it not for the refusal of the Everyday to prioritize million dollar bonuses before meeting the payroll of the guy struggling to pay the required medical insurance premium (and you know who you are, while thousands of your colleagues lost pensions, jobs, and, in some cases, everything they owned, to the very small percentage of complete apathy which spoke, or showed, nothing of the kind of Promise or Purpose in its CEO leadership that still exists, praise God, in this world), it nearly imploded, simply as a direct result of what used to be the norm: REAL corporate leadership.
In an age when the individual is often stifled, while truly seeking to motivate, simply as a result of a motley collection of the following - named with the Tome-inherent and gentle smile of a Lollipop Captain all grown up and chewing on a spliff stub, defiantly: jealousy(my personal favourite); personal insecurity, (often tied to both racism, sexism, and a "disappeared" belief in one's potential for anything, but certainly anything that involves actual WORK); respect for what has gone before - but more, a genuine affection, patience, and interest in why things didn't work, and why some things that DID work, were often totally misunderstood, as well as abandoned, much to our detriment; and an interest in larger issues than delving into the thirty second opposing thumbs tweet of people's personal lives, movements, and "verbal ejaculations", which often translates into the same appetite for instant gratification that has turned our children into allergic, paranoid, overly-worldly, manic depressive examples of a combination of overprotectiveness and frustration on the part of their overwrought parents - who are obsessed with other people's personal lives, instead of where their own might be headed....because....well....that's what you do, isn't it?
Remember when getting a cold did not instantly spread fears of either dying of Aids or instantly developing complications of flesh-eating disease?
Granted, the shrinking of our world has made us acutely aware of both lifestyle expectation, and the bereft, but this has had some very shocking results: Ebola and historical Rwanda are a disgusting example of our generation's complete ignorance and incompetence, tribally, socially, economically, and from a simply human perspective. We speak of conditions like H.I.V. with a plethora of handwringing, while degrading our societal infrastructure, simaltaneously, in a desperate attempt to return balance and maintain stability, while the conscience of the Superrich is politely held, along with their attention, for the requisite five minutes, along with C-span's latest froth, and the movement of binary shares for today's burst of realized tech greatness.
There is nothing about sustained growth, sustained effort, mutual goals, recognition of real effort, recognition of the reliable - and more, THANKS for it, and its quiet diligence - while always expecting it to, as Keanu Reeves states it, "show up, man".
The other half of the world, scrabbling to walk the six miles to collect sticks for firewood in an atmosphere of daily hostility, the reality of rape in the face of survival - something simply unacceptable and an insult to any Faith practice, religion, or society who speaks of Love, and yet allows this by its own, towards its own, as an examply of ignorance, Fear, and reaction to perceived lack of power and control, politically, and NOTHING else, regardless of Saint, Martyr, Founder, or Saviour as its source and example, stricken with the same conditions - watch in bewilderment, as what was the bulwark of rescuing the most desperate, becomes a shameful example of its dissolution and desperation.
The Superrich, polite and affable, watch, sometimes affected, sometimes feared and fearful, but only insofar as their capacity for genuine change and concern is not taxed, overmuch, or challenged, while its source - a REAL SHARED HEART which does not exclude them from the reality of The Possible which seeks its capabilities and action - not moved by enmity, or discouraged by increasing hostility, but stimulated by its own inherent heroic nature, insofar as its shared belief that the YES YOU CAN has, as its example....THEM. This does not make them the enemy, it makes them the model, and those shoes, newly fitted, become a very real, and joyfully celebrated DAX, (I pun for fun, reference notwithstanding) for today's man or woman - but beautifully worn, resoled, and reheeled with loving care. They are well-travelled, having sought to be so, and understand its very real importance - not simply as status, but for a new understanding of how precious places, and people, and moments, suddenly become. It is a staggering moment of recognition for some, within the confines and configurations of daily accumulation, but an instant of Joy, when it occurs, and is real, unrehearsed, not a sales script, and truly comes from the heart.
We are jointly denuded morally, and astoundingly, very much the same, that Superrich and I: astounded at how we got there - or here, or here - but mostly unsurprised that two people with all the same basic parts could end up in such different circumstances.
We cannot seem to find that Dear Bridge that connected us both to ourselves, each other, and our humanity, try as we will: the superrich become increasingly insulated, distant and weary of blame, not celebrating capacity to "figuratively move mountains" any more, but only disturbed, occasionally, and uncomfortably, by their lack of will to do so. We become a culture of Punishment and Blame, instead of a Bastion of Effort and Achievement, which requires effort, but measures achievement very differently, when the day is done. We lose the "They did it, I can too" impetus, the gentle coaching that did not heavy-handedly demand an expected course of personal attainment, but sought to allow room, provide opportunity, encourage both successes and the reality of "get up and try again, except perhaps this way, this time", NOT as indicators of failure, but measures of sometimes uncontrollable, external, and beaten odds against giving up. We fall down, and we get back up. We learn from these experiences, but we don't castigate imperfection and destroy, mangle and suffocate spontaneity and idea.
The viability of the Master's Program in Business Administration should, needs be, when it has a Political Focus, include the dissertation which strives, at its base, to simaltaneously discuss both gradual, and immediate changes required in an economic base which seeks, as its goal, to both embrace transition, while recognizing that total tech means the death of many things, when mishandled and erroneously presupposed as "totally necessary", while providing no reinvestment, industry-wise, in grid-bolstering, energy source production, and recycling which demand the same ethics from production to recycle as do its industrial-producing corporate counterparts - and yet they, too, can be found in the dump, abandoned, ignored, and an example of both the absence of wasteproduction ethics, and the reality of not investing in real, achievable, sustainable developments like solar power, which make its own continuance, generationally, a real source of job stability. The success stories should include the "cycle of use" magnum opus that - like waste production - does not see its outmoded efforts lying on the beaches of third world nations, like plastic bottles washing up on a filthy body of polluted water, but, instead "dropped off and rewarded like the simplicity of another need - a good glass of beer" - and dropped off, like used eye glasses, in an era of recycled that often includes, sadly US: ask Uber.
The trick is the "Us and Them". Pink Floyd saw it as a spatial problem, contemplating that the "ordinary men" might well see a way, but the Auto Industry cannot develop, if its top people cannot both reinvest - like the computer industry - in development which embraces both gradual, and immediate, development, because it feels demonized as an industry, instead of the Pioneers of both yesterday AND tomorrow, as the result of retooling, retraining, renewing, and restoring, while it values the very PEOPLE who both make, and will make use of, what is produced. Wrested from the greed of an uncaring control, its bewildered and hopeful working man and woman see the struggles of its President and Protector, besieged by the insanity of disdain within an industry, and the absence of concern from the criminal made so by a lack of will within themselves to feel the nagging voice of their inner expressing discomfort at the exploited barrio and the stifling tenements. Rising above it - literally - they will not recognize their own power and ability to be a part of renewal, instead of removed from where many of them actually originated. I make no judgement, having seen miraculous change in the most astoundingly unexpected soul, only remark on its place within the overall process - and yet this is the only possible way that serious change is going to occur, in these times. They are aware of the hypocrisy of their own apathy, even more than the so-called "morally upright". We are all, at the end of the day, sinners. We can only progress towards a different Self. That, too, is Possible in a Finite and infinite sensibility without which we are simply still Dust, as Steve Winwood so beautifully sang. The song has new meaning, having become more than its basest indicator or impetus, erroneously.
Granted, the immediacy of environmental processes and fossil-fuel source-seeking which embraces - not antagonizes and ignores - the reality of fresh water as inherent for our SPECIES survival, as well as getting there to admire "how pretty it is", and sees, as part and parcel of its corporate agenda, the latest and brightest in safety and process brilliance in engineering which is REWARDED, not PUNISHED, for its innovation, by realities like TAX CUTS and gentle BEHAVIOURAL MODIFICATION which REWARDS it, as an industry, cannot do so without tangible efforts steered by encouragement, and demanded, by a public shaken by the voices that speak of dwindling resource and include, within its parameters......US, again. Humans.
The reality of the small addition of recharging stations at the corner gas station are VIABLE, along with solar powered panels on city vehicles - with an immediacy that recognizes the very REAL danger of inner city smog, while recognizing that renewed accessibility to public transportation by government planners who actually CARE about the populace getting to work, by making it POSSIBLE for the poor to GET THERE, via these trains, trolleys and trike-stop-journeys, are not at odds with the ability, and the ingenuity, of developments which do not kill us while we prove how fast we can get there, over the long term. Envisioning this moves to "the possible", by means of the "makings of men": the information highway is only one way by which transitways are strengthed, goods move, and people can make a living. We cannot dream them there, as a reality, and we must recognize that fear of moving on to the monumental task of industry refurbishment and DOING will NOT come by starving the industry, glutting the market, and making the bottom drop out of the economy because we are not using both hands to create our pottery masterpiece, while simultaneously lambasting the already head-banging, opining, and beleaguered necessity of an intelligent populace who suddenly recognize that the only thing stopping this from happening is the same thing as other generations: entrepreneurs.
What is the capital loan system doing to encourage the growth of this, whilst lining their pockets with million-dollar bonuses? NOTHING. Realities like Kiva, in desperation, flourish in dire places of need, because "field inspection" is no longer part of an investment banker's sense of "empowering dreams" - and, frankly, because as a result of not including him or her IN that community-driven process, they have become insular, insulated, and removed. We have ourselves to blame, for not demanding different, creating it - and getting it. We are intellectually lazy, effort-impatient (personally and methodically, having not been made respectful of its steady, reliable and stable value)and......as well as underestimated, even in our own opinions of ourselves, having been slammed repeatedly in every instance of actual leadership, despondent with a sensibility which does not value the Dream-made- reality, even while that small glimmer remains, flourishes, and quietly continues to create Hope, even in the most beautifully unexpected places, and from the astonished and momentary free time of the Creative Thinker, encouraged.
Not to bemoan supposed apathy, but, rather, to analyze its source, at last, we can truly understand that the everything is connected to the Whole, and the Everyman, both methodical - not mechanical - in meshing Hope, Reason, Effort and, most importantly, HEART in the inexplicable joy of expressions of that same, creates His or Her own ultimate work of art - Continuance, unmarred and shaken - but happily so - while respecting that the Garden, having been provided with the capability to sustain, is moved by the inexplicable Source of all that Reason, Glory and Renewal make possible, in the best possible Wordsworthian sense.
It is, even so, with gentle inclusion of the cynicism of the Dawkin, while yet, understanding that that lies more in frustration, than actual, solid and complete unbelief of the Possible, when all the arguments are unravelled, fully - that Spirit, undiminished, which created Tintern Abbey as a testament to the Ultimate Greatness, while not seeking to diminish, or destroy, but, rather, to respectfully map, with Einstein's great care and caution, the intricacies of the starlight that showed us the same carbon element that Breath made as Potter's vessel, unhampered, sustained, and encouraged - the We that is still The People, aware of something, much, much Greater - our Tomorrows.
