Over here in our little secret garden, my partner and I have been wracking our souls & minds trying to make sense of recent events. We have been spinning in a whirlpool of conflicting emotions, and furious confusion. Our conception of the USA, the World, hell, the Universe itself, has been shattered. Our post-election days have been a process of picking up the scattered pieces, trying to mock up a new vision, a new narrative, a new story we can tell ourselves & live with.
It has been difficult.
Yesterday's conversation seemed to hover over the idea: How to make a Better Voter, or even more fundamentally, a Better Human Being? Talk about a fraught, dicey, complicated, contradictory, and impossible subject.
Look at the History of Humans. It's a battle of Religions, Philosophies, Mythologies, Governments, Languages, Ethics, Morals, Sciences, Biology. Much of the pain, heartache, misery, oppression, tragedy, genocide, atrocity, and catastrophic ugliness has been generated by groups of Humans trying to impose their vision, their way of life, upon other groups of Humans. With always fucked up results.
Think of those missionaries with a Sword in one hand, Bible in the other. Ha. Lately folks want to beat down other folks with hefty old books like the Bible or the Koran. That is some old time shite. What of "On the Road?!" Or "Moby Dick?" or "Slaughter House Five" or "Catch 22"? Ha!
Yikes. The best answer we came up with yesterday to the question how to make a smarter, better Humans was: Fuck, Who Knows?! I mean we are not so delusional, or maybe not as delusional as some other folks; we are smart enough, my partner and I, to know that our idea of smarter & better doesn't mean more Humans that look, think and act like us. That is arrogant hubris.
We are pretty fucked up and condictory ourselves, and our history & the formative experience in our lives, within our very quirky families, and our faculties, capabilities, and biological imperatives are uniquely our own.
But kicking this question around, basically comes down to how can our species get better at decsion-making, evaluating information, separating truth from bullshit, acting more compassionately towards each other, and living more truthfully & ethically. Of course the question is assuming other people want the same thing for the species. Which may be a fundamental fallacy right there. Ha. I'm just defining our own private tribe, right there. We are also the tribe that thinks: live and let live & to each his and her own. As Sly Stone told it: "Different strokes, for different folks." A nice, happy, little blue-bubble utopia right there.
An ongoing Human problem: Humans imposing their ideas, their ways of life on other Humans with violence and oppression.
This morning I came across Paul Campos latest post about how most Americans have no clue about America and their fellow citizens. Funny. We truly are a stupid, complicated, ridiculous species. We think we are so damn smart, and we prove every damn day that we really, really aren't.
Best way forward? Start with: I know nothing. The kicker line to Paul's post: "The re-election of Donald Trump to the presidency of the United States is truly a mystery that will never be solved."
