Monthly Archives: February 2014

A Blissful Place

Posted on by
Reply

Like many of you, the mariner feels a need to respond to greater tragedies in the world. However, there are two points to be made. First, he will solve not one great tragedy no matter how hard he tries. Second, No matter how much the mariner learns through personal education about a great tragedy, his knowledge inflames only his own soul.

A similar opinion is reflected in a few responses to posts. The mariner must agree with the general premise. True, he will not live long enough to see many great tragedies resolved – if they ever will be resolved. So find something pleasant to do until he dies.

However, a look backward through written history shows that tragedies have been overcome not by one or two powerful individuals but by hoards of people who took matters into their own hands. Discounting the contributions of science and technology, this has been the case most of the time. Further, no set of population has agreed to the last person that a given premise is absolute. Without elaborating, freedom marches could not have occurred with Martin Luther King alone. He had a few companions. Also note that both racism and “paid” slavery still abound. Still, the freedom movement made changes to American culture. One must, over the millennia, take one step at a time.

Occupy America and Tea Party movements are more evidence that it takes more than one person’s angst to change culture. To quote a great American phrase, “E Pluribus Unum.” It takes one hundred pennies to make a dollar. Consider yourself a penny – can’t make a dollar without you. To be more absolute about individual responsibility, be a citizen who votes – a power for change few citizens have had in history. 48 percent of eligible Americans do not vote. The mariner would recommend voting in caucuses and primaries as well. Further, when was the last time you shared your opinion with an elected representative?

The counterpoint is made. Yet, there is truth in the first paragraph. This modern age requires more than a millstone and corn to make breakfast. Although each of us is only one person, we as individuals are super-engaged in every level of local, national and global society. Our lifestyle is dependent on every level of local, national and global society. Our personal lives face daily confrontations that simpler times did not require. Further, in simpler times, tasks generally did not require much stress on the deeper machinations of our personalities.

In the United States, given a few exceptions for the wealthy and starving artists, having a job most of our life is an absolute requirement for survival. That means working steadily all day five days a week (a fairly recent limitation created by collective bargaining – but I digress). It means doing more than that if one needs to assure job security and lasting success. Virtually every job is stressful because time, not our own, is of the essence.

In the United States, children and parents and grandparents and cousins and friends disburse all over the world, leaving less of an envelope of unspoken comfort and protection. It is both blessing and curse in our American culture. As we have moved from an agricultural society to a post-industrial, technology driven society, a new festival has emerged – the family reunion. Used to be every day was a family reunion, though too much of a good thing can sometimes be too much. The mariner is reminded of a good friend he knew during the 1960’s. The friend said, “Never been more than 54 miles from home.” Queried about why, he said he never felt the need. He was an older farmer; he and his wife had four generations of family nearby.

So while we are more involved in our society than ever before, we tend to find less in the way of curative family and friend activities. In effect, were it not for a spouse, a great many individuals literally would live more than a day’s travel to a family member. Those without family or spouse emotionally have a harder life and tend to shape their lives in a way that guarantees curative time with friends and in solace.

The Western World is captivated by the noise and innovation of democratic capitalism. We tend to forget the healing aspects of religions that never experienced a Puritan-driven reformation, never heard of James Smith or John Maynard Keynes. One of my favorite anthropologists, Joseph Campbell often spoke of the need for each of us to have a blissful place. His definition of bliss was for religious purpose as well as emotional. Nevertheless, it takes training to sustain a blissful place. Perhaps that is why yoga and new age movements are growing in popularity – these movements reflect a need solved long ago in Hinduism and Buddhism – two religions that never faced western influence until the world grew too small. Still, as religions, they do not fare well in Western culture. Find solace in Pilates or Tai-Chi.

The mariner concedes we need solace. He also advocates that the world needs our constant attention because of human, chemical, planetary, and equality dynamics – but he digresses.

Ancient Mariner

Imbalance Continued

Posted on by
1

This post continues the idea that our expectations and understanding of our culture face dramatic change. The mariner owes at least a speculative image of how change will occur.

We shall start with what we know. It isn’t pretty but it makes the case that a lot of our societal beliefs are no longer true. To shorten the post, here’s a list of broken images:

The most damaging and most urgent change is that since 1985, the United States has moved inexorably from a democracy run by the people to a corporate plutocracy run by the wealthy. This phenomenon is nearing the tipping point. It may take 12 to 24 years before the underpinnings begin to collapse. This will happen at the speed at which voters want it to change.

An added partner in forcing this change will be the cities, who will fail unless wealth is redistributed through new investment models not driven by national interests. Many cities already have coalitions of entrepreneurs, banks, industry, public citizens and city officials who are redrawing the economic model of their city. The most common examples are modernizing infrastructure, redefining public schools from Head Start through community college, and gentrification not only of homes but commercial, retail and service solutions that will support the new city-based culture. In toto, this will allow for new business opportunities and new jobs influenced by the cities rather than the plutocratic Federal Government. States will be partners with the cities only insofar as the state is helpful to the city. Right now, many Governors and state legislators have dreams of promotion to the Federal level. Their future view must shift back into the state and its economic growth.

Another broken image is the world of Norman Rockwell. Let it go; it no longer exists in any form. It has been replaced at unbelievable speed by technology, medicine, science and the way daily life already has changed because of these advances.

Older folk speak of how life speeded up when the automobile replaced the horse. The iphone leaves that change in the dust. The definition and location of jobs is changing even now. Both the mariner’s children are fine examples of a new worldview not too dependent on institutional safety nets. Sadly, the comfort of Norman Rockwell’s world will fade into history much like the world of Okefenokee Swamp and all its Pogo characters. Even Opus has been retired to Good Night Moon. How can the comics poke fun at a changing target?

A serious failure today is the tangle of politics, fossil fuel industries, international priorities and citizen torpor concerning Planet Earth. We cannot move to another planet – at least not yet. The next 100 years will tell if we can stay. Climate change is documented; ocean currents are slowing down; the atmosphere is changing to an unhealthy state – both for humans and for the planet. Sea levels are destined to rise too many feet for virtually all ocean front cities. Harbors will be overrun and commerce will come to a standstill. This is an issue that, given the international tangle and flaccid citizenry, has no solution.

All these issues are expensive to correct. We have yet to feel the full force of economic hardship as the paradigm morphs to a new model. To put it in terms of family pocketbooks, get rid of credit card debt fast. Use as much cash for daily expenses as you can; pay cash for gasoline; pay cash for groceries; pay cash at supermarkets, Walmart, Target, and Farm and Home. In other words, live well within your means and do not use the Wall Street banks in lieu of any other option. And save, save, save. The taxes to pay for change are coming.

Have a good day.

Ancient Mariner

 

Imbalance

Posted on by
1

The mariner knows that he views the world as chaos. Surely, his readership knows that by now. He is, but as Amos, a minor prophet in a sheepskin crying in the wilderness – and likely has fleas.

The chaos is real.

The reader should take a long view. The Federal government is an archaic dysfunction that drifts further from the current values of social, technical, moral, and governmental truth. This is spoken without regard to political party, tea parties or progressives; the mariner did suggest that the reader take the long view. That vows are taken on the names of Washington, Lincoln, FDR, Kennedy and Reagan is evidence that Congress and the President live in the past. The real world has traveled through that history and has moved on dramatically to a new reality.

Our beliefs linger with an agricultural society that no longer exists. The rural image that carried us this far has ruined our cities, left behind the rural family structure, and left the United States, if not other countries as well, with a false comfort that social structures exist as they did in the 1960’s.

How do we as citizens confront the disappearance of privacy – not just personal privacy but privacy that is taken from us and used to manipulate our freedom of choice and even our view of reality?

How do we as citizens confront the advances in medical science that enable regeneration of skin and organs that will provide perpetual life?

How do we as citizens, particularly US citizens, dismantle an ever hardening plutocracy?

How do we as citizens deal with lingering prejudice, particularly racial hatred and gun violence? This is not so much a phenomenon as it is an indication of incompetence and an inability to deal with reality.

How do cities recover an economic model that provides jobs and feeds their populations?

What is the impact of technical capability in ipads and iphones that liberates us from the rooted morality of the twentieth century?

The citizen ignores a dramatic shift in the social fabric.

This is as it should be. Change is a violent wrenching of the status quo into a new definition of society. It will not come from a Congress of profit-taking millionaires. It will come from the people – individually and collectively – an image not to be perceived as the riots of the 1910’s or the abruptness of the FDR era, but as a pragmatic move toward individual reward. How that plays out cannot be predicted. Just note that change is expensive to the individual as well as to institutions.

The mariner is wary of the imbalance of reality as we know it. Be prepared.

 

Ancient Mariner