"You should probably brace yourself for some light vomiting followed by life altering hallucinations."
Grace and Frankie makes me happy. As I look around at my fairy lights and my paper lampshade globes and my crystal bowls and my strings of garlic and collections of essential oils, I also clearly need a labyrinth. Of course I need all that emotionally in addition to my deep appreciation for and dependence upon the scientific method. I work in a field that is based in real science, albeit imbued by lots of lovely fuzzy stuff like compassion and love. We save lives with science and passion, both.
50 years ago, I was 14, and attending a really nice little prep school in a tiny town in Maine. Even there, we knew that things were changing, and many of us have gone on to make changes in our world, inspired by the chaos of that time.
But now, at 64 years old, I find myself wondering when and how our kind and compassionate hippy approach to the world somehow destroyed logical thought and respect for research and scientific thought.
Yes, my generation made huge changes in the world and in global consciousness. But it feels to me right now that somehow many of us may have fallen down on the job...even as we made huge changes in our personal lives, good changes, that we believed manifested in the greater world.
Individually, we meditate, we do yoga, we respect others no matter who they are, how they manifest; we donate to humanitarian causes; we recycle and have compost heaps; we eat clean because we actually kinda invented co-ops and organic foods . We foster kids, we adopt kids, we give money and time to our transgender and gay kids and friends, we celebrate diversity in our schools. We practice compassion.
Individually, we meditate, we do yoga, we respect others no matter who they are, how they manifest; we donate to humanitarian causes; we recycle and have compost heaps; we eat clean because we actually kinda invented co-ops and organic foods . We foster kids, we adopt kids, we give money and time to our transgender and gay kids and friends, we celebrate diversity in our schools. We practice compassion.
But somehow, we seem to have become complacent over the decades, and we stopped being outraged and effectively effective about things that were happening in the political and judicial sphere.
We didn't rise up and protest when the automatic weapons ban expired in 2004.
We forgot to rise up and protest when the Supreme Court narrowly allowed Citizens United to let corporations donate money as though they were equal to individual voter.
We didn't rise up when congress allowed our rights to privacy to be devastated post 9-11.
We have allowed education to elide over real history, and to allow kids to graduate from high school unable to differentiate between the National Enquirer and actual science. I'm sorry. I am honestly very sorry. i thought my personal satoris were enough. Somehow we've missed the piece that radical compassion ALSO requires action in the real world, commitment to change. We all need to be obnoxious in telling our stories, and sharing our beliefs. There is a caveat: we need to make sure that our opinions are backed up by fact, not just nifty memes. It may well piss people off; it will undoubtedly trim down our nice friends lists on Facebook. No biggie, I can live with that. And I am planning to support the newest entrants into our great tradition of protestors against the big money that is working against all of us who are not billionaires. The teen survivors of Parkland are the ones who are saying, loud and clear, "the Emperor has no clothes!" The system is corrupt. We need their energy. It behooves us to support them in every way we can. They are our future, our hope and our chance to keep on doing the things we have always believed in. https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2018/01/50-years-ago-in-photos-a-look-back-at-1968/550208/
We have allowed education to elide over real history, and to allow kids to graduate from high school unable to differentiate between the National Enquirer and actual science. I'm sorry. I am honestly very sorry. i thought my personal satoris were enough. Somehow we've missed the piece that radical compassion ALSO requires action in the real world, commitment to change. We all need to be obnoxious in telling our stories, and sharing our beliefs. There is a caveat: we need to make sure that our opinions are backed up by fact, not just nifty memes. It may well piss people off; it will undoubtedly trim down our nice friends lists on Facebook. No biggie, I can live with that. And I am planning to support the newest entrants into our great tradition of protestors against the big money that is working against all of us who are not billionaires. The teen survivors of Parkland are the ones who are saying, loud and clear, "the Emperor has no clothes!" The system is corrupt. We need their energy. It behooves us to support them in every way we can. They are our future, our hope and our chance to keep on doing the things we have always believed in. https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2018/01/50-years-ago-in-photos-a-look-back-at-1968/550208/
1 comment:
"Somehow we've missed the piece that radical compassion ALSO requires action in the real world, commitment to change."
1. There is always that sea of unintended consequences. (the Whack-A-Mole game)
2. There has been, for 1000's of years, a tendency to honor either linear thinking or spatial thinking and the end results of each. We need both....especially when developments happen so quickly, as quickly as they have.
3. We cannot escape the realities of inculcation, even when attempting to give scientific thought processes their due. There will always be blindnesses, because of inculcation, in the interpretation of science and in application.
4. Whenever softer lines are drawn, there is that equal and opposite force that snaps us back into line...even if it's a sucky line. That happened...fear of loosening up too much, fear of the unknown places it would take us, caused a real kneejerk social reaction. Compassion doesn't allow for control...and the entities that thrive on that control won't (and didn't) stand for it.
Where I see we really let out guard down is in not following through once changes were instituted or even made law. With decades behind us, we're still not grappling with what did or did not get settled into our culture (and who and what were not held accountable for) when the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was born.
And no...love is not all we need...
But love you I do. Z
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