Who? What? Why?

By Judith Gayle | Political Waves

You and I live in a remarkable time in human history, and believe it or not, that’s a good thing. By now it’s finally dawned on us that nothing we’ve experienced lately is quite like anything we’ve experienced before. Each moment opening before us now can be undiscovered territory, but only if we allow ourselves to welcome in new ways of looking at ourselves and our world.

The moment when the current political narrative became too perilous to continue has already come and gone. As we walk the final steps into 2012, our politics have traveled the short distance from surreal to beyond absurd, and the government’s ability to maintain our core democratic principals seems more fragile every day. If you’d asked if such a thing could happen a dozen or so years ago, we would have laughed like loons. But happen it did, and it’s shocking, yes — and now that it’s here, what will we do with it?

On a personal level, the challenges come so frequently now that I doubt that many of us take off our fireman’s hat. We seldom completely relax; there’s always something looming that will require our immediate attention, so we remain prepared at all times. Consciously or not, we exist in a constant state of tension, and whom and what we can trust has become a daily assessment and decision. Perhaps you have developed a tolerance for this condition. Perhaps you aren’t afraid of “fear itself” any more, marshaling your energy for real emergencies rather than wasting your response on smoke and mirrors.

When life goes this deep, we can mine it for treasure. In fact, so much is in flux that we’re finally asking ourselves the painful and important questions that we were too busy for in the past — questions like who are we? What did we do to get in such a gawd-awful fix? And why are we here on the planet, anyway? We’ve accepted institutionalized answers to those questions as our truth for a couple of thousand years. Frankly, haven’t we put off searching for authentic answers to these age-old question long enough?

Oh, I know, you didn’t count on this. You never thought of yourself as an erstwhile Don Quixote, questing for some enigmatic holy grail of self-definition and purpose. Not all that long ago, life was reasonably pleasant, and most of us understood the 3D rules, some even mastering them. Now daily life is fraught with peril, both real and imagined, and the rules are up for grabs. You probably didn’t realize that you’d signed up for a roller-coaster ride. You didn’t know you’d experience being an adrenalin junkie, have your life plans shot out from under you or be forced to tame your inner drama queen, but there it is.

We live in a world where safety is no longer described as feeling warm and fed and loved, but simply protected, moment to moment, from pending doom and random (or manufactured) moments of terror. Politics can no longer avoid a slimy reputation nor can media protect it — or itself — from the intense scrutiny that will eventually blacken its eye if not knock it cold. Cynicism seems to have replaced hope as we look to our past to define our future, and if you don’t mind my pointing it out, there’s our first mistake for this new era, birthing itself with or without our cooperation.

I’m not sure all of us have a grip on just how fluid this period is nor how much each of us contributes to create it, not only by word and deed, but also by our thoughts, or more importantly, our lack of them. Many of us, feeling helpless and adrift, are lost in apprehension and worry, too self-absorbed to do much to inspire or lift those around us. Others of us are peddling as fast as we can, hoping to keep the basics in place in order to weather the fiscal and social storm that seems intent on beating down the whole of the globe. While some of us have succeeded in holding our ethics close, others of these folks are often the ones who have hardened their hearts against those in worse circumstances. In competition for the bones, the meaner dog usually eats.

And finally, those who don’t worry about eating evidently don’t worry about anyone else eating, either. We have come to accept that the Paris Hiltons of the world are more interested in their lip gloss than in their fellow travelers, and those who keep their bellies full working for “entities” like Monsanto, Dow, Chevron or Wal-Mart must be forgiven for doing what it takes to survive. In this alternative version of our republic, old folks, children, the poor and public workers are all dead weight that we’ve decided we can no longer afford. In short, 21st century life seems to be getting crueler and more cut-throat by the day, our notions of prosperity cold as cash and no more imaginative.

Those new “rules” trying to entwine themselves into our social fabric are the result of several decades of mental/emotional conditioning and a singularly devastating decade, just behind us, that gave us a bad case of national PTSD. Based on our recent past, a future that repeats this pattern of ethical and social decline certainly looks grim. According to the “fair and balanced,” only unfettered business can pull us out of our current nose dive, only punishing those who have been weakened by a stalled economy can secure a stable future for the nation’s “job creators,” who might then secure our own. Although there is no evidence either that jobs trickle down from the mega-wealthy or that eliminating support for our most vulnerable citizens will stabilize society, we are unable to convince each other that these things are not only untrue but dangerous to our democracy. Not while FOX News pumps out its propaganda without being discredited. Not while the purposely dumbed-down are the most easily manipulated and least well-informed.

This darkness is part of the old era. It’s part of the patriarchal power-mongering that is being exposed to the light of day so it can be replaced by a better way. It’s what we must move beyond. I’m constantly amazed that the simple dignity of what is right and good — equal rights for everyone, decent pay and benefits, compassion for those who need assistance, fair laws based on rehabilitation rather than rigid, counter-productive punishments, just international relations and competent science — is rejected by those that need it most. How can at least a third of the nation work against securing such things for themselves and their children? How can they be so blinded by the insanity of “specialness” inherent in their religion and their political religion? How can they be so frightened of what must come eventually, anyway?

This old paradigm, based on fear and death — to be found here and here — can only be broken by our collective courage. One of those important rules for our new era comes clear in the quote, attributed to Einstein, that “the definition of insanity is continuing to do the same thing over and over, and then expecting different results.” Whatever we’re doing based on the baggage of our past should be carefully examined.

And while I’m afraid the whole of the Democratic party has caved in to old notions of how much progress can be made against a tidal wave of obstruction, or bought with political money, the party most egregiously stunted by its backwards vision is the conservative. We can trace our current politics back to resistance against FDR’s New Deal for a progressive nation. We can find its echo in Lincoln’s assassination, its context in the struggle between slave-holding and abolition. We can track this all back to the beginning of the nation when it took a fledgling stand against commerce as king, privilege accorded with wealth, and property rights trumping those of the people.

It’s time to begin again. We can’t do that until we’ve faced our fears and mastered them, and we’re doing that, believe it or not — we’re being forced to. Property rights are no longer equally divided among the population, and social slavery is not so clear-cut a concept when some of us must work several jobs to make ends meet or bend our ethics to keep our jobs. Our mindless dependence on punishment and patriarchy are both being examined as the nation seeks a way out of its broken past. Looking at who lives and who dies based on public money has a sobering influence on even the most cavalier soul.

Although coming to that place where there’s nothing left to lose seems a particularly harsh way to open our consciousness, that’s how things often happen. The darker it gets, the more we look for answers, the more we ask the appropriate questions of ourselves. Who are we? What did we do to arrive in this unhappy place. And why are we here, now, walking through this ring of fire?

I found this Victor Hugo quote in my in-box today:

The future has many names. For the weak it is unattainable. For the fearful it is the unknown. For the bold it is opportunity.

It isn’t self-serving opportunism that requires our boldness now. It isn’t safety for our tribe that we long for so much as safety for the whole of our world. We must find the answers outside of the box that has kept our hearts closed, captive to fear and punishment and death, or we won’t find them at all.

The connective tissue that binds us together is our common humanity, our ability to love and care for one another and our beautiful, fragile planet. I think we’ll find that’s who we are and why we came. That’s the light that will make the whole world bright, the light gently shining at the end of this tunnel.