Would You Mind?

Would You Mind?

“Please close the door!”

Emphatic, direct, and pointless. Who vacates an office and leaves the door open, especially when it was closed when you entered and closed when you proceeded to leave. I wonder sometimes if we don’t waste the majority of our lives using words that are unnecessary as well as redundant, simply to fill in blanks of ineptitude. I could have understood had she said, “please leave the door open,” but closed? When you are asked if you mind, you are actually being told politely, not to mind if you know what is good for you.

Perhaps I expect too much from language. So much of it has no relevance to what is intended. I just spent nearly an hour listening to why I should make the right decision; “your future depends upon it!” Who says? Who knows what the future holds? 

I heard a short blurb on the radio today about a man who was attempting to slow life down; his in particular. He is apparently a musician; didn’t say what instrument he played or the music he preferred, but then that was not a necessary requirement of his goal. He had decided to slow his life down by reminding himself that all the elements that were driving him mad, were things he could ignore, and with little or no consequences. 

He had decided to play a Bach Concerto, a note at a time. I know that doesn’t seem like a monumental feat, everything is done incrementally one step at a time, in a direction hopefully culminating where intended.He, in his effort to slow his life down was going to play one note a year, on a particular day, at a particular time, for as long as he was able to do so physically, or, for as long as he remained alive. 

When I first heard his declaration I assumed he was looking for notoriety; something that would embellish his presence in the music world; but that wasn’t it. He had come up with the idea knowing he probably wouldn’t live long enough to conclude his endeavor, but the process would slow down his life, as well as the factors surrounding it. He would be aware of how and why he did things, be reminded by the date and time of the next note to be played, would make him aware of how life has a tendency to accelerate without permission. 

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The social and political climate of today lends itself to rapidity; a quickening of a news cycle, a scandal that disappears before the print is dry. We are participants in a Wack-a-mole industry, that has removed our ability to find answers amongst the perpetuating number of questions that ride a stream of consciousness, until it meets its falls.

The opposition is now the enemy, time, an agent of mistrust, and trust, eyes that change automatically with the changing light. I cannot help but think of the words hurled at Joseph McCarthy by a lawyer, Joseph Welch, during a senate hearing regarding the influx of Communism on the soul of America, “Have you no decency sir?” The words that brought down McCarthy sped past a public glad to be rid of the chaos, but also allowing Richard Milhouse Nixon, the “I am not a crook” president, to be elected. 

The word decency, honesty, respectability, integrity, have been left behind in our attempt to expedite a future that promises us everything, with no assurances that any of the claims are remotely possible. Superman came to the airwaves during this period with the speed of a locomotive and the ability to leap tall buildings with a single bound. We were hooked on speed and strength which was quickly picked up by politicians as a way of tapping into the growing addiction to might. 

Despite Eisenhower’s warning about the military industrial complex, encouraging the “might equals right syndrome,” we engaged in a race to overwhelm our potential enemies by intimidation, which led to the cold war race and the proliferation of nuclear war heads. We had managed, with the aid of our leaders, to tie ourselves, not to a star, but a nuclear missile. The purpose of government was hijacked by abandoning the purpose of government-caring for the needs of its people, to a massive buildup of a military complex that increased our national debt, while removing many of the policies that benefited the public, while increasing the wealth of those who proclaimed their duty, was to protect its citizenry at any cost. 

A monster was created in the shadowy halls of congress; the countries ills continued to fan the flames of segregation and wealth disparity. A notion of fear was replaced with an illusion of fear, which found the population looking over its shoulder at every opportunity to keep from being abused by a foreign entity determined to take our jobs, our way of life, and especially our freedoms. 

Fear benefits those who propagate its nature. Consideration of problems that actually impact the population are pushed aside in its attempt at reediness, combatting the next mythical challenge put before the population by those who benefit most from its existence. 

War is a perpetual instigator of fear and the calamity that mimics its needs. Larger and better munitions are needed in the race to remain number one, although the second-place participant is nowhere near realities haze of dominance. We have allowed a monster to be created that cannot be satisfied with diplomacy, only with might and the continued promise to facilitate its growing needs with bodies and weapons.

When you place all your eggs in one basket, you risk the potential of a fall, which destroys the efficiency inherent in having all the eggs in one basket. Because might is such a saleable commodity, and fear is so easily disseminated, we have focused only on the prize that has been highlighted to keep us engaged, while ignoring other potential destructive forces that are not as profitable but deadly. 

The earth, our world, is about to ignite. We have been led to believe that everything not consistent with the “Might” consistently headlined, is a hoax, a distraction from what is important to our survival, when the real danger lies in our continuing to disregard the earth that sustains us, makes life possible. 

The lyric, “you don’t need a weatherman to see which way the wind blows,” has become increasingly more relevant. Each year the global temperature rises. Increasing disasters, due to extreme rain, drought, fire, and hurricanes, have become more frequent and have increased in strength. It is no longer someone else’s problem; weather-related destruction no longer remains a possibility, but a probability that can’t be ignored. And yet we do nothing but continue to pretend the problem will magically disappear, and things will once again become normal.

Normalcy: routine, regularity, and status quo, no longer exist, except in the realm of our cluster bomb media. We are bombarded with news routinely, with no follow up; consequences are ignored, dastardly deeds become indiscretions.  We accept it because it has become the “new normal,” in our knowing absence. Things change, but consequences always coincide with a result. Changing the meaning of normalcy does not minimize the problem, but further confuses the reality of how people understand, and therefore they are likely to dismiss as fake.

If something doesn’t fit our agenda, then something must be wrong. We have been given permission to ignore the time-consuming investigative research of those engaged in science and rather choose to accept explanations that suit our needs. Until your roof collapses from excessive rain or snow, or we run out of water, or fire consumes our home, the reality of change is not our problem. The “New Normal” has given us permission to disregard fact, and accept whatever solution fits our needs.

We are hurtling toward a change we are not prepared to cope with and therefore won’t believe the obvious in favor of the illusion, that everything will be alright because it always has been. We are fixated on immigration as being the cause of all our problems, when in actuality it is a warning sign of what is to come. People do not walk a thousand miles unless there is a need. They are looking for a way to avoid the “might,” and find a place where they can provide their family a future. 

Half of our population of our country live within a hundred miles of a coast, in cities that are only a few feet above sea level. As the temperatures climb and the ice fields melt, we will be looking at a massive migration that will far exceed the dust bowl exodus of the last century, and yet we are not planning for that eventuality because it is an inconvenient truth, and not profitable as yet, in the eyes of those puppeteers who manipulate the strings. We are asked to sacrifice our children for the last drop of oil, despite the devastating impact it has on our environment and the world’s population as a whole.

The speed of our transition is increasing more quickly than our national debt or inflation. We are racing down a runway toward extinction, and we worry, not about speed, which we are addicted to, but extracting the last drop of normalcy, as we see it, from our national parks and pristine wilderness, so that we can allude to an old normalcy, while embracing the new.

Numerous Chicken Little’s have emerged over the past decades predicting the emergence of a new world order, which leaves the dedication to singular existence, in favor of a cooperative attempt to right the wrongs that are the result of actions with no consideration of their consequences. Perhaps we will awaken to the notion that all human beings are equal when it comes to the survival of oneself and family. 

Isolationism, which is often used to make superiority desirable, is also the very philosophy that pits neighbor against neighbor, while those in the wings wait for the opportunity to swoop in and scavenge through the remains for any valuables that remain.

Speed does not dismiss the necessity of cooperation if the human species is to survive, it subverts the notion by allowing us to hear only what they want us to hear and have us disregard the rest. We are, if we haven’t already reached the tipping point, begun our slide into oblivion. I wish I was reassured that there is time to return to a normalcy where a tomorrow could be predicted, fairness and equality were once again ethical standards, and truth was not manufactured to coincide with ones wishes, but I am not.

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All I asked was that she close the door. I did not mean metaphorically, but physically, to close the door. Many of the students here have been conditioned to do the opposite of what is in their best interests. When I was their age, in a similar situation, when asked by a teacher to please close a door, open a door, keep the noise down, you did it without thinking because you didn’t do yourself any favors by ignoring or irritating the one who decides if you pass, fail, or need more time understanding the intricacies of manners, which I might add, must be taught. Manners have not evolved with the species as they developed, and they’re likely to be replaced by isolationist philosophies which ask not what you can do for your world, but what the world can do for you. 

Often, if you want something done right, you have to demand it, because it is the right thing to do. Relying on a door to close itself is not only foolish but appears to be asking an awful lot of wood, glue, and the magic in creative expression; when it comes to doors that is.