Our true deficit in this country has less to do with money than people would like to believe. Our true deficit has to do with imagination and creativity, to imagine and create a different world than the one we currently live in. For some reason, it continually surprises me day after day that we cannot think outside of the current paradigm presented to us. Perhaps, it is because we were born within it; ingenuity and innovation blocked, not by its usefulness, but by markets and agendas and the common sense of that is how its always been done. Our economic downfalls are but a reflection of the consumer society were driven by. We consume and mass-produce consumer products, but we do not create them -- not anymore. And it makes us apathetic. It puts us to sleep. We make nothing in this country. We dont make computers. We dont make printers. We import 99% of our shoes. We are unable to put a military aircraft into the sky without using components built by our potential adversaries, and for some time now manufacturing has increasingly moved offshore. These are not problems politicians solve. Politicians debate these issues; politicians dont solve problems. They dont solve these problems because they are not creatives. They are not makers or creators; they are negotiators. Let me be plain, this is not a rant about the role of government. Government is not always the enemy people want it to be and this is far more personal. This is a rant about being pacified, about being a cog in the machine, about being silent concerning the problems of our day because they dont immediately affect you, like say, a punch to the stomach. These trends have to do with culture, with people, with collective ideology. We regurgitate talking points the same way we consume movies and music and sitcoms -- passively, at a distance, locked into camps, arguing like maddened sophists, still asleep at the wheel, unable to sit down and imagine what this world might look like without the systems that were here before us. You want to argue about the socio-political subjects of the moment, but in almost all of these arguments, theres not one solution. I hear, see, and observe division and name-calling. But imagine. Imagine this world not as it is now, but what it could be, by its potentiality. It is the only way to create something new that is better than what we have. The truth is most of the things that divide us are made up: race, class, gender, etc. Forget the buzzwords of our political rhetoric -- liberal, conservative, left, right, democrat, republican, libertarian, marxist, whatever you do or do not conform to -- and without those strictures, imagine something more fair, more morally and ethically aligned to human potential, more connected to what our purpose on the planet and in the universe might be. Thats a start. It should be the first step in your thinking, always. And, then, build it. And create it. Until we can reach this place in dialogue, critical thought, and ideological positioning, we only exacerbate and recycle old problems, resurrect old arguments. Im very tired of politics at the moment and every word that comes out of a politicians mouth. All I hear is more of the same. Im tired of writers who dont write out of a fever to disturb and excite and reiterate the same old cultural narratives. All I read is more of the same. Im tried of singers who dont sing to twist a knot in your gut and pull your heart out with their bare hands, but only as a vocation. I cannot support you, even if your voice is beautiful, even if youre extremely talented, but you at bottom you just sound the same. Im tired of actors who think their craft is appearing in tabloids and on talk shows and having no commitment to their community or craft. Another shallow, hollow-hearted celebrity to water down the cultural artifacts of our time. Im tired and disappointed in the makers, in the engineers and researchers and scientists. Im disappointed in the makers of the world. Most of the time, I dont complain about it, because I want a better world. Most of the time, when you see me, Im immersed in activity or drifting into space. I busy. I busy imagining something better. Im busy thinking of ways to create it.
Posted on: Fri, 08 Nov 2013 20:00:05 +0000
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