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Date Posted: 17:06:57 12/20/03 Sat
Author: Jest R.
Subject: Playing the flute. (Or, a really long socio-political rant for old times' sake)

The silent but indescribably heavy footfall of elephants, bombs are dropped, or are delivered, or planted with the express purpose of eliminating human lives. Every day, the reports, as if wishing to tip toe past, sit demurely in black and white next to the red and yellow flashing sign that tells me that, once again, my seemingly incredibly lucky unique banner identification number has won a contest, if I will only click here.

Meanwhile, my life is filled, almost to the bursting point, with what I do, in the cocktail party ice breaking sense of the concept. “Now what is it you do?” she asked with an earnest, but disinterested, smile. Isn’t it funny that I answered with my professional occupation? Or perhaps it is the farthest thing from funny I have heard in a long, long time. Don’t get me wrong; some significant portion of my life has been spent preparing me for what I do. I am not trapped in any real sense, the web I have woven is largely a conglomeration of expectations that is quite outside the realm of true necessity. It would seem that I often confuse the imperative with the necessary. Call it the tragic flaw of the moderately privileged, I suppose.

When I was younger, and the imperatives were far more academic, if you will excuse the entirely appropriate multiple meaning of the phrase, I regarded war with the disdain reserved for the youthful and the naïve. It was simply something that someone else did, the product of men who were evil or stupid, a midnight black to my almost iridescent white, burning with the purity of partial insight.

Now, I see my complicity very clearly. My bleeding heart tucked in my wallet; I have created the expectation that my life, each year, will improve in an objectively verifiable economic manner. Beyond survival, I have tacked on an increasingly bizarre and intricate set of requirements in order to make this economic expansion necessary. Ah, I am sorry, there I go again. Rather, I should say, to make this economic expansion imperative.

Shelter, water, food, electricity, transportation, larger shelter, radio, television, telephone, faster transportation, more shiny transportation, mobile telephones, mobile television, computer, bigger television, bigger transportation, high speed asynchronous digital internet access, faster computer, and, well, somehow I think the picture is not so remote as to be obscure to anyone. There are personal substitutions on the list, and additions as well. Not all of these habits are mine, but enough that I know my “needs”, and my resultant expectations, are always increasing. This is not because I am greedy, I don’t think, or hope, or wish, I suppose. It is because that is as it should be, according to my cultural understanding of the world. I, with all my stump speeches and grandiose sentiment, am really John Q. Public, in terms of what I expect of the world. And, what do I expect? A little more each year, please sir, just to keep off the killing freeze of dial up Internet access. One can’t live in the stone ages forever, you know.

The thing is, if my needs are larger than what it is I produce, and if the number, quality, and/or expense of these things that I call needs increases each year, and if I am like all of those around me who are caught in the onrushing current of expectation and unquestioned artificial imperatives, doesn’t something eventually fail?

There is not an unlimited supply of that which is truly necessary for human existence. Well, OK, let me retract and focus the statement for the sake of continuing the momentum of discussion. The natural environment upon which we currently depend for life, being generally referred to as Earth for as long as I can remember, is a finite thing. So, if given a finite amount of something, and continuous expansion of both the number of entities that require it, and a continuous increase in the amount of it that each entity requires, or thinks it requires, are we not merrily accelerating toward our fate in the largest sport utility vehicle ever recorded? Take your pick…. Air? Water? Unspoiled Land? Or perhaps the current imperative, that which seems somehow more immediate to those that gather around the political council fires, that which currently allows up to move quickly over the surface of the Earth, and just above and below, oil.

Please, do not misinterpret my barbs to be personal, it is only in the recognition of just how masterfully I have been indoctrinated in to this process that I am able to speak of it at all. My wife and I live in a place that pipes it’s water from far, far away, we both separately drive our cars to work. I am in the midst of it, and any attempt to pretend innocence would be dishonest and folly to boot. That is what has made this last war so much different to me, the recognition that, although my mouth screams loudly of how much I feel that war is a sad underestimation of the latent capabilities of the human species, which is something that my heart and mind still very much believe, at the same time I can see also that, in order to maintain the increasing demand and expectation of the culture that I am a fully participating entity in, increasingly desperate things will be required of my “team”, or those who we choose for the difficult task of satisfying expectation from positions of power, in order for a larger share of a smaller amount of resource to be distributed amongst me, and my contemporary band of baby birds, blind with a hunger that we have been subtly self taught to never think of as quenched.

I don’t see many politicians running on a campaign of reducing, or even maintaining at a steady state, the things of perceived value amongst his or her constituency. At one point, I suppose, I glanced at this and saw it dressed in the clothes of conspiracy and corruption, in personal greed and a system disconnected from the people that the government was meant to serve. But, if you strip away everything, even the myriad examples where greed, conspiracy, and corruption were at play, and I do think they are a natural by product, you still boil down to me, wanting just a bit more. Nothing much, really, no potholes in my roads, better services as more people come to live in my home, or as I come to live in theirs, drinkable water every time I turn on the tap, electricity. And If you could, please attain this without increasing the amount of my economic resource I must personally expend in order to have these things, because, Lord knows, I have many needs, an ever increasing amount, actually, and what with everybody looking to make a buck, everything is just so expensive….

Maybe the line I am drawing is too abstract, maybe it is simply a means of excusing the behavior of power structures that have spiraled out of control. But something about what is going on is profoundly disconcerting for me, perhaps all the more disconcerting because of my willing participation, and my inability to see a means within the architecture to address the need to chance the architecture in a meaningful way. I am increasingly frustrated with the people who claim to be advocates for change, who tune their drums in a different way, and then proceed to try to bang more loudly, in order to beat, if you will excuse the pun, the drums of war and greed at their own game. So often, by the time a voice pierces through to the point of audibility, it has become laden with the political necessities of influence, or it has diverged so much into extremism or sensationalism as to be useless, and often comically counterproductive.

Perhaps what I am saying is, I think we are all playing drums, and vying to see who can play them better, or faster, or more loudly, when after all these years, I think it is really time to play the flute.

/me plays a happy little holiday flute song.

Peace on Earth, and Goodwill Toward Men.

:-)

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Replies:

[> Well if you're playing the flute..... -- LaneyLounge, 19:57:57 12/20/03 Sat [1]

I'm content with just a couple of spoons. I understand what you're saying about the ever increasing need for more, and better, and faster, and bigger, but I believe that those are personal choices. My needs are very basic, (at least I think they are.) I can honestly say that I could, and want to, get by with less. I don't have any desire for a big house and a fast expensive car. Naturally, shelter, water, food, clothing are necessities, but we even have choices there. My husband desires the material things in life because he believes that will make him happy. Those things mean nothing to me. I could be just as happy living in a trailer as I could be living in a mansion.
So while I understand what you're saying, it has to be comforting in some way to know that we can choose what it is that we want out of life.
I'll take a kazoo and hearty laughter any day over the Escalade and the Rolex. :-)


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[> Re: Playing the flute. (Or, a really long socio-political rant for old times' sake) -- PMD, 22:11:54 12/20/03 Sat [1]

And you may find yourself living in a shotgun shack
And you may find yourself in another part of the world
And you may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile
And you may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful
Wife
And you may ask yourself-well...how did I get here?

Letting the days go by/let the water hold me down
Letting the days go by/water flowing underground
Into the blue again/after the money’s gone
Once in a lifetime/water flowing underground.

And you may ask yourself
How do I work this?
And you may ask yourself
Where is that large automobile?
And you may tell yourself
This is not my beautiful house!
And you may tell yourself
This is not my beautiful wife!

Letting the days go by/let the water hold me down
Letting the days go by/water flowing underground
Into the blue again/after the money’s gone
Once in a lifetime/water flowing underground.

Same as it ever was...same as it ever was...same as it ever was...
Same as it ever was...same as it ever was...same as it ever was...
Same as it ever was...same as it ever was...

Water dissolving...and water removing
There is water at the bottom of the ocean
Carry the water at the bottom of the ocean
Remove the water at the bottom of the ocean!

Letting the days go by/let the water hold me down
Letting the days go by/water flowing underground
Into the blue again/in the silent water
Under the rocks and stones/there is water underground.

Letting the days go by/let the water hold me down
Letting the days go by/water flowing underground
Into the blue again/after the money’s gone
Once in a lifetime/water flowing underground.

And you may ask yourself
What is that beautiful house?
And you may ask yourself
Where does that highway go?
And you may ask yourself
Am I right? ...am I wrong?
And you may tell yourself
My god!...what have I done?

Letting the days go by/let the water hold me down
Letting the days go by/water flowing underground
Into the blue again/in the silent water
Under the rocks and stones/there is water underground.

Letting the days go by/let the water hold me down
Letting the days go by/water flowing underground
Into the blue again/after the money’s gone
Once in a lifetime/water flowing underground.

Same as it ever was...same as it ever was...same as it ever was...
Same as it ever was...same as it ever was...same as it ever was...
Same as it ever was...same as it ever was...


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[> Very well said JestR -- PMD, 01:53:11 12/21/03 Sun [1]

When one tries to take the road less traveled by and diverges from those of their neighbors they quickly find themselves an outcast from the socially acceptable. When you play the flute while everyone else is playing drums it becomes increasingly hard to carry a tune.


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[> [> A different take on your perspective. -- Dee Canter, 01:04:47 12/22/03 Mon [1]

Although I've read what others had to post, I will take into consideration your thoughts on war. While conflicts with other nations play a large role in our world, I greatly respect your views on peace. A globe with unity is not out of the realm of possibilites. No one should ever give up on that prospect.

I'll agree that most everyone thinks of it as an impossibility, however, it is not.



John Lennon was a legend before his time.






A simpleton's view.


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