city youth, concerned with status and afraid of (or ignorant of) the natural world.
The real world
The rest of the world
Stamp clad in Urban Outfitter window displays crafted to emulate the used and discarded.
irony can sting, as the sun shines.
My observations and responses to this crazy world; in color, text, and line
Saturday, September 25, 2010
bad hair day
My hair is impermeable
impervious to rain and blows
moving up and out
like an atomic bomb
as perceived
by life's minutae
in s l o w
m o t i o n
impervious to rain and blows
moving up and out
like an atomic bomb
as perceived
by life's minutae
in s l o w
m o t i o n
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Spare any change?
On my way to Bart yesterday, I had about five or six individuals ask me for my dollars and cents (sense?) in their individual unique fashions. Some to my back as i'm passing them on the sidewalk, some sitting with a wagging cupped hand against a wall, some approaching me in the opposite direction. I had my Beyonce shoes on, so I must have been looking like money. Perhaps I was feeling like money and they were picking up on that shine. Or perhaps i'm white and normal enough looking. They couldn't see my teeth. I had left my bike in the city, so was hoofing it in Oakland, not something I do very often. Not that it's an unattractive thing to do, I just prefer the zippiness and intensity of bicycling. But walking is certainly a reminder of what's happened to people. The last dude to spange me as I was reaching my destination had all these candy necklaces on and needed just 50cents. He reminded me of the methed out under-belly of Spokane. Hell no. Gag me with a burnt spoon. I just gave him a weird facial expression that said 'what? who you talkin' to, bro?' and a flick of the wrist that added to the expression and continued on my way. To my back he began to get aggressive and verbally violent. I couldn't understand what he was saying, but it was angry. And i'm pretty sure I heard the word 'bitch' in there. If I had a nickel for every time a total stranger called me a bitch...I'd never have to work again!
It made my stomach tighten up and my peripheral vision open. Just in case another perfect stranger decided they needed to get physical with their frustration with me. I wanted to be ready. I was running through it in my head--what I would do, what I would say. And then I realized i was just getting myself worked up over nothing. Over someone else's issues. Some total stranger's baggage. It makes me sad, what's happened, but I can't let it ruin my day. I'm sorry that society has done this to you. It hurts me. It makes me think about the chain of events that has lead to this degradation of society. The hierarchy that exists in all situations. The totally confused priority list on the desks of world leaders. The fact that crazy people run the world (if they weren't crazy to begin with, the power they obtain is too much for their fragile human minds, and it drives them nuts) It's like the chimps in the Congo when they tirade on neighboring land with intimidating screams and gestures. Is it because they're curious what their neighbor's figs taste like? They want a different view of the jungle and don't want to share?
We are not so far from the chimps emotionally. I see it every day. Every time a woman gets cat-called, I hear the screams of monkeys. Or when a group of dudes decides they're gonna fight, I see gorillas beating their chest and pounding the ground. Or when someone yells profanity at my back for bruising their ego.
And yet we've got this frontal lobe that has helped us to figure out how to build weapons and computers. How to manipulate power dynamics and lord over lands we may never have to see or visit. It has given us foresight and afterthoughts and "genius" (which has a big scary "I" behind it).
I compare it to chasing skills as an artist. Your ideas never match to your skill level, so as your skills grow, your ideas grow farther and you keep getting better-but you will never catch up. And this is what keeps us in progress. I see our brains as our emotions chasing our frontal lobe. The logic center of the brain has developed past our emotional ability to handle it. We're smarter than is safe. So we're like baby spiders with a gland full of toxic venom that they don't know how to control. We don't know how to be smart about the gifts we're given. We don't think things through to the end, and the current world is the accumulation of that. We're nearing the end that we didn't think things through till, so no one really knows what to do (except to keep doing what they've been). It's one big "told you so", only the voice that's saying it is in our DNA and is hard to make out because we stopped listening to it so long ago, it's become a part of the white noise. And our elders and guides--we've killed them, squashed their spirits, turned them into alcoholics and drug addicts. Or we ignore and invalidate them. We decide they're not relevant. But I think more and more people seek the connection with the earth that we used to have. I know I do, and i see that thirst all around me. I see it in the feather earrings the ladies are wearing, and the moccasins for sale at Urban Outfitters. I see it in the wolf t-shirts the hipsters are wearing and the immense popularity of the BBC Planet Earth series. Perhaps the bay area is craving more of this than New York, but it seems like the intense urbanization of the world is having it's polarities as well.
People are craving a deep connection to everything, which was something that people used to get from religion, but more and more generations being born are learning (or have learned) not to trust religion. It's a shame what we've allowed to happen with religion. I think the origins of each spiritual school has thought (doctrines) meant well at their inceptions, but as a snowball accrues more than snow when it rolls down a hill, each new interpreter of each doctrine put the fear, inhibitions, judgments and other baggage that they've been carrying around in their cells in-between the lines on the pages. And corruption can ruin the most genuine of intentions. The lust for power has formed many facets of the world we now live. And the confusing thing is that it's not even about money. Money is just a means to an end, the end being Power. The thirst and quest for Power (which doesn't even exist) brings my hands to my head and causes my fingers to clench and pull at my hair till i'm fighting tears. And the fact that we as a people--as a society--allow others to keep climbing the power ladder until they are so high up in their castle in the sky that they have no frame of reference to what's happening on the ground. And yet their decisions are what's forming what the ground looks and feels like. They destroy the drinking water, kill the loved ones, and poison the food of its inhabitants and we allow it. Not only do we allow it, we contribute to it. It comes back to not thinking things through to the end. While hiding lies between insignificant truths and negating significant ones, and keeping the people contributing to genosuicidal social behavior, what is the silver lining? Is it the comfort of our day-to-day? Is it the certainty of fast food chains or iphone apps? Is it the expanding tourist industry? Or youtube videos? How funny everything can be? My cup runneth over, even with its leaks and cracks. Perhaps that's it.
It made my stomach tighten up and my peripheral vision open. Just in case another perfect stranger decided they needed to get physical with their frustration with me. I wanted to be ready. I was running through it in my head--what I would do, what I would say. And then I realized i was just getting myself worked up over nothing. Over someone else's issues. Some total stranger's baggage. It makes me sad, what's happened, but I can't let it ruin my day. I'm sorry that society has done this to you. It hurts me. It makes me think about the chain of events that has lead to this degradation of society. The hierarchy that exists in all situations. The totally confused priority list on the desks of world leaders. The fact that crazy people run the world (if they weren't crazy to begin with, the power they obtain is too much for their fragile human minds, and it drives them nuts) It's like the chimps in the Congo when they tirade on neighboring land with intimidating screams and gestures. Is it because they're curious what their neighbor's figs taste like? They want a different view of the jungle and don't want to share?
We are not so far from the chimps emotionally. I see it every day. Every time a woman gets cat-called, I hear the screams of monkeys. Or when a group of dudes decides they're gonna fight, I see gorillas beating their chest and pounding the ground. Or when someone yells profanity at my back for bruising their ego.
And yet we've got this frontal lobe that has helped us to figure out how to build weapons and computers. How to manipulate power dynamics and lord over lands we may never have to see or visit. It has given us foresight and afterthoughts and "genius" (which has a big scary "I" behind it).
I compare it to chasing skills as an artist. Your ideas never match to your skill level, so as your skills grow, your ideas grow farther and you keep getting better-but you will never catch up. And this is what keeps us in progress. I see our brains as our emotions chasing our frontal lobe. The logic center of the brain has developed past our emotional ability to handle it. We're smarter than is safe. So we're like baby spiders with a gland full of toxic venom that they don't know how to control. We don't know how to be smart about the gifts we're given. We don't think things through to the end, and the current world is the accumulation of that. We're nearing the end that we didn't think things through till, so no one really knows what to do (except to keep doing what they've been). It's one big "told you so", only the voice that's saying it is in our DNA and is hard to make out because we stopped listening to it so long ago, it's become a part of the white noise. And our elders and guides--we've killed them, squashed their spirits, turned them into alcoholics and drug addicts. Or we ignore and invalidate them. We decide they're not relevant. But I think more and more people seek the connection with the earth that we used to have. I know I do, and i see that thirst all around me. I see it in the feather earrings the ladies are wearing, and the moccasins for sale at Urban Outfitters. I see it in the wolf t-shirts the hipsters are wearing and the immense popularity of the BBC Planet Earth series. Perhaps the bay area is craving more of this than New York, but it seems like the intense urbanization of the world is having it's polarities as well.
People are craving a deep connection to everything, which was something that people used to get from religion, but more and more generations being born are learning (or have learned) not to trust religion. It's a shame what we've allowed to happen with religion. I think the origins of each spiritual school has thought (doctrines) meant well at their inceptions, but as a snowball accrues more than snow when it rolls down a hill, each new interpreter of each doctrine put the fear, inhibitions, judgments and other baggage that they've been carrying around in their cells in-between the lines on the pages. And corruption can ruin the most genuine of intentions. The lust for power has formed many facets of the world we now live. And the confusing thing is that it's not even about money. Money is just a means to an end, the end being Power. The thirst and quest for Power (which doesn't even exist) brings my hands to my head and causes my fingers to clench and pull at my hair till i'm fighting tears. And the fact that we as a people--as a society--allow others to keep climbing the power ladder until they are so high up in their castle in the sky that they have no frame of reference to what's happening on the ground. And yet their decisions are what's forming what the ground looks and feels like. They destroy the drinking water, kill the loved ones, and poison the food of its inhabitants and we allow it. Not only do we allow it, we contribute to it. It comes back to not thinking things through to the end. While hiding lies between insignificant truths and negating significant ones, and keeping the people contributing to genosuicidal social behavior, what is the silver lining? Is it the comfort of our day-to-day? Is it the certainty of fast food chains or iphone apps? Is it the expanding tourist industry? Or youtube videos? How funny everything can be? My cup runneth over, even with its leaks and cracks. Perhaps that's it.
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