The world and I don’t see eye to eye. That is discouraging to the point where optimistic dreaming has become useless.
As a middle-aged, white, heterosexual American male of middle-class upbringing, one would imagine the globe and I would be copacetic. However, the world today is in such disarray on so many levels that I can not truly connect myself to any part of it, let alone have my dreams tied to it. I simply can’t comprehend why humans are marching forth in a world decaying from systemic incompetence. We should all be thriving in this place called Earth.
The human race has become entranced by devices running on ever-expanding bandwidth, propagating individualized bubbles of ignorance and self-promotion and making us pretty much unaware of anything off one’s own personal screen. We have accepted a world made of binary choices where infants grasp the phone from their parents’ hands shortly after coming into this world, never experiencing our natural interconnectedness, leading to anger and fear for our fellow humans. We have failed in our opportunity to love one another.
Many blame the Boomers who, 12 years after being named Time magazine’s man of the year, turned to President Reagan, thereby strengthening a cabal of elites promoting the exchange of peace signs for Wall Street stocks. As they enter old age today, the Boomers find themselves in a divisive and destructive world.
The unquenchable thirst for profit and power has solidified a global order to the benefit of its elites and divided the “rest of us.” The decision to “click” ourselves into self-isolation has not only divided us, but has also diminished our response to a corrupt global order resulting in the cries of “white privilege” drowning out the recognition of a globe in moral and physical atrophy. Marching on the Capitol may not be such a bad idea, but under the banners of the Confederacy and a self-indulgent elitist? Why choose that for the world?
Our world is complex and diverse, requiring us to respond with complex thinking and rational action, not blindly marching in footstep with the Red or Blue. Consider the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to a president who turned a blind eye to torture and wrote the book on enhanced drone warfare while at the same time allowing individual citizens to arm themselves illegally (and without any experience in urban unrest) to hunt and kill fellow citizens who scream out for justice. I find the violence of both President Barack Obama and Kyle Rittenhouse to be disturbing, leaving me on the outs with those who cheer one while chastising the other. I can’t support a Democratic Party propagating global domination or Republicans pushing war on our own citizens.
Take a step back from the bandwidth and think creatively for change. The entrenched two-party democracy that controls a global power leaves citizens little choice in making a happier world.
The bilateral support for bank bailouts, for-profit healthcare and the global distribution of manufactured weapons has led us to unimaginable debt, poor health and endless war. Complete incompetents are in positions of power throughout our systems of influence, perpetuating thoughtless clicks when what we need is complex and diverse solutions to a neglected planet.
Is asking for a world populated by people with values and who possess the ability to engage in honest discussion another broken dream? From the looks of what we have done, it sure seems likely. So let’s try to put our phones down and create a world offering us better choices, ones that lessen human suffering and let dreamers dream again.
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