Cribbing Maggie Kuhn today...

Stand before the people you fear and speak your mind -- even if your voice shakes.

I have a confession.  I'll be resolution-ing all year long.   Sure, I'll be shopping locally.  So far this month I've spent Thursday's (and most days) cooking/creating new dishes with ingredients from the co-op that are healthy, well-portioned, and subsequently that (coupled with myfitnesspal.com) have been extremely helpful with my feeling better.  Cleaner.  And losing a few pounds for my effort.  Go me. 

I've already failed a few of them, but I'm resigned to the fact that they were lofty goals to begin with.  Because that asshole blew through the 4-way stop this morning and I saw it coming a mile away, even if I was there first.  And that other asshole at the gym didn't bother moving an inch when our lockers were right-next to each other.  In fact, he spread his shit out and made me walk around him- get my bag and my clothes out of my locker- and set up camp in the aisle so he could get ready with room to spare.  It's just not possible for me to take a deep breath and not think: "You people are selfish assholes".

What is possible for me is to pity them.  To feel sorry for them.  To heap my own compassion on my silly judgement and annoyed observations like a balm.  With the simple hope that maybe being a tempered man will help me be a better person on the day to day.  I don't need Oprah, a meme, the bible, or anything else.  I think I just need to be okay with not being a selfish dick- even if seeing selfish dickery in the world sets my teeth on edge.

On a slightly related note, and steering us back to today's subject...

I've noticed a trend of how I'm "tamping down" my emotions in light of those silly personal situations.  On a broader scale however, as an example, when I read/hear things in the news and social media?  It's normally not too hard to tamp...because I ain't there.  When I read wildly differing, varying opinions.  Stories in the media. It feels like...more or less...there's a marked lack of confidence and feeling of hope in the world at large.  In FACT, it feels a lot like gloom and doom have been the blue plate special over the last, ooohhhhh, 12-13 years.   Well I'm proud to say that, for my part, I have never added to the melange.  I've never had to voice my opinion because I thought I was above it.

When I resigned from my 1st corporate jobs amidst an (accurate) forecast that the job market would be scarce, I didn't worry.  I didn't buy in to the hysteria that happened after 9/11 and I watched and participated in a changed world with nary a complaint.  When th markets crashed causing job loss, when loved one's leave or pass away, personal challenges force me to acknowledge this terrible ongoing feeling that the other shoe will drop at any point.  I felt it was a personal responsibility of everyone to keep moving forward.  To keep gripping on to hope.  Myself included.

Omnia Mutantur, huh?

And here's where I rant:

In light of all this "head down and sally forthing", the world seems to keep splitting and subdividing like a cell.  And as this continues to happen, we're all witness to the entitlement that our country has pulled up to their chin like a protective blanket.  It's popped up all over and been elevated and inflated by the media (and yes.  Let's get real.  Really real.  It isn't "both sides".  One side is making extraordinary comments and damaging claims.  To become outraged while "The other side" is trying to stay calm should give you a clue.  Do you know who cops listen to when called to a domestic?  The calm one.  The one who isn't shouting.)  Guys...I know- for a really real fact- of websites that PAID two people to start some shit with one and other in order to drum up traffic.

 Politics and Religion, two things that polite society used to never discuss outside of our homes (Nostalgic Mikey misses that a lot.)  and moreover- were never supposed to meet IN government (the latter was meant to reinforce the former with the idea that people with faith are people who can lead and inspire, versus the current world where religion is tossed around so callously as to seem like you're flaunting a golden ticket.  Which, you know, makes sense? No?  Fuck no. )

Our Humility and faith has shaken free, and been replaced self-righteousness and cynicism.   And for good reason.   Corporations and politicians and religious leaders have abused our trust.  We're now able to see some really, really harsh and ugly truth's after spending the longest time happy in our ignorance and blind trust.  But accountability has been called into action.  And we're now on the road of harsh recovery.  So much money has been lost that we will never get back.  Jobs.  Homes.  Our own feeling of hope and security in the future has been impinged upon.  We can no longer trust our hard work will result in prosperity.  Job loyalty will no longer guarantee job security.  I'm not even saying upward-promotion. That notion is almost a mirage. A historical by-product of our tunneled optimism.

Do you get me?  You've seen all this, right?  Even superficially?

   As a nation, we have been watching as we're told that Santa and the Easter Bunny are fake, and mom's been taking both the tooth and the silver dollar under your pillow this whole time.  And that's that.
The bottom line is that life is extremely hard and unfair.  And if there's one thing we, as a nation can agree on, is that those are two truth's that are inescapable.   Nice that we can rally around those two nuggets of hope.    And after a lifetime of keeping my opinions out of the mix.  Of being told it's embarrssing and impolite to go stomping around and shouting my opinion.  Of attempting to stay neutral (while sending my support to things I believe in for the betterment of the world), I'm starting to reach maximum capacity with my bullshit meter.  Namely, and to start with current event- Guns.

Before I continue, I should really clarify what my point is with this lengthy and rambly blog:  I'm speaking my mind, here.

And the mind I plan on speaking is very plain and very simple.  Because there are black and white issues in the world.  There is right, and there is wrong.  When it rains, you don't get dry.  When the sun is shining, it's not dark out.  Minnesota gets blisteringly cold in January.  Outside of troll assholes, we can all agree with some strong certainty that these are true statements?  A raven is very well not like a fucking writing desk, dig?  I'm here to call out the bullshit.  Because there has been bulllllshit aplenty.  And it has to stop.

There are people who are finding it very easy to get ahead and push their own empowering agendas by fostering fear.  By exploiting the percussive mistrust and allowing anger to be a rallying point.  By taking the false hopes for a better world, laying them bare and transparent and saying "There.  See?  It's a shitty world.  But we can help you defend what's yours!".   Or something a lot of folks feel strongly about- Mother Church.  When I was growing up, church was a place of family.  Of fostering brother and sisterhood.   And I know for a fact that it's still that way for many of my friends, family, and loved ones.  Of welcoming new members and stirring hope and faith.  And yet...people are also using it as another safety blanket to push agendas that are, at their foundation, not very Christian.  

I'm sick of politics and I want out.  KIDding.  What I'm sick of is what I miss.  I miss it being a bunch of people in expensive clothes harrumping and making attempts at their harrumphs sounding like the other guys harrumphs so that even if the harrumphs don't mesh, at least a few mutual harrumphs will happen.  Usually for the benefit of our great nation.  Annnnd now?  Now the terribly stupid fight's my desk buddy and I had in 8th grade Social Studies about who we would vote for (meaning- who our parents were voting for.) which degenerated into name calling between us until we'd make up and still have 2nd period lunch together?  THAT seems like more of a civil discourse that is going on in the government.   It's white noise that is seemingly never acted on- and I'm not entirely certain people forget that when two people are shouting at each other in a relationship, they tend to miss each other's point entirely and there is no. Compromise.  There's Definitely no make-up sex.

Social media (sighs) is dead sexy for fanning the flames of discourse.  Here's another sexy truth- since the primitive days of arguing on the internet over, oh, who thought the movie "Face/Off" was genius and who thought it was a piece of crap (it was)- it's been proven time and again that arguing a point on the internet is as impossible as making a drinking cup out of a sneeze.  It is not.  Possible.  Even if you ask for an opinion you're going to wind up with a string of comments that resemble a stupid joke about lightbulbs and how many people it takes to change it. 

This last year during the election and the subsequent "hot button issues" (gay marriage, voter ID, et.al.) I watched things get seemingly hotter than they'd ever gotten.  Violently verbose discourse in an election year is nothing new, but that shamefully ignorant vitriol that kept bubbling up- the inability to yield...to accept another position...to take a deep knee bend-  kept raising up the mirror time and again.  And yet nobody became any better off.  No one took a long look at themselves.  I had to censor myself from commenting/writing to family members.  I found myself watching with disgust as friends and family posted information or would drop comments about how they felt about one candidate or the other.    Or I guess I should say my candidate.  The guy who won.

And these are my friends.  And my family.  Friends.  Family.  And fuck everyone else and the election, but I feel awfully strongly about my friends and my family.  I give a maddening amount of latitude to both.  Of acceptance.  And here I found that patience tested.  And as someone that doesn't go to church or have a support group, I found myself filled with quite a bit of despair. 

You get me?  That earlier optimism?  The desire to stay respectful and positive in light of adversity.  My belief that people can find calm and balance and come together?  Was tested.  Because of social media.  In short, fuck you election year social media.  Eat a dick for making me question my own family and friends. 

Because I saw it (and still see it) dripped in there.  I'm sure people have good intentions when they voice there opinion (or re-post "[fill in the blank]" article from "[your preferred political news source]").  I can't help feeling that their energy is wasted on their like-minded friends and usually reserved for swaying particular family members who have leanings to the contrary.  You might think that because an actor I'm automatically (Democrat/Liberal/Hangs out with smelly hippies.) and while the latter is true, I'm fairly moderate and conservative.  I just save my conservativism for polite and respectful discourse and try and use it to stay focused and steady- to not allow my passions to subvert my overall desires:

To see our nation make attempts at moving forward.  To stop digging in our heels collectively and realize that acting like a Schoolhouse Rock commercial makes more sense.  To remember that we can be great again.  To stop pointing the finger of blame.  To stop obstinately making progress impassable just because someone isn't in your political party.  (Or worse, the hyper-zealous off-shoots of either party.  Which, by the way- were created to create discourse. Don't believe me?  Google "Who created the Tea Party"...and I crap you not, I first read about it in Pl#yboy.) 

Look, here's a truth that isn't a crock of new age bullshit-  Peace, Love, Prosperity, Progress, Hope, Faith...there is nothing wrong with wanting this.  There's nothing wrong with wanting affordable health care for everyone.  For wanting a safe environment where our children can learn and be challenged to be better.  I'm not wrong (this is a theme, friends, that I will probably be pissing you off with) by saying All of these things are good things to aspire to.  If you say contrary, I'm going to believe you think standing in a thundershower is the best hair dryer, ever. 

Guys, I'm going to do something stupid and I'm going to speak my mind in the coming months.  I've pretty much dithered on about topical nonsense for the last 8 years I've been writing here- with a few patent exceptions- and it's been fun.  I have 3 readers who subscribe. 

And I'm going to sit with the self-loathing that it's taken the death of a bunch of children.  Of babies.  Of kids who are the same age as my niece and nephew.  Of people who were innocent.   That's the impetus for this.  Don't worry.  I'll still try to do my best to keep things shorter in the future.  (As promised.)  So here's a very simple truth to kick off 2013:

Guns do kill people.  

Okay?  Yay.  I'd sooner deny someone the right to bear arms as I would spit in their face for breathing.  Crystal clear?  There need to be changes in our current gun laws.  Not constitution.  How they're regulated.  Not taking yours away from you.  Who gets them.  And no.  Nobody needs a machine gun for home use.

I don't need to post links, statistics.  Guns kill people.  A lot of people.  And those are facts.  If you can leave out the NRA, the sales people who are trying to make a mint on home protection, and maybe welcome some dialogue instead of shutting down with imaginary scenarios- we might start taking steps in the right direction.