Roots; squared (or, Can someone tell me how to superscript fonts when I post?)
18 Feb 2011 Leave a Comment
in Humanity Tags: all, art, culture, economics, family, history, Life, love, News, politics, random, society, writing
There is not enough gratitude in the world that would be enough to give to one of our best and most brilliant communicators; author Alex Haley. Sometimes I contemplate the possibility that he might have known what his famous novel; Roots, would do for all of us. Sometimes, I also wonder how many people might see what this wonderful book did for humanity, or if they at least understand how a human truth is intransigent to being misunderstood by any human being. For those of us who were here at the time, the Roots phenomenon and its unique success on television should, at least statistically, raise an impacting and valid question: If Roots is the story of the history of one family and their unplanned, unwilling and at times horrific migration from Africa to the U.S. at the hands of slave traders which in turn became a tool and a mechanism through which their descendants managed to give birth to a particular, albeit obsolete human dynamic called cultural identification (aka cultural identity); then why did it affect everybody so much instead of just the descendants of the protagonists of the story? How is it that anyone and everyone, regardless of any variables, somehow related to Roots? We ALL related to Roots.
The answer is simple; we all related to Roots because it is a story of HUMAN perseverance and triumph over adversity. (Note: the triumph was over the adversity created by our own ignorance, stupidity and greed, not over OTHER people.) We can all relate to that: the story stimulated the very same feelings, be it sorrow, anger, shame or pride, in all of us. Kunta Kinte was simply one of us; a human being. Not only that, he was an example of humanity for all of us.
Thank you Alex Haley, for participating in what very well may have been one of the first instances of a particular global human dynamic which is also one of the keys to our future; the dynamic concept of us; all of us.
(Author’s note: The math says that most of us who may read this post will notice something, however there is a very good probability that a lot of us WON’T. I’m referring to the fact that this entire post was written without having to mention an “ethnic” label. Not once does “black”, “white” “African American” or any other absurd label appear in the post and yet it was perfectly understandable. Now THAT deserves a celebration!)
We can do better.
A picture really does say so very much!
09 Feb 2011 2 Comments
in Humanity Tags: all, culture, humor, irony, Life, News, society
Perhaps you may have already seen this picture as it made its way through the cyber-grape-gossip vine. If you have, it’s okay; look at it again and contemplate this in terms of where our collective heads might be these days. It’s also one of the few things in our physical universe that requires no math at all, at least from this viewpoint!
What do we really want?
27 Jan 2011 2 Comments
in economics, Humanity, Money, news, Opinion, Politics, society Tags: future, Life, money, random, society
It is about time that we finally face this question, isn’t it? Shit and fan have already collided and the only unknown at this point is whether or not the splatter which covers everything will leave even the tiniest space to squeeze through or to make camp in. The few who try to speak about the issue are exactly that: too few and perhaps they have lost faith in the rest of us to do anything at all, even though they can clearly see what is happening and they are trying to do the right thing by following the natural, human instinct to DO something .
Our generation stands of the brink of the next, the biggest and very possibly the most important change in the human condition, ever. This is the first time in our collective history where all of us know where all of us are and how to communicate with any one of us. In spite of the bitter taste in our mouths which is the by-product of what we have done to ourselves, we are also waking up to something totally new and it is good and sweet. We all carry with us this new sense of us - the real us: all 6.8 billion of us give or take, not the very old and tired version of “us” based on political boundaries. If a sentence, an idea or even thinking includes an “us’ and a “them”, then that isn’t the real “us” because there is no “them”. We are all we have and we have such an incredible opportunity to restructure what we do and what we think we know into something that works, if we really want to. It is incomprehensible to look out upon our world and see almost everyone doing NOTHING about the only thing that really matters; the tiny speck of time that we are here, alive and human. The machinery that runs the day-to-day life of humanity fell apart completely and yet we don’t even ponder the significance of the moment. We simply watch everything that we think we know crumble around us and do what? Wait to see what happens? Hope that someone will figure out a way to fix the world that we created and which shatters our very humanity but which we refuse to let go of? There are enormous pockets of people everywhere who are angry, or terrified, or depressed or just plain lost, and not a one of us can spark a conversation which contemplates something different? Is it because what we are angry about is that “I never got my turn to enjoy money and success?” Is the thought that we might actually become inspired to do something new which would do away with money as we know it what terrifies us? Could it be that what we are depressed about is the harsh reality that nothing we’ve ever come up with to run our world has ever worked and even though we know better we can’t help but to covet money, because it’s all we know? Finally, are we lost because we don’t know how to let go of our addiction to the concept of money and wealth and what it allows for us to do: purchase other people’s envy and impose our will on those around us. Is that it? It this the best we got? Are we going to let everything that we are and have been and might possibly be, simply fade away into nothingness? Have we become that weak and lazy and complacent and full of ourselves and so idiotic? Have we become a world of pussies? If that’s what we want, that’s what we’ll get, unless we choose something different.
I think that we can do better and I REALLY WANT for us to have that chance. That’s a start.
So what do you really want?
