Governments don't want well-informed, well-educated people capable of critical thinking. That is against their interests. They want obedient workers who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork. And just dumb enough to passively accept it. -George Carlin Truly, we are in interesting times. Things have a uniquely distinct feeling for me. I have been observing the goings-on in my home country, most importantly, the recent inauguration of the 45th U.S. President.
Things feel really surreal to me. I have been feeling like ever since I peered down the rabbit hole to uncover the hidden reality that most of us humans are oblivious to, I have been more like Lewis Carroll's "Alice" trying to figure out who I really am and where I am.
It was only "yesterday" that I would have been up in arms against the injustice and theft of the recent election for the mandate of the people was not fulfilled. I would have been gung-ho to march and post activist-type slogans all over my social media pages. I would have railed and railed and railed again, against the injustice, and the seeming backward fall I saw my country about to plunge feet first into.
But I began to awaken. Long before the 2016 elections, I started yawning. It was way long before the beautiful black president with the most class and swag ever, even ended his term as #44. It was long before I stood in pride thinking "YES" while knowing that as usual, we black folk always had do everything twice as well, and he did THAT. That one of the rare times in the history of the United States that was an outward projection of a people's mandate that for once, seemed to move beyond its own racial preferences, prejudices, toward a hopeful future, and away from a bitter past. It was a moment that I the descendant of slaves and sharecroppers could stand tall and feel seen, perhaps, for the first time ever, in a way that diminished all the bad hype and press my people had been saddled with for centuries (and still were).
It was in the midst of all that joy and pride that I began to notice that I was feeling pride and joy and hope on the one hand for change and possibility, while on the other hand, coming to see that there was actually a "man behind the curtain" who was running the show. And it wasn't President Swag. I began to see that wethepeople had bought into the notion and idea of democracy and freedom, and that in reality, we really had neither.
"Stepping onto a brand-new path is difficult, but not more difficult than remaining in a situation, which is not nurturing to the whole woman." ― Maya AngelouWaking up from the sleeping haze that infiltrates 3D-reality at every intersection, I now watch the antics, positive actions, ugly behaviors, desperate pleas, dumbfounded and mouth-agape silences, as people struggle to adjust to the reality that the country is poised for a acrobat-type dive into chaos. Or oblivion. The desperate actions of citizen-activist types who know to take action in the form of protest against (in this case), a megalomaniacal, narcissistic being whose development seems to have been arrested in his teenage years or earlier. Why and all that is not the point of this post.
Suddenly, I could see what many still do not. I could see the trick behind the sleight of hand that has been being played out on us ordinary citizens for eons. You read that right. Eeeeeeeons. We have been living in an illusion - albeit the best crafted, designed, and planned setup that could have been wrought definitely outclassing David Copperfield, David Blaine, Criss Angel, and even Harry Houdini. We bought into the illusory idea that this reality was everything and that we were superior and special beings, and that we were the BIGPICTURE.
When you start to peek behind the curtain, when you start to ask certain questions, read certain things, hear certain words, your world begins to shake. When you stop discounting the ever so still-small voice within you, when you realize you are not the lowly worm of the dust that you have been taught, when you understand you are not crazy for questioning so-called reality, when you begin to see you are more than worthy just because you were born, then WOW. Ever so gently, at first, perhaps, but the ground under you begins to move as if to awaken you from a deep slumber. And that is exactly what it has been. We have been in a deep sleep for thousands of years. And in this moment, people are stretching and beginning to yawn.
What I know, feel, and think about these times is that change is coming. It has nothing to do with the promises of a new administration in the US White House, or anywhere else in the world. It is real change. And we are responsible for choosing how we will respond. I'll be exploring this idea and more in upcoming posts.
Meanwhile, steady yourself.
