Have We Hit Cultural Rock Bottom?

Are we destined to fail?

The rubberband of andocracy has been pulled, stretched, and put to the test.

But it hasn’t broken.

Not this time. Not yet.

Unbelievably, I don’t think we’re to rock bottom as a culture just yet. But I think it’s looming.

Lies prevail. Fear rules. And technology obfuscates reality, as we all sit staring into our phones with dismay.

Didn’t the Hopi warn us all about this, you know like way back when?

Didn’t we learn anything from Standing Rock?

We are not supposed to be the MASTERS of the big system. We are supposed to be a healthy PART of it.

Such arrogance to assume otherwise.

Gravity is collapsing many of us inward and down.

People are running scared from asylum seekers who have bonded together to escape violence in their home countries. These people are WALKING north to seek a better life.

Let’s not forget to think about our own culpability in helping to create that violent situation in the first place.

Our past foreign policies should be on trial, not these refugees!

And for maybe the first time since the civil war, there are US troops deployed on US soil. To protect us from asylum seekers who are OBVIOUSLY not trying to sneak into our country unnoticed.

Why did the Texas border join the urban centers of the state to vote AGAINST the idiotic wall? Because they live there and understand the nuance that, yes border security matters, and NO a wall is completely implausible.

Duh!

We seem to have abandoned all public expectation of decency, truth, and respect from our leaders.

One would hope that a nadir’s saving grace is the fact that there is no where left to go but back up.

But well, I guess we could just translate sideways?

Or maybe the cannonball of our culture still has a lot more room to sink down into the dark abyss?

Unfortunately there are still no guarantees of a progressive bounce back.

😵

Trying to stay out of disaster mind right now takes effort, for real.

Love Trumps Fear

We should not give up in despair. That won’t help.

The midterm elections tonight demonstrate that Jimmi Hendrix, (and the rest of us,) are still waiting for love to overcome fear.

I’d be content for the moment if fear would just stop raping love, often in the name of religion or profit, and calling it ok.

It seems our society has lost any pretense of truthiness, as it was once called. Or any real desire to find it again.

It’s been going this way for a while as facts have given way to uninformed opinions which have given way to pure fiction in a lot of cases.

And lies lead to confusion, which leads to fear. And an urgent feeling of the need to PROTECT yourself from others at all costs.

But Truthfulness and Trustworthyness still DO actually matter.

If my kids told me they would tell me the truth, but only when they could? What?

No.

That’s not ok for my 6 or 2 year old! How can it be an acceptable stance for a decent adult? And how do these people who can verifiably be fact checked to be lying be getting re-elected?

Are we so at the mercy of the domination based algorithms that underlie all the systems that we really ARE living in the Matrix?

We honestly can’t remember the details of why so many people can’t seem to differentiate fact and falsehood?

But the dark cover of cultural fear might be showing cracks.

Beto O’Rourke will likely lose his senate race against the incumbent. But by less than 10% points. I don’t know if he’ll do it, but he could ask for a recount.

He probably just wants a nap at the moment.

But regardless of this setback, there has still been a huge dent plowed into the side of the war machine. The progressives are joining hands and standing together.

I’m not at all sure the counting wasn’t rigged in the first place as voting machines were using some kind of open FTP protocol?

Current administrative morals and technology have one thing in common — they’re decades or more behind the curve.

Will we have time?

But as more and more, marginalized people are showing up to run for office, or even just to press forward with their right to vote, this is forward progress.

Things are changing. Just not very fast.

Will we have enough time?

There are LOTS of women, people who aren’t white, people who aren’t straight, people who don’t fit the gender binary.

Diversity of mind and depth of heart is going to be deeply needed to address the fundamental systemic problems we’re about to be facing — regardless of political ideology.

If Ethiopia can lead the way with massive upswing in female leadership and a new emphasis on caring, why can’t we?

It’s time to listen up.

Our generation is just STARTING to begin speaking out, standing up, and showing the rest of us it’s possible.

And they’re getting elected. Not fast enough, but… they’re starting to be allowed in.

Widespread marijuana legalization momentum and psychedelic life coaching via Skype are just hints of the changes on the near horizon.

Movements to empower and connect women, LGBTQI+ folks, and the open relationship generation are happening — sometimes quietly, sometimes with a boom!

While the cable networks pander to the older generations that haven’t yet “cut the cord,” and ramp up a disturbing tendency towards hyperbole, falsehood, and hatred, there are opposite trends at work as well.

In the workplace, there is a resurgence of interest in rebuilding Partnership cultures, and increasing diversity in the workforce.

Extrordinary people are working to make the world better everyday in a ton of creative ways. I see a lot of them over on LinkedIn.

Employees of Microsoft just told their employer they aren’t interested in using their skills to further the military-industrial complex.

And teachers in West Virginia and across the US are putting their feet down and striking to address the challenges they face in educating our kids.

It’s not the blessed sunrise of unblemished enlightenment I was secretly hoping for, but neither is it the darkest of nights yet either.

Not yet.

umair haque wrote this piece, which is frightening in the extreme. He predicts some pretty serious fallout from the choices that appear to have been made tonight.

I can only hope that there after the elections, there will be some tiny semblance of gain in the checks in balances system that will happen as the Democrats take over the House.

Forgive me for fearing it’s a bit like a not so sturdy damn holding back the flood. Or maybe the finger plugging the dyke (no luck finding accurate imagery of that old tale on Unsplash)

I realize topics like the climate shift will take an exponential paradigm shift to address, even by a little bit. Carbon credits alone won’t cut it. Do a root cause analysis of this one.

I also know the hierarchy of dominance is not going to just meekly go away. Bummer, but we didn’t get her overnight either.

And the economy is currently just an agreement that is, imho, not going to keep working very well for very long.

It’ll take time to disintegrate this last part. But money doesn’t do much to solve things when a system is nearing collapse.

And where are all those people who voted in hate, fear, and smallness going to go when Mother Earth decides to start shaking off the fleas?

Will it take a mass extinction to make change really happen?

Did the previous civilizations on earth that came to mysterious & disasterous endings not give us any clues?

Will we ignore our history?

Or will we just insist on continuing to dig ourselves deeper in and keep putting our heads in the sand.

The youth had better be up to it. They’re going to need their A-game if they’re going to make a difference.

And us old farts should be here to help them.