So, here is the deal, Cats and Kittens, I am flipping exhausted. Last night I started writing the first draft of my next book (even though I haven’t finished the second draft of the first one), and I have upped my exercise. I have been pouring myself into everything I do, well, not housework. Tonight, I am tired.
I am also exhausted because of so many things I see going on right now. I see so much going on that I wish we would change.
We have developed this sneering attitude towards idealism. We cling to our pragmatic natures because it is so much easier to do things the way they have always been done than to do them right. Any time anyone points to something that isn’t right and tries to fix it, we scoff at them because only a fool believes they can fix thing.
Here is a simple truth: We are broken.
Our values are broken, our faith is broken, our politics are broken, our medical system is broken, and we are too afraid of what it would mean to admit our brokenness and actually to try to fix it.
Our young women are getting dumber and less ambitious than previous generations. It is our fault. We have thrown our hands up and let them believe it is more important to be pleasing to men than to be full people. We are breaking our girls. We need to fix it. Teach them that it is more important to be smart, funny, respected than to be pretty, men pleasing girls. We also need to teach them that their values extend beyond their reproductive organs and their surgically enhanced breasts.
We are breaking our men. We teach them that Don Draper is the ultimate man. That it is more important to screw lots of women and bully others to get a head in the world, than to be a good person. We need to start holding up men who fight hard for their families and what is right, instead of this bullshit ideal that few men can reach, and, quite frankly, I don’t think we should want them to achieve. This is OUR FAULT.
We made a society were it is more important to have than to be. Some how we now believe that it is more important to look a certain way and own the right things than to be a good person or try to make things better. We are so trained to buy and spend that we don’t know value anymore. I love technology as much as the next person, and if I could afford a smartphone I would have one, but buying a new smartphone does not somehow make you a better person than you were before.
We have accepted that if someone is ruthless enough to screw over, hurt, or steal to get something it is okay. If we see someone take a television, we consider the action theft and, therefore, wrong. If a powerful business man finds away to exploit unethically the system for money, no matter who it hurts, we believe that they are just savvy business men and envy their suits.
Am I the only one who feels it is wrong to value ruthlessness in a person over the desire to make people’s lives better? Am I just that crazy? Why don’t we value being a good person anymore?
Okay, our political system is just a big bag of screwed the fuck up. What is wrong with us when we consider a politician who is openly bought is the lesser of two evils? What happened to trying to fight greed and corruption? Why have we just rolled over and accepted that this is the way the world is, and we best make due?
Our faith. Oh, lord, our faith is hurting so bad right now. Even our religious culture is eaten through with our maligned values. We are so afraid,alienated from the world, and desperate to be right that we allow our beliefs to be destroyed by corruption and used like a dirty needle in politics. Stop letting people use your faith to lead you around. We should be stronger in our faith than to let it be used to lead us.
I know all of this seems so insurmountable, but it really isn’t. All we need to do is stop. It is simple as that. We need to stop pushing so hard for this image we are told to strive for. We are told if we are all of these things we will be happy, but we won’t. We believe that what we are is so singularly wrong that we have to push to be something else, and in the end, we are unhappy, stressed, fake shadows of ourselves.
Stop it. Just stop. Step away from all of the fake values and images we have forced upon ourselves and strive to be happy. Stop striving to fit in and strive to be kind. Instead of clawing your way towards a better car, more money, bigger tits, a better suit, try to make things better. Smile at strangers and compliment them. Let someone in front of you in traffic.
If we accepted ourselves and stopped pushing ourselves to fit some fucked up ideal, our world would be better. We would be less insecure and less angry. If we accepted that we are only so much and that we can only do our best, we would feel more compassion towards others and be more willing to accept others faults.
If we found ourselves and righted our values, we would stop letting jack asses in government lie, cheat and steal, while we blindly accept it as business as usual. If we told our politicians that we value honesty and hard work over image and greed, and voted out any politician that didn’t meet our values, our country would be in a much better place. If we looked at our government honestly and realized that the government is here to work for us, not the other way around, then we would have a much healthier country.
We can fix this. I believe we want to fix this. We just need to stop accepting it, and start fixing it.
Ugh, sorry for the massive rant.
