This story starts. It starts but the middle and end are not known. Those things have yet to materialize from the fog of future creativity. This story may not be able to end cleanly, or at least not with any ties to reality, but unless a new story is imagined the current systems of power remain. And as they remain they gain more and more power.
The system oppresses. It oppresses some more than others. I am an agent of the oppression of others because I do not want the powerful/wealthy to take away what I already have. What I have is enough to sustain myself for life within the system. Unless I can have creativity and reach I will remain a fearful agent of oppression of others. I am a member of the unofficial army that ensures the wealthy and powerful continue to grow in wealth and power. I am rewarded with the ability to oppress others who have been designated as my “lessers” with no foundation for that designation in anything other than past oppression.
I was educated but I never learned what I truly needed to know. That was by design. The powerful know that learning things leads to knowing things and knowing things leads to action. The worst kind of action for them is collective action. We are playing a part in the play they wrote. We truly do not have the ability to walk off stage as individuals because all the rest are there to ensure that the show must go on. But they would have no show to watch if all of or most of the players walked off stage at once.
But we are scared. We have been taught to have a “healthy” skepticism of other people. We have been taught that conflict is dangerous so we MUST keep the peace (repress ourselves) in order to keep ourselves safe. That is tantamount to agreeing to stay in a cage with no real door, just fear keeping us inside. We expect the powerful and wealthy to care for us in an emergency but then they don’t (or barely do) and and yet we still worry about losing what little we get.
Imagination can lead the way if we can find pockets of time and energy to practice imagination. What can be done that we have not thought of yet? How can I take my small pockets of free time and energy and use them to start a fire of thought and action that makes things better- much much better- for mother earth and all her inhabitants?
Would we find a new and deeper peace if we knew oppression did not exist anywhere anymore? Have we all always known all along that oppression of anyone (small group) is not good for anyone (big group) and we have felt that uneasy tension daily?
Or is aggression and competition a natural living attribute that I just do not understand due to my unique constitution? Is it hubris to think that my ways of sensitivity and collaboration (1) could be practiced by everyone and (2) should be practiced by everyone?
With these questions and more, I sit.
Lest Occasion Be Given 