top be heard or not to be herd

To be heard or not to be herd

To be heard or not to be herd

that is the question for an age of world citizens just entering and leaving their teens music is the rhythm of life; the personal soundtrack of pop music of choice. Gaga or Coldplay, oldies like Guns an’ Roses to fill out the playlist. I have a few of these in my life now, in the US and Europe, India, Pakistan, Brazil and the Caribbean too if I add in young people whose lives are reflected in my other close friendships, they too are people I know and care about. All of them have a potential to become middle aged Owls—people who go around saying “WHOOO … WHOO” because of early hearing loss.

Now , I don’t men to ridicule hearing loss, it is real to me, both of my parents had it as they aged—I have lived this scenario. But unlike my parents, ( my Dad’s probably began in the War in Europe) this hearing loss is from loud music pumped into the ear canal by earphones or headphones. Music above 85db can damage the ear. One study reports ONE IN FIVE US TEENS HAS HEARING LOSS it was a large study .

Another smaller study of college students showed loss greater than that of which subjects were aware.
It is an insidious thing, it sneaks up on those of us- me included- who invest in music and gadgets to take it with us everywhere.
A cure or a technological counterweight is on the market see for example cool and safe earphones from a US based company, I hope they are made here by US workers.

So here I will reprise my opening line. To be heard or not to be part of the herd, running follow-the friend style through an ever more silent life…yes?

Revenge of the Neanderthals

It is like a Race- race to see who might be the most bloodless, lifeless least caring; the least emotive and aware of human needs.  Perhaps like the Neanderthal a memory that might be deep within all of us, brain base deep. In an age when life might have been more primal, more unconcerned with the species— [ yes- even less concerned than the me -me-me  generation--- ] than those of us alive today.

Corporations resemble this Neanderthal idea, lower humanity image;  they might have a solitary urge–to eat, consume the thing they were meant to consume–wealth.  But it is not so, Corporations are exquisitely human,  just psychotic by comparison.  BP might have poisoned an entire sea by  the recklessness with which they have acted, and they do the same elsewhere as do many others…risks without cure…for the sake of wealth.  The Gulf might easily have ruptured and expelled until exhaustion, BP would not shed a tear, it has none;  it would do as its animal instincts dictate and try to save itself, blame others, blame Obama; reach out to Republican friends who would do everything including inciting others to violence to stop the forces against BP, and its rape of the oceans—

So now we see a legacy in the federal courts of those who seek to carve the law into the conscience-less Neanderthal ideal–Health Care is in the cross-hairs.  These people who found that these conscience-less, soul-less Corporations have the same right of free political speech as real life people who work and die,  give their children to our wars–to die.

Healthcare is n the cross-hairs, Bush appointees and Reagan appointees on the Federal benches, waiting to destroy the expressed will of the people–really any law ca be found unconstitutional by  a court determined to do so–the Supreme Court once ruled that Blacks were not human in the eyes of the law, the Court that later attempted t nullify the New Deal– Social Security and other insurances we all buy because we must by law do so–unemployment insurance.  In the cross-hairs and the bloodless logicians will ply their unique alchemy…the hope is that Obama has or will have humanized the court with Sotomayor and Kagan.

Neanderthals disappeared and perhaps it was because they lacked the skill to use the one thing that human seem to have as an advantage in the quest for survival— the ability to love one another so much that there is sacrifice for the common good.  Healthcare legislation was intended to give us all better, longer, healthier and more abundant lives–no wonder then,  the Neanderthals have it in their cross-hairs.

Why we pray…

This is not about religion, I have only a private place for that,  it is about faith something we all have.  It comes with the navel — the human condition.

All of the things we need to know,  want so badly to know –about which we have not a clue.  Like life itself, death what if anything comes after, all of the doubts even of the fundamental nature of existence, of time,  of the ordinary things around us–why our bodies,  almost all of which is empty space…seem so real;  where is the soul;  and is there really such a thing as empty space?

I believe the possibility exists for nearly everything, far more than any can imagine. I believe there is a potential in each moment for peace, for each to realize and be guided by a simplicity– a finite and credible fact– w e share the most precious things, and do not own any of them– air, water, sun, the fantastic array of nature…and life, in this fleet bubble of time.  We could agree on this and nothing else; we could find peace. The possibilities of abundance and greater life for all…there in the empty space, possibility; it is an empty possibility…yet so full of promise.

This is the politics of existence, the great choices that we cannot not bring to election.  When we truly determine the self, when the self tends to selflessness, when past becomes a bridge to a definition of hope confined to thoughts of heavenly paradise, it is there–remote as we imagine,  near as the ends of our reach,  there–in a simple possibility.

Forgetting…

you came in late hours of the long day
when glare of sun had settled to gentler glow
and cooling skies held light as if to savor
lingering halos on the horizon

you were fresh as the morning I remember
when mists and dew made the world glisten
strong heat and warmth as high arc lingered
when we forget darkness, lose track of folded hours

soft as realization that parts passed by
were greater than curled roads ahead, towards
ends we feel but can never see; and
how love made everything stand still

you came
and once again I forgot the darkness

Political Alchemy