The smell of early
punctual morning haze.
Grow out of bed into
your next move. The coffee
of bacon and cheese, orange juice,
the drive. In your movie, graded
to beauty, to best bland,
your next move still far
from the credits, the closing song.
No marketing campaign for you.
(But there is.) No product placement.
(But there is.) You are
on every screen you watch,
an actor, wool pulled over, vacuum packed,
fresh as the front-lawn daisy
your minty-breath dreams.
You are given to dream. Without it
you would not be. With it
you are much less; worn film
of tawdry fabric flecked
with the gold of our imagining;
a tube of toothpaste,
a deodorant, a new oven,
a holiday abroad. Earn it all
dreamed dreamer, and more.
Move on. Move, and move.
Ouch. Ouch, poignant but still ouch. No more of that pain. Something outside, different, better... but not THAT anymore. Ouch.
ReplyDeleteEnough of it. Time to let that go... time to create the new. It is WELL time for us all to do the new. We are all waiting for everyone else to start. There are plenty of followers, not blind sheep.. just waiting for the green light. Please lead. Please lead. We'll back you up.
Hi Farm Gal,
ReplyDeletethanks, I think! And I hope you're right, that people are looking for a way to create the new, but we can't be lead, not yet anyway. First we have to lead ourselves as far out of the system as we can—and that's different for everyone, everyone is in a slightly different situation—understand it as best we can, then network, both on the internet for information and sharing wisdom (because it's global) and locally, because humans need humans, not to mention all sorts of skills.
But welcome, and thanks again for commenting.
Hi Toby,
ReplyDeleteI discovered your blog about a week ago and have read several of your posts. I really appreciate your insight and perspective - thank you! I'm laughing at myself for just jumping in and making that sort of weird comment without introducing myself first to you and your readers. It had been a long day and the poem struck an emotional chord with me... I guess I was attempting to be a little poetic too w/my comment :-)
I'm encouraged by the growing number of people I know and especially read online that really are ready to create something new, actually doing it too. Unfortunately the whole leaderless idea is so foreign to most people, the leader/follower paradigm is so ingrained it's often hard to imagine anything else. I still have friends that tell me they are waiting to see if occupy can come up with a leader before supporting it, or waiting to see if our fledgling gift circle in my town works before joining it. So it seems a good chunk of sidelines people are waiting to see what happens before taking the leap of questioning their old assumptions. It is a big step to go from hoping "they" make things better, to realizing "we" need to step up and do it ourselves.
But I do believe that is changing.
I have been a fan of Charles Eisensteins writing for a couple of years. I don't think it's just my wishful thinking that it seems more and more people are not only talking about how to make a more beautiful world ourselves - but we are actually trying to do it.
Thank you for your contribution to the more beautiful world too, Toby. I plan on being a regular reader here.
Hi Farm Gal,
ReplyDeleteto lead, you have to know how to follow, to follow you have to know how to lead. That is, if we want these roles to be only roles. There's no way around them as roles, but we do not need to be glued to dictators and demagogues and their blindly loyal sheep. So I'd say we're at the phase where we have to teach ourselves to grow up, which everyone will do differently. Then leaders will emerge, who'll also be followers, and vice versa. That is, the roles won't be sticky. Nor is one superior to the other. There's nothing wrong with inspiring others, which one can do as a 'leader' and as a 'follower' in my opinion. In short, we need a grown up attitude to this and other matters.
Thanks for your kind words of support. Actually, I worried my poem was too depressing. But I agree, people's perceptions are changing rapidly now. I see that here at my little blog, and elsewhere. Charles has well over a thousand followers now, Occupy is past its first stage and into a period of introspection, with some in diologue with The Zeitgeist Movement, and others, which I think will be very fruitful. People are talking, pondering, proposing. And that's great. But it's going to take a long time, and it's going to be a very bumpy road. Secession is no laughing matter.