Joining the Fray; Fraying the Join
Wrestling with this "join in" or "pass" back n forth. Felt an uprush of sensation in my chest which quiet reflection traced back to my childhood. It's an accidental feeling, some random bodily surprise which has connected itself to "motivation," "advocacy," and "making changes."
When this feeling escapes my controller, in public, I'm hot heated, "angry," loud, and amazingly fast on my feet. Combined with a sense of weights on my shoulders, the twin sensations have kept my chest literally compressed. My body has pushed back, and when I test for lung capacity I score around 98%. Once asked a nurse what it would take to fill in that last 2%? "Oh, training to become an Olympic swimmer or taking up mountain climbing." OK, I'll settle.
The shoulder-weight hunches me over to "get to work" and stay at it. The Uprise tinge takes me "out there" into "the world" to help make something happen. It's meaningful and MASSIVE. There exists no End Point, no final decisive WIN. I meet people, take part, and if I should want to stop, it partially feels to me and my compartisans like BETRAYAL.
And to feel Uprise and even hesitate to consider other motives feels COWARDLY and IRRESPONSIBLE. If I take my thumb out, the whole city will be flooded. I'll probably die. But I'm human, I'm getting weaker, plus I need a bath and change of clothes.
Western culture has been aflame with imposed violence, rape, greed, abuse of power, and injustice for 50 centuries.
Facing off is just one of many options: there's escape (drugs, entertainment, sex); these surrender (depression, bodily ills, craziness); and there's pretending now to notice (focus on personal happiness, money, fame, and ignore the misery all about).
Sigh, I wish every one was housed, well-fed, and happy so I could simply create something on a whim that carries zero meaning.
To be continued in the next installment.