The Walls are Tumbling Down

To quote the immortal words of John Mellencamp:

When the walls come tumblin’ down
When the walls come crumblin’ crumblin’
When the walls come tumblin’ tumblin’ down

It may not appear like that to some. One certainly wouldn’t know it by looking only at the surface of things. In fact, at first glance, it may appear as if the United States has lost its damn mind or fallen into an abyss out of which we will never return.

I do not, however, believe this is the case. Every single day we get closer to the final collapse when the shifting sands upon which the “American Dream” was planted opens and swallows the dream, revealing it to have been a lie all along.

When our “great” nation was established 250 years ago, it was made to benefit only a certain few. The idea that all people would be guaranteed “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” has always been a lie. But we bought into it hook line and sinker.

Over the course of the last 250 years, we have little by little seen the intentional obstacles in the system that prevent certain populations from enjoying the benefits of the promised liberties and freedoms. Those of compassion and a sense of justice have pointed out these obstacles and doggedly worked to eliminate them so that more might be free. But with every course correction, the “men in charge” have worked to create more and more limitations to freedom.

A nation divided against itself, as these men intend, cannot stand. Further, a system built out of fear and propped up by gluttony and greed is simply not sustainable. It will eventually fall.

Which is where we find ourselves today. Every single day we are met with a new deception attempting to hold up the system. Some choose to ignore these deceptions and symptoms of corruption, but for those with eyes that can see, we are watching the increasingly rapid tearing away of every lie behind which those in power hide.

It’s exhausting. And yet, as much as it pains anyone with a conscience to see the pure evil that runs our nation and likely our world, we cannot eliminate an evil that cannot be seen. And boy are we seeing it – so much so that on some days I feel like my eyeballs are on fire from all that we are being made to see.

More and more people are beginning to see. People on both sides of the illusionary divide are seeing the evil that has been hiding behind the mask of “democracy” for 250 years. We are no longer living in a Representative Democracy – if we ever truly were. Instead, we are living in a lie where we have been told that our “votes count” and that our elected officials are making decisions on our behalf. Bullshit! Instead, corporations are choosing our “representatives” and paying them to make policy decisions on their behalf.

Corporations now rule our nation. They are the ones making decisions that benefit them – their CEO’s and stockholders. To these corporations, the only thing that matters is how much money they have in their pockets.

But guess what, there are more of us than there are of them. For years, regular Americans have been pitted against each other, made to believe that the cause of our pain is “the other” (people of color, immigrants, Muslims, Jews, Evangelical Christians, independent women, liberals, conservatives, etc. etc. etc. ). The truth many are beginning to see is that we are not each other’s enemy, and we never were. Instead, the enemy is one we have in common:  CORPORATE GREED and the corrupt system that has been built to support that greed.

People are disgusted. People are angry. People are beginning to set down the illusion of separation, tentatively joining hands across the aisle toward a common cause. This common cause is the desire for the system to crumble under the weight of its corruption so that something more fair and just can rise up to take its place – something that more closely resembles the “American Dream” we have chosen to believe in – this time with a firm foundation and a solid framework to insure life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, not just for the very few, but for the all:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. – The Declaration of Independent, July 4, 1776

Just Surviving

It’s really ok if at this point, you are simply surviving. If the only energy you have right now is to survive, you are not alone. Considering all we have been through as a collective, and all you have personally gone through, the fact that you are still alive, and breathing is a victory.

(Please seek medical attention if your survival is more about clinical depression than just this messed up world, and if you have any thoughts of self-harm, please get help immediately!)

The human experience is hard. For many, it seems the human experience keeps getting harder. It seems there is more violence, hatred, and division, and the things we once  took for granted are no longer.

We can no longer trust our governments (if we ever really could). Corporate greed is eating us alive. Those we once thought to be friends have fallen away. We’ve learned horrible things about each other and have seen humanity at its absolute worst.

We might try to comfort ourselves by thinking things cannot possibly get worse and will soon get better.

Don’t bet on it. As a species we are still on the uphill climb of our collective evolution. It may seem the bottom has fallen out – but not even close.

Perhaps some Divine or Other-worldly intervention will show up and set humanity back on its right path……but many have even given up hoping and dreaming for this kind of support.

We might be on our own. That alone is a terrifying thought. You mean humanity is being left to their own devices? That sounds like a recipe for failure.

But truly, we don’t know. Maybe humanity will suddenly wake up and decide to be kind.

I doubt it.

This, however, does not mean we are doomed. We are only doomed to the extent that we turn away from kindness and turn toward evil. For most of us, this is not a choice.

So we continue on. We breathe. We get out of bed each day (and if not, that’s ok too). We feed ourselves. We pour ourselves a cup of coffee. And we put one foot in front of the other toward whatever tasks are before us and if there are no tasks, we allow ourselves to simply be.

And…holidays are hard. The end of the year is hard. For many, this time of year is a trigger.  Some suffer for lack of sunlight and warmth. Many find themselves alone while others are gathering. We don’t always feel like celebrating and the turning of the new year doesn’t necessarily cause us to hope.

Yet, we survive, and if that’s all we’re able to do, that’s ok. Life is carrying us onward regardless.