stepping out to a greater love...

stepping out to a greater love...

Perhaps when all is said and done this is the challenge of our age... never mind the hype... where every emphasis is placed on how we can make ourselves more marketable... profitable... oh.... sensible.... practical... logical. They are all distractions. When we seek profit and marketability we're just looking to take from others. We buy in... to a belief that self aggrandizement is good for all.... that an iPod in the hand is better than a Zimbabwe free from cholera....

This is not a condemnation... this is how we were built... had to be built.... to last this long... but to last longer we need a new evolution. We need to step out to a greater love.

Sadly we are often born and raised into a smaller love. An easy love. Many of us have a love of family... friends.... of country but then only "our country" and no love for the rest. They are, after all, the other. Whether they be the Mexican, the Black, the White, the Arab, the Asian, the gay, the punk, the hippie, the jock, the urban elitist, the redneck, the Joe Six Pack, the burner..... Whatever they are the small love excludes them. They are radical and will destroy society. They are a menace. The small love doesn't want to know about "their" loves, ambitions, their ideas..... the small love dismisses.

I know plenty about being dismissed. I dress funny. I don't always wear shoes. I say strange things that have to be thought about. Rather than "apply myself" and go through the motions of a routine life, I sought to make an art, and to speak a truth even though the cost is very high.... ridiculously high I might add. Yeah.. I am the "other"... plenty of the time. It can be a pretty lonely and terrible place to be sometimes.

Last week, I went out to a redneck bar and shot some pool. I watched a little of March Madness. I even went to a Hooter's. The waitress sat and hung out with us (....as is their job.... sadly). She talked about having dinner with family on a Saturday night. Bland conversation for an urban elitist for sure and she was a terrible waitress.... but I do not dismiss her... or the yahoos rooting for Michigan State (...as am I). I know enough about people that they will all go back to a family and love them and try to make happiness and get by as best they know how.....

That is not just the way I feel about the people at Hooter's though. It is the way I feel about Republicans, Palestinians, Afghans, and jocks. Whatever.

I could hate... that is easier but I found the greater love is better. Though not easy, it is something that can be taught and is far more rewarding than the small love. I would not trade anything for all the good that has been brought to me from people of different points of view and persuasions...

The trick is simple. Question authority. Your authority. When you feel or think a certain way... step outside.... and look at it from there. You may find that you were right. You may find that you were wrong... in a bad way or a good way... we do love to accept way too much of what we love and deny way too much of what we hate.... there is always that risk but the Truth is well worth having in any case.

Today... the Divide and Conquers are enjoying their last feast. Their time grows shorter by the minute in this fast changing world. They will go but they are such assholes... and we allow them to be such assholes... that they may take us with them. The best we can do is be what they aren't and to teach others to step out into the greater love with us. We are in a world of miracles. We can grow food for everyone. We can teach a world what it takes to make a world work so that we all have what we need. We are working on it in spite of ourselves.

...

My step father was a racist.... but he sold cars and he sometimes had to sell cars to black people. One black couple came in with their kids and bought a car from him. They spoke eloquently, had good jobs and credit, and their kids were respectful and well behaved. He came home that night and said "There are some good ones too". Of course, it is still sad that he failed to understand that they might all be good or trying to be good in a world owned and... at that time anyway.... ruled by people who have completely shit on their kind but... at least... that black family forced him to step out a little... and he copped as much.

John Lennon said all you need is love... and he died knowing he was right but he had to admit that a song wasn't going to do it. We all need to step out... even when it sucks and it is hard..... Me too... starting with myself.... which is very fucking hard.....

...but I'm stepping out.