12/20/02 (I'm late posting this) I saw “8 Mile” last night. The slums of Detroit are another world. And worlds like this pocket America. Strange. And ominous. The movie reeks with life. These people don't go to shrinks to deal with ennui. Just clinging to existence is a full time effort. And that involves a vitality that has no way to express but in toughness and violence. And creativity. Rappers are everywhere, and the street is right in tune with them. Talent is in long supply. Thanks to the filmmaker for a graphic glimpse of world's colliding that can't maintain as a stable reality. So now what? My impulse is to speak out — to say that attention must be paid. You can't leave people in degradation. Bringing neighborhoods up to decent standards is imperative. It's gorgeous to build architecturally masterful new museums and to rebuild the World Trade Center, but those hallmarks of our excellence are nowhere near as important as clearing up what threatens to sink whatever we build. Then, the international situation is just an extension of these domestic realities, where we have to make the world a place where everyone gets a fairer shake. We all struggle along, tearing our hair, worrying about terrorism, but the bullet of paying attention to what needs doing close to home, as the cornerstone of creating a more equitable world, we haven't bitten. Go see this movie. See if it's OK to just watch it as entertainment, or if it stirs you to action. Could there be a campaign that social commentators spark? Could people who write what people read turn their full throttle attention to it? Could they advocate a fundamental change?
“Today” is pleased to announce that our ninth annual holiday toy and gift drive is now underway. Last holiday season, we shipped a record $9 million worth of toys, books, games, clothing, electronics and so many other items from our generous partners to more than 500,000 children. These children – from infants to 18 year-olds – are reached through more than 200 non-profit organizations all over the United States. Complete story: http://www.msnbc.com/news/827091.asp#BODY.
People who work on NBC shows and people in the audience who came to see the Today Show were the ones who were donating toys this morning. I was particularly struck when Katie Couric thanked the woman on the staff whose job it is to assemble the toys, that she also gets from corporations and wherever else she can find donors. The woman was said to have a very demanding job which she'd been working at for a long time. Since the project gets just a few mentions on the Today Show, it's essentially a gesture of altruism.
YES! Let all who can do so make serious gestures of altruism. Yes, yes, yes. Earn Brownie Points like crazy. Let corporations compete for how great their social services are. Can you imagine affluent auspices struggling to outdo one another to help humanity? I can.
I'm sending this to some people I post on this website, to see if I can enroll them in spearheading such a thing. A space has been opened here. It could take just a few powerful voices, in concert, to send waves out that embrace everyone. Could giving be what propels us in this new year?
An inspiration comes from the fight against graffiti that was waged in New York City. That effort was small time compared to fighting criminals, but it turned out to be a key to reducing crime. There's a chapter about this in
“The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference.” In its review, Time Magazine pointed to the book as being “about the large consequences of marginal actions,” and said, “…such big crimes as assault and robbery happen where small decay, like litter and graffiti, is tolerated.”Could tackling poverty in America result in dissolving the terrorist threat? Indeed, it could be THE way.
Comments? Click hereFrom: Wade Frazier [Wade has a great site for “making sense of these times.”]
Regarding wanting to “start something,” my writings lay out what I am trying to do: “I ask nothing of any reader except to honestly consider this site's thesis and information.” It makes it clear that energy has always been the name of the game for humans, ever since they left the tropical forests a couple million years ago.
Until the underlying political-economic (and probably spiritual) reality behind why there is no alternative energy is comprehended, we can have a million “bright ideas,” and they will go nowhere. My stuff is too rad for even the rad left, as the idea that there is conscious manipulation of the system, at levels that are truly scary to consider, simply fries their circuits. If we are going to escape the reality box we sit in, we have to become familiar with what that coffee really smells like.
The problem, as I see it, is having the mental horsepower, emotional strength or integrity to “get it.” Virtually every activist I have seen — political, social, religious, or economic — is mainly hacking at the situation's branches, not its root (and 99% of the population is not doing any hacking at all). If just one percent of the population devoted one percent of their effort toward the root issue, bringing sustainable harmless energy to humanity would be an easy task. That is what I am shooting for.
From: Beverly Russell [bevruss@earthlink.net] [Beverly is about to get a lifetime achievement award from a design organization.]
Your socially conscious writing on 8 Mile is full of heartfelt energy and emotion. I wish the architects would DO SOMETHING. They have a responsibility to rebuild the environment and they can do it any way they really want. Mostly they want “big.”
From: Linda Genutis [LGenutis@aol.com]
Thanks for your wonderful comments about the resume/website. Should you need extra help in this area to carry out your glorious mission — I'm enthusiastically available! : – )In response to your saying, “Let corporations compete for how great their social services are,” have a web application/site for Fortune 500 companies where employees make material donations — clothing, toys, computers (or money, of course) — to social service organizations of their choice. This application would tally up donations monthly by each company. This could also serve as a volunteer match website for employees. I would be happy to create the website design, including a customized application which would incorporate all of the above. This link is a resume website I completed a month or so ago for a friend of mine.
Suzanne to Linda
Thanks, Linda, for your willingness. That is such a great site you did — it kept making me cry. What I'm proposing is for some ideational thing to happen, where we'd stop climbing over each other and become concerned horizontally. How can we shift context? The alignment of people — only a few — can work magic. So I thought to enroll some specific people in this advocacy. If the right spirit were established, then what you've suggested doing would be a good way for people at large to get involved.
Linda to Suzanne
When I first read your “Could we spark a campaign” message, the first thing that came to mind was Rupert Sheldrake's morphic resonance, memes, and some recent writings on the power of prayer. But, after reading excerpts of The Tipping Point, I found it fascinating that positive societal and cultural changes can occur simply by the efforts of a small group of socially minded individuals — to such an extent that the message they are communicating takes on a life of its own — like wildfire across the entire landscape of humanity. It's something I've always suspected — I guess that's why it makes so much sense to me.
I totally support your quest to follow through with this idea because I know it to be true. I've had the honor of experiencing it on a first hand basis — the “primordial collective unconscious mind.” It's powerful, it's real, and it's undoubtedly the designated vehicle that needs to be tapped for meaningful change to occur — for now and forevermore. Amen!
Suzanne to Linda
I keep chewing on how to make impact. I think about Sheldrake, too — that a morphic field gets ignited by a spark. That Margaret Mead quote must turn up everywhere because it states a truth: “A small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world.”
You talked about a “wildfire.” My favorite thing Brian Swimme said to me is, “We're both pointed at the same thing — igniting a great raging forest fire of love that will sweep us forever out of this deadening sadness of egos and superficiality!”
Linda to Suzanne
You say, “I keep chewing on how to make impact.”
Remember that 70's “I'd like to teach the world to sing” commercial? And remember Disney's animated Hiawatha movie that had that song “The Colors of the Wind?” And what are the similarities between crop circles and music? And why do so many of us who have experienced a kundalini awakening hear on-going choruses of voices singing? How about approaching a company that manufactures a popular brand name product to do an advertising campaign that conveys the message of peace, love, harmony etc., with a song?
From: Allen Branson [me@allenbranson.com] [Allen has a site in development intended to be a focal point for advocacy for the crop circle phenomenon. We are lucky to newly have his webmaster help.]
Your thoughts on 8 Mile spark me to respond.
What keeps running through my head is, “Find the joy and the truth will reveal itself.” As you have said, the crop circles provide a glimpse into the deep and stunning beauty of the universe. 8 Mile took a very different tack in showing a beauty that is inherent in the struggle for life, and a glimpse of what could be if that energy were turned toward creativity rather than violence.
My feeling is that people are desperate for permission to dream again. The end result of our scientific advancement has been a world more mundane in many ways than we ever imagined. Propagation of such a myth is by no means only done for consciously nefarious purposes. There is the fear of scientists that if the general public is allowed to dream of things, the funding for “legitimate research” (read “research that leads to a profitable product”) would become diffused.
Yet, there is this matter of joy and truth. Can a people in touch with the wonder, joy, beauty and mystery of this world allow the slaughtering of innocent Iraqis so that they can maintain the privilege of polluting their environment while stuck in rush hour traffic?
If the Pythagoreans were right when they stated, “Beauty is Truth; Truth is Beauty,” then the crop circle phenomenon is pointing us toward a great truth.
Suzanne to Allen
What a challenge to turn a world so pained to serious consideration of joy. A Maslow scale kind of thing. Joy is the biggest box, I think you could say. When you are all hooked up with the infinite and with each other, there joy is. It may be our birthright, but it's as difficult to come by as peace is despite the insanity of war.
Right on about the circles. It keeps washing over me how beautiful a source they are coming from. No way anything malevolent could be making those designs.
Follow
