Anti Protest, Protest

People will march tomorrow.  Several thousand people will protest the state of things and convince themselves of progress.  This is unskilled thinking.  To remove one evil to be rapidly replaced by another.  We are in this now.  The most absurd and laughable leader has been chosen.  It is done.  I understand the sadness.  The shock.  The unwillingness to accept.  The problem now is not what's done.  No amount of dissent will save us now because of our inability to accept the true nature of what is.  We did this.  We created this with our apathy, our hatred, our fear.  We brought this to be because of our externalization of reality.  The new *gulp* president merely embodies how messed the world has become under our dutiful watch...when we're not on our cell phones, computers and generally ignoring one another.  We have forced the hands that guide us by electing a man to power whom only serves one man.  We wanted an answer.  A quick fix to a delicate and intrinsic tangle.  It serves no one but oneself to protest and march and chant and rally.  We do this because we are at a loss as to what to do.  None of us truly understands how to 'fix' the world or to make existence 'better'.  So we cry out in divided unison.  We cry out to be seen, to be heard, to be felt.  It serves the one and only one.

I protest on the inside.  I challenge internally how I turn so quickly to judgement when I could show a glimmer of compassion.  I disapprove of my actions if they resemble disrespect to a fellow man regardless of race, creed, colour or sex.  I question my speech if it offends or portrays anything but empathy.  I choose not to protest a broken leader in an inefficient system out of a mock sense of self righteous indignation.  I could pretend that the leadership is the problem and not the reasons behind why this particular leader is now ours to endure.  I could pick a side and bury my head in the deep end of the sandbox with images of what grand deeds shall be accomplished.  I could put on airs that I know the answer and write a smarmy blog post proving such.  Or I could just do the best I can everyday.  For nearly most of us, that's all anyone is trying to do.  So let's support one another in that!  Regardless of where your vote led, let us be there for one another.  Enough torturing one another with endless debate over who is right and whose a racist.  This is a game for which you both look like assholes.  Turn awareness inward, silence the ego for just long enough to hear what needs to be done.  We only serve to entrench ourselves in disillusioned dialogue that will never provide the remedy.  Pick your feet up not to march but to take you to someone in need of a hug.  Open your mouth not to scream a pithy rhyme but to say a consoling word to someone in need.  Spread your fingers wide not to hold a sign within them but to wave hello to a passer-by.  It sounds small and insignificant and myopic, maybe.  If we are incapable of beginning with you and I, I fear we will be consumed by the hallucination that seems to fit and not the one we design.

Anti or Pro?

Our ego enjoys the juicy nosh on controversial subjects.  We love to pick a side and chew on the remains of the day.  It's so lovely to debate.  It's so satisfying to see the glint of discord in a fellow beings eyes when you've 'trumped' his opinion for yours.  Which of course is the only true and just opinion to have.  Your opinion has been mulled over and thought upon at great lengths.  You've probably spent a fair amount of energy researching why you're so very correct.  But that's the just of it.  It is just your opinion.  The universe doesn't care about what you think is right, or fair or just.  Wars have been waged over what is thought to be right and fair and just versus the other guys opinion to the opposite.  People are dying everyday over what one believes in friction to another.  Often times the ones so content to be right are the most violent and toxic people this world has ever known.

I ask of you, in what revolution has one ever found success?  In the history of mankind, there is not one.  Real and lasting change does not come from rioting, rallying, nor masses gathering in peaceful outrage.  The Vietnam war did not cease to be because of protests.  Monk self-immolation and the Kent State four did not sway those in power to cease and desist.  These tragedies were mere dramatic epilogues in a beast too large to fell.  Women suffrage did not occur through numbers even though we had them.  It came to pass through the democratic process of lobbying and petition.  The Civil Rights Movement is still moving through years of bloodshed, destruction and disillusionment.

So now I remain confused.  I have been invited to participate in the March of Women to protest Trumps' Inauguration.  Why?  This will not alter the past nor steer the future to a more positive outcome...whatever that means.  It means that a bunch of people will be 'seen' as activists.  Some wonderful photos will be taken and everyone will pat the other's ego in a 'Mission Accomplished' type scenario.  Not only will the foe of today's fight be quashed but the ego can now rest assure that the right side has won out against evil and tyranny once more.  This is a dangerous game to be playing at.  To vilify the other has never gotten society anywhere but deeper into the pit of distraction and dis-ease.  We divert attention to things we 'feel' matter when in reality, this is not so.  The reality isn't that Trump is going to be the leader of the free world although, that is for sure happening regardless of protest.  The reality is that society is crumbling at a ferocious rate and the population is disillusioned and dissatisfied with life as we know it.  People are out of work.  Homelessness, illness, climate change, pollution, rape, inequality...this is the reality faced by so many.  Instead of addressing these real and tangible problems, we obsess over an ineffectual political leader.  Do we obsess because we have no idea how to actually help one another and our planet?  Are we so lazy and self concerned that a 'March' is what will suffice as actual change?  Would we rather debate until our eyes glaze over and mouths turn purple then effect true societal and humanitarian arising?

Civil, Racial and Equal Rights are not going to regress because of the carnage about to enfold in the White House.  They regress because we distract ourselves into thinking about the unreality of nature and forget that we are in control over how we treat one another and the planet every moment of every day.  It's dangerous to think that choosing a side on any matter is going to solve the problem.  We must look deeper.  Deep into our own consciousness to realize that change begins in our thoughts and that leads to correct action.  The ego must not be our guide if we are to survive on this rocket ship around the sun.  I cannot help another if I'm caught in the story I want to tell myself about what is good and what is bad.  Such dialogue leads to picking a side and blaming the other.  Turn the blame inward and that's when real progress begins.

P.S If any reader thinks this was pro or anti Trump in any way...give your head a shake.  The two brain cells remaining may rub together causing enough friction for a fire and rid us of your stupidity.