Wonderment and frustration seem strange bedfellows. Yet I was wondering how the American business and banking communities, normally so dogged about all manner of patriotism, could so rapaciously take economic advantage of the American people. And I was frustrated that just half the wealth of America's top three billionaires could eradicate homelessness for all America's homeless population.
Three people could eliminate homelessness in America with no diminution in their lifestyles. But there was no consideration of such an act on the parts of anyone who could make that notion public. I felt lost. This realization was enough to stump me, even if it didn't stump Donald and friends. While Bill might slow the "Buffet," of economic winds pummeling America's ship of state, Warren could help erect the Gates. I was pushed to find a current "Silver Lining" in the "cloud" that is the new harshness of American economic life.
In another vein, I also lamented that Nottingham, England has never thrived as a town because of its greater symbolic message through history. Robin Hood robbed the rich to feed the poor, so the story goes. But no time is a good time to forward that message whether the distribution system is Communist, Socialist, Capitalist or the Divine Right of Kings. And for Robin's efforts, as though by accident, the British Tax Service Headquarters is located right there in the heart of Nottingham. Rob the rich, eh? But I'd been asked by a good friend to find a bright spot in my writings about new world politics. It seems all my work was slowly leaning towards the dark side--the politically macabre.
Responses to my Huffington Post "Anatomy of a Foreclosure" article had been enlightening. There are many people out there with the potential of being the little "Darjeelings" of their own "tea parties." Americans everywhere are increasingly doing what Europeans are known for. They truly seem to be getting fed up with the business structure's controlled slight of hand governance. Sadly, those individuals most vocal, target socialism as though one can correct one's golf swing by eating chocolate. And yet they seem focused on the smokescreens of "socialism" and "communism" and anything but rapacious "free market" capitalism in their misguided efforts to corral that runaway "go cart" that is America.
But my friend had said, "Your anger is only adding fuel and support to those evil forces that you decry." I still don't quite understand the mechanism that allows this to be true, but I do believe that she may have a point. If I desire to make a situation better, then I should not dwell on its failings and shortcomings. Two hours later it was time for me to commence my second five-mile walk of the day. But I was still in a quandary concerning how my energy was perpetuating that which I most wanted to correct.
So as I walked out my front door a catapult suddenly propelled me. Look out down below "Littlejohn." A young male face drove by and yelled "hello Matthew." I was somewhat startled at first. The young male driver then turned around, returned and began to remind me that I'd befriended him ten years earlier in an adjacent neighborhood where we both had lived. Michael said, "Remember when we would talk over on Oak Tree Lane...I remember everything that you told me... and I did it too!"
Well that for me was like taking a walk in space. In an instant his comments affirmed my humanity. It allowed me to appreciate that though my written observations concerning years of American cultural abuse may have little or no impact, the remembrance of one young boy grown tall did. It crystallized for me why mixed metaphors sometimes make sense and why even in the modern political arena that giving is better than stealing.
And so what does this article have to do with whether or not the Democrats lose seats in November? Well actually, a whole lot. All the predicates that design our social and political behavior are nestled in the practicum of action and that action's potential to do good or harm. While the old stagecoach rides into the sunset siphoning our hard earned dollars with every wheel rotation, merely watching that sinking summer sun go down represents a distant second choice to creating goodness for our progeny. Our ethos has gone down the drain with Wall Street's derivatives and credit default swaps. And it took the glow of a bright blue eyed twenty-four year old on yoga, weight training and meditation to show me the way. A year earlier, I'd begun to dabble in piano. In doing so, the wonder of a child had returned to me and now the full embodiment of that realization was talking to me on my own street.
And my piano has already become a source of opportunity, wealth and value. Its opportunity has been unveiled through the discovery of that medium--that tender--that is the music lodged inside us all. Music can seep out and uplift no matter how much despair is rife in a culture. During the economic hard times, it is the renaissance of that music's spirit; its patchwork inner lining that saves souls and forwards spirits onward. When I ask, "Where is Quincy Jones" in the song that I crafted while worrying about the children, languishes that chamber where the echoes and answers of true meaning redound.
My wealth has blossomed as that reflection of the good deeds by others all around me. While Donald Stumps the masses, and we are slowly relieved of our collective dignity, people, not banks, are "lending" their very essences to the cause of our collective humanity. Viewed properly, the spotlight of human dignity should be squarely turned on the kind inclinations of the many and not the corporate greed of the few. We should appreciate that human kindness surfaces and floats where adolescent greed sinks like a large and inefficient cement oil leak cover.
And my sense of value has now surfaced like a swimmer out of breath. I'm enlivened knowing that the natural beauty of so many parts of this planet are matched by that incandescence within the souls of so many of the people that I meet. Politics you say...the pursuit and exercise of power? What better way to pursue and exercise power than through the giving and sharing of the human spirit? Socialism you say? Whatever it is it feels better than compiling foreclosure data and estimating the rise in homeless numbers as inversely correlated to the diminishing of business and personal loans.