Trump is Not the Problem (You Are)

The reality is that nothing is ever going to change until our perspective changes on a grand scale.

No amount of recycling will do it. No amount of praying to your deity of choice will do it. No amount of voting for one compromiser over another will do it. The same sort of thinking that brought about an issue cannot be used to fix it.

Everything must shift, and not from one extreme of a continuum to another, but within — to another vantage point entirely. Your wishes for sustainability and accountability won't amount to a single lasting thing without a change at the source. Our system will only continue to manufacture garbage because it is built on false premises regarding what really matters.

I see so many excited about the Flynn developments, as if this certainly points to Trump's downfall. But what is Trump but a fruit of the true roots of our issues? Even if we pull him off his paper-or-plastic throne, someone similar is waiting to slither into the seat. Tell me how HRC doesn't believe the same fundamental myths about what it means to be a human person? Tell me what politician out there doesn't turn a blind eye to EVERY organization that profits at the expense of others and the environment? Show me to the poet-king/queen who understands that radical shift in consciousness away from the wallet and to the heart is necessary — no matter how bad it is for business.

Show me the religious person who is more committed to the action of loving their neighbor than they are interested in recruiting people to the same club. Show me parents who are willing to leave well-paying jobs with health insurance because the ethical compromises are not worth the Netflix subscriptions.

(... I'll wait ...)

I often feel simultaneously trapped and alienated in this society that I don't ever remember signing up for, one where cognitive dissonance is the rule and holism the exception. I hear people talk about how they want to be healthy but say "judge not" about their self-proclaimed bacon addiction. How they want peace but talk shit when things don't go their way. We cry for sustainability but still want discount, mass-produced retail items.

I aim to use all the intellectual, financial, and physical resources at my disposal to encourage this existential revolution, but I'm aware of how I still take part in the charade. I'm typing these pontifications from an Apple computer. I have an old station wagon sitting out front of my house that uses petroleum. I shop at the grocery store (and don't always bring my own bag). I’m wearing a clearance sweater from H&M. I left the water running.

I wonder about finding my way by living off the land for the rest of my years, until I am old and can give myself back to the Earth as its nourishment. But what good is the life of a hermit, enjoying timelessness in the wilderness when most every other human on the planet is either playing into the system that destroys our world or is being crushed beneath its machinations?

How then, do we move forward? Do we simply eat and drink and be merry, accepting tomorrow's inevitable death? Or can we change course entirely, seeking true sustenance, and allow life to go on without putting the breaks on divine evolution?

The mind of man is not holy. The mind of man is metal, a construct, useful as a supporting tool but disastrous when allowed to govern. It’s time we understand that our purpose on this earth as conscious beings isn’t to control life but to assist in nurturing it, to allow it to thrive. To understand and embrace nature's need for diversity (of all kinds), and to help it come along … sometimes by making space for that to happen by getting the hell out of the way.

The earth doesn’t belong to humans, we humans belong to it. Imagine the potential for how much greater this reality would be if we took our rightful place in that role — one far more rewarding than this incessant squeezing of water from the stone.

If you see something, say something. If you know something, do something. Otherwise, your "woke" is simply a sleepwalking awareness.