This from comments on a previous post was too fine not to front page.
Commenter SweaterMan said...
I've been reading blogs since they used to be USENet screeds; I remember how excited I was to get a CompuServe account back in the day. I've been a techno-geek since I was four years old and my parents woke me to watch a man step onto the surface of the moon.
My grandfather was a farmer and my father left that shit to become an engineer and I followed in his footsteps. I'm not what those of our profession call an "intuitive" engineer - I have to work at it, with ocassional flashes of insight - but I do OK and I've made a decent living.
And then.
And then I read something like this, a simple blog post out of the millions that will be written today, and I fall over my keyboard and weep.
I weep for the fact that we had it all. WE. HAD. IT.!!! And sure, it wasn't all the rosy dream of Utopia and its inhabitants, but-but damn! We were going the right way! We were moving along!
And if we were a little slow (OK, damn slow) in bringing progress (women, minorities, rights and respect), well, by damn, we were getting there (and not gettin' ther and gittin' it done, as seems to be the phraseology of today).
But.
But something happened.
I don't know what it was. I don't think anyone does. Somehow, somewhere along that track of time, America grew up.
Not grew up in the sense of becoming more mature, wiser, a better judge of worth. But simply that we seem to have outgrown our dreams.
You remember those dreams, don't you? When you could sit out on the hood of your car, in the deepest, darkest place in the woods, and every 90 minutes or so, if you timed it right and it was just after dusk or there was a new moon, you could watch a tiny dot flit in an arc across the sky and whisper to yourself, "Damn! That's people! Up there! Flying around! That is...that is...that is....so fucking cool!" And you'd come down hard on the last word, "cool", because it was so effing cool - there we were, all of us, getting away like we'd always imagined, every chrome-wheeled, fuel-injected fantasy we'd ever had. Of course, transformed into gargantuan engine bells, miles of fuel lines and ludicrously simple control systems, and yet...it still worked out, because we knew the science, we worked hard, and we had the faith.
I guess I'm old enough to have lost the faith. And I'm a damn site sorrier for having lost it, in my opinion.
Maybe it means I'm just turning into a crotchety and bitter old man - I hope not. But that faith (and I'm not talking religious faith), about ourselves, our dreams, our goals, seemed, back then, to have been all tied together, like tethered boats on an ocean, but was something we ALL BELIEVED. Something we all felt WE HAD A STAKE IN.
So when I read articles like the one you quoted, and while I cheer the Chinese and wish them nothing but success in their efforts, I hope that someday the peoples of the nation of China will not have lost the faith, and that maybe their success will inspire in us to dream again and have more success of our own, because we could damn sure do with a burst of genuine (not Palinesque cheerleading) pride in ourselves right about now, and the werewithal to get up off our asses and work for a better America for all us of us.
12 comments:
Yes well, I can't help but wonder if Native Americans have all but lost their faith. What did they used to look up and see? Certainly not people in the sky. What did they want to look around and see? Certainly not soldiers raping, looting, and pillaging.
Don't forget, in order to make this-land-is-my-land, we had to steal it.
No one ever wants to speak of this---except me, of course.
Pride? I think not.
All things die. Even Republics.
Sweaterman, I agree. So did one of our great poets:
Dreams
Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.
Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.
-Langston Hughes
And invisible, I think human beings do a lot of cruel, crushing things to one another. Theft and murder have been the tools of dream-crushing all over the world for a very, very long time. My reading of Sweaterman's comment is that wherever we are, whatever we're facing, a life worth living is bound up with dreams for which work is required.
The killer of dreams is surrender to authority and abdication of personal responsibility as we see in children beginning school as question marks and finishing as periods. That just makes us keep our head in the game even when we find out its crooked and we feel betrayed — western civilization has ever made dreams come true — it's only exploited the dreamers. The crushing begins before we understand how much further we can go.
But.
But something happened.
I don't know what it was. I don't think anyone does.
Actually, I think I do. We allowed our Republic to become co-opted by the grossest greediest corporate greedfucks, who promised us comfort and leisure in return for giving up our real dreams. And we fell for it.
Invisible- I had the great fortune to spend the weekend with a Lakota Healer and his family in ceremony and in the construction of a new sweat lodge in my home town.
I am happy to say there are Native Americans who have not lost their faith, or their connection to the spirit world. I believe they want to see many of the same things we wish to see- health and happiness for the people, freedom from prejudice and hunger, the safety and freedom to live in a good way and to participate in life in a manner that honors rather than destroys.
I have learned that people of good heart can work, live and pray together. I hope my sharing this is helpful for others. Because as the Lakota say:
We are all related.
My reading of Sweaterman's comment is that wherever we are, whatever we're facing, a life worth living is bound up with dreams for which work is required.
swe, yes, I can agree with that, but let's examine it closely.
Exactly whose dreams are we talking about here? I have never had sweaterman's dreams---far from it. I do use technology as it comes barrelling along with no debate, no discussion. I use it. I can appreciate it to a certain extent. I see how "sexy" and exceptional it is, or is supposed to be. I've grown rather fond of hot, running water and washing machines, sure thing. But I'd really rather do without most of it. When I look up at the night sky and see a human-powered light blinking its way along, I don't marvel at how smart we humans are. I curse it.
I look around and notice that, for many people, the earth is just. never. good. enough. No, we just mainly want to trash it, ruin it, then leave it. Look---up in the sky!
I look around at the night sky and curse the city lights because I can see no stars. Ever see that satellite photo of the countries at night with/without electricity and lights? I like the dark places. Odd, isn't it?
The other night the power went out in the neighborhood and I woke up with the most sublime feeling of comfort and contentment. It was dark. It was silent! Wow. Awesome.
After 911, when there were no planes in the sky? I marveled and rejoiced at that. Sorry, but it's true.
When the governor of Alaska allows---encourages!---arial slaughter of wolves and bears, and their off-spring, more drill-baby-drill! in our last remaining "pristine" areas---more pillaging of the last remaining wilderness in the U.S.---well, let's just say that doesn't make me very happy.
You see, I have dreams too.
update: us blues, you caught me right before I hit the publish button. It calmed me right away. Thank you. I will ponder this at length.
comrad physioprof, Your words are true, so true. (I must look in on your latest recipe offering--- if I have the right physioprof, that is.)
I thought when I was young that I would make it into space. Not as an astronaut but as something like a settler. I can't let myself really think about the fact that that is totally out of the question. We're not going there soon. Certainly not in my lifetime.
And it's not because I wanted to leave Earth - I wanted to see it from space. Maybe see the moon, but always come back to Earth. I really do love this place. But at the same time there is so much OUT there we'll never know if we keep on as we are.
The human animal evolves and transforms, working always on the innate primordial layers of brain that make us just want to survive vs. our higher desire to be "better"...History has shown immigration and war over places with more and better resources ...and its only natural to a certain point; because we are the ones who have the power to "reason"
The problem is that education which was maybe tribal in early times, and regarding how the unit functions best as a whole for survival, following cause and effect and ethical concerns within those units, now is a bubble that students fill in to pass a level so that the government can give funding to schools.
Add to that the insidious dumbing down of American education, and the lack of basic problem solving skills that most American citizens exhibit...hell, maybe its all humans who are in this lazy phase of happy with stupidity and fast food...we seem to be in a sheep cycle, when things sort of slow and the high speed advancement of the "culture," or whatever-the-hell this is anymore, stalls...
Its frustrating...
The dreams of those of us who grew up at that time when things were still possible and there were still mysteries that you cold wonder at without looking at google...well, those were innocent times. Is it right to turn out the lights now on technology? I dont know...to ach his own.
What is really wearing on me about humans is this tendency to rape and pillage and plunder. It happens over and over again, and its sort of our way. We are supposed to be working for some greater good, but usually its so that our tribe can have the best resources and our children can grow strong. I find it pretty heinous...and what Europeans did to Native Americans inexcusable.
But, one thing; I wouldnt even assume that Native Americans, if given a fair shake, wouldnt have participated fully in what became the American Dream and all the advancements that went along with that. The culture was and is cetainly stronger, but that doesnt mean that they werent individuals who were just as capable and intelligent as any European, and who wouldnt have made good use of the new system set up here, if not for innate racism and the need ofr the europeans to "own" and control what was to the Native Americans something that could not be owned.
If the reign of terror/holocaust and the imprisonment of the original denizens of this place hadn't been so complete, and if the moral and ethical prevailed, I think that there is every reason to think that we would see generations of Native Americans with the same sorts of dreams that came to us sitting on the hoods of cars or running around the Brooklyn streets...full of hope...
Its just that the Native Americans had such a more beautiful and real way of looking at the world and living within nature. I sure wish the Europeans had listened and co-existed, because it would be a very different world emotionally. spiritually, and ecologically...
tho I doubt that would mean lack of technological advancements....perhaps at this point there would be more and they would fit in better with the planet and out minds.
Thanks for the great quote-post Drifty... really nice comments on this one.
Drifty -
Wow. Thanks for the bump-up; I appreciate it.
Even more, I appreciate the thoughtful comments that all contributed to the thread, and I'd like to add some additional blather, if I may.
Invisible - You are correct in your wondering about the original landowners, and I would have to agree that they probably do not appreciate? understand? empathize? (I'm searching for some word here that I'm just not getting). Regardless, you are correct. To a Native American the idea of moonshots, spacewalks and the like are probably looked upon as just another in the white mans goofy dreams of conquest over nature, instead of working with Her to live
more in tune with Her rythyms. I cannot disagree. However, I was not aiming for that in what I was trying to say, but rather, as SWE put it so succinctly, that "a life worth living is bound up with dreams for which work is required," and I tip my hat, for that bores to the essence of what I was getting towards.
Further, though, in as large and complex a society as we have, if many of a society's folks seem to agree with or at least somewhat support those "dreams", this can have a synergistic affect upon the whole society, in which we "all" (and I use that "all" loosely), feel bound up, together, in a common purpose greater than just ourselves, that we are willing to commit some portion of what we do, what we work for, and what we feel towards this "goal."
That has probably been the ideal of religious leaders (initially) through time, and still has counterparts in sports coaches, teamwork-oriented bosses and the like today. It's that spirit, that esprit-de-corps feeling whose loss I was lamenting, especially in regards to the richness of discovery that, IMO, exists off this planet.
Not that I, for any minute, think that this world is not enough. I could live a thousand lifetimes and never discern all I want to know about this good 'ol Earth, nor cease to be fascinated at every sunset, landscape, shower of leaves, grinning dolphin, or snowflake that exists. I, for one, am glad that I live in a region that shows pretty dark on a map of the world. Certainly not as dark as the interior of Africa, but for the western U.S., pretty dark indeed (go about 175 miles east of Vegas and look at that dark blob on http://geology.com/articles/satellite-photo-earth-at-night.shtml.
And, as to shooting creatures from out-of-the-sky, well, I guess I can't really do anything about it legally, but I can sure as hell think less of you, which is my sentiment (not really related to the overall topic of humankind and spaceflight, but we digress).
However, I do think humankind has an innate curiosity about nature, and while we haven't yet tapped
all there is to on our planet, curiosity is a strange creature and sometimes turns itself in other directions,
and, specifically off our world, which leads to our explorations in space, and, the original U.S. reluctance,
and then dominance of off-world travel.
Anyway, that's more background on what I was trying to convey....
Yodood - while I agree that we're "finishing" our children at ever earlier ages these days, I look on that as a challenge! A challenge to co-opt each and every one of these younguns to show them that they CAN GO FURTHER. Further than we have, and to carve out new niches for themselves, while balancing that drive with the goals of the community. That is our job as "elders", at least as I see it.
Comrade P - Hell yeah we got suckered into the whole scam somewhat by greedy pig-people to steal a description. But, there are a whole lot of us that didn't! Once again, a challenge. Retain your sanity, your grounding in the "real world" - not the bullshit world that the powers that be want you to believe exists - and "teach" those who have one foot in the real world and one foot in antasyland the truth that you are living by, for, and towards. Frankly, it's about all you can do, unless we're all willing to pick up pitchforks and torches, and, while I'm all for that, I don't think the mass of us have moved that far yet. Of course, give it a couple of weeks and we may all march on....
US Blues - You said: "I have learned that people of good heart can work, live and pray together." That is about as sound a statement as anyone can hope for in a person. I myself, while a little squirrelly at the edges sometimes, will definitely take that to heart.
7 Crows - Always come back to Earth. That I can agree with, but I am still captured by curiosity's cat, not just for myself, but to come back and show to others. Roy Batty says it when he states "if only you could see what I've seen with your eyes! " in Blade Runner, and in that sense, we are all seeing through each others eyes. It just takes a discerning and astute person and/or culture to regard what is really important or not, as seen through their eyes. And here's hoping that we can be that discerning wise one to teach others when they ask.
As long as you're in a paying attention to the commenters kind of a mood, may I point out to you that there is a movie called "Machine Gun McCain" (starring John Cassavetes as McCain!) with a theme song by Ennio Morricone, the lyrics of which are, in our current position, priceless?
I can't do anything worth doing with this information, but you can, Driftglass.
One line from the song: "No one knows better than McCain/ just how angry you can be/ when they cage you in with laws..."
Seriously! I'm dyin' ovah heah!
Great comment by Sweaterman. I agree with him that we need the dream and that we've lost something very important.
I am certainly not someone who is in favor of more and better technology to the detriment of our planet's resources - far from it. But the dream of space travel fulfills an innate need people have to explore. Someday the earth will be completely explored, whether we die-hards like it or not. Mankind always needs a new frontier or it will turn inward and die off.
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