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This is not going to be a happy post. If it's not already obvious from some of my other journals, I have a pretty strange mental space, even when I'm ostensibly at peace. I've come to terms with much of that, but sometimes I can't find that peace. Tonight is one of those nights.
I'm an atheist. I don't believe in much spiritually, and though I do respect the actual power those beliefs are given by those who hold them, that does have a significant impact on my world view. It causes me to reflect on a wide variety of things, up to and including what I'd like to accomplish in my short time here. (Early mid-life crisis triggered a few years ago. :P) That's a tough question to answer, especially when the goal-posts move as you try to chase them. For now, though, I've settled on a short list.
1. I want to be comfortable being myself, and exploring what that means.
2. I want to grow and love and share my life with others, including one special one in particular.
3. I want to have the world I leave be a little more beautiful and a little less afraid than the one I entered.
4. At least part of #3, includes writing. I'm an engineer, but I really want to write and inspire.
For a long time, I hadn't made progress on any of these, just kind of drifting along the paths set out for me by others. I had tremendous opportunities, for certain, but when I finished the college track (for now) and emerged into the wider world, I started to realize that I hadn't really understood what living as on my own as a free member of society meant. It turns out that, financial concerns aside for the moment, that's a pretty scary thing. Following a nice, well-worn path and then finding yourself in the middle of an unknown field, still moving quite quickly, is a jarring experience. Still, I can say with confidence that numbers one and two are in progress, and seem to be headed in a positive direction.
Number three? That's the subject I really want to touch on tonight. I've mentioned the extreme empathy thing before, and I'm not kidding. I'm pretty severely off-balance tonight, because sometimes, I just can't handle the chaos and pain I see around me. I don't quite shut down, but I feel paralyzed and frustrated, unable to do anything to help. It doesn't matter the country, the location, or the reason, suffering anywhere really hits, and hits hard.
Recently, two things in particular have weighed on me particularly heavily, both of which have all sorts of complicated political ramifications. The two issues are systemic economic insecurity/inequality and political repression/surveillance. I realize these are topics that engender more than a few strong opinions, but I'm not looking for a debate just now. This is more of a random thought-spew with a little brain-storming on the side.
I'm going to start with #1, economic insecurity/inequality... I'm going to start off by saying that I have a pretty decent job myself, and barring my own stupid financial decisions, I'm more or less okay. However... I know a lot of folks, both in and out of the fandom, who struggle to get by on a day-to-day basis. The ones lucky enough to have them work shit jobs, or multiple part-time jobs just to be able to live, and extreme hours leave them too drained to be able to actually do anything in their free hours. This is insane, as far as I can tell, systemic, and I have no idea how to go about sanely fixing it.
Number 2 is an interesting animal as well. I'm not going to touch on specifics of what's being done, why it's claimed to be necessary, or anything else. What I want to touch on is the mindset of those making the decision, both here in the US, and those in other countries around the globe. Re #1, there are a lot of very unhappy people around, and governments (our own included) seem to have gotten it into their heads that they can somehow learn about and control chaotic events. In reality, the control they seek is not only imaginary but impossible. People are inherently unpredictable, and no net, however vast, will catch everything and everyone. It isn't impossible to seek out that control, however, or hurt a vast amount of people in the attempt. Control is fundamentally something created by force, and one only has to look at repressive regimes, or chaotic ones like Iraq and Egypt, to see where that road leads.
I guess what I'm saying is this. Problems, economic and otherwise, are causing chaos that we're (as a species, not the US in particular) attempting to deal with through surveillance and control. That just doesn't work, so we need to find some way to build up support networks and trust in them. We have to start being able to trust each other and recognize that our well-being is affected by not just ourselves! How do we do that? I don't know yet, but if you bother to read the news and know people who are hurting, you know it can't really wait very long.
Comments are welcome, but I do reserve the right to hide them if stuff gets nasty. This isn't a discussion of whether these *are* problems. I believe they are, and if you want to touch on that aspect, the rest of the Internet is open to you. This place is for suggested solutions.
I'm an atheist. I don't believe in much spiritually, and though I do respect the actual power those beliefs are given by those who hold them, that does have a significant impact on my world view. It causes me to reflect on a wide variety of things, up to and including what I'd like to accomplish in my short time here. (Early mid-life crisis triggered a few years ago. :P) That's a tough question to answer, especially when the goal-posts move as you try to chase them. For now, though, I've settled on a short list.
1. I want to be comfortable being myself, and exploring what that means.
2. I want to grow and love and share my life with others, including one special one in particular.
3. I want to have the world I leave be a little more beautiful and a little less afraid than the one I entered.
4. At least part of #3, includes writing. I'm an engineer, but I really want to write and inspire.
For a long time, I hadn't made progress on any of these, just kind of drifting along the paths set out for me by others. I had tremendous opportunities, for certain, but when I finished the college track (for now) and emerged into the wider world, I started to realize that I hadn't really understood what living as on my own as a free member of society meant. It turns out that, financial concerns aside for the moment, that's a pretty scary thing. Following a nice, well-worn path and then finding yourself in the middle of an unknown field, still moving quite quickly, is a jarring experience. Still, I can say with confidence that numbers one and two are in progress, and seem to be headed in a positive direction.
Number three? That's the subject I really want to touch on tonight. I've mentioned the extreme empathy thing before, and I'm not kidding. I'm pretty severely off-balance tonight, because sometimes, I just can't handle the chaos and pain I see around me. I don't quite shut down, but I feel paralyzed and frustrated, unable to do anything to help. It doesn't matter the country, the location, or the reason, suffering anywhere really hits, and hits hard.
Recently, two things in particular have weighed on me particularly heavily, both of which have all sorts of complicated political ramifications. The two issues are systemic economic insecurity/inequality and political repression/surveillance. I realize these are topics that engender more than a few strong opinions, but I'm not looking for a debate just now. This is more of a random thought-spew with a little brain-storming on the side.
I'm going to start with #1, economic insecurity/inequality... I'm going to start off by saying that I have a pretty decent job myself, and barring my own stupid financial decisions, I'm more or less okay. However... I know a lot of folks, both in and out of the fandom, who struggle to get by on a day-to-day basis. The ones lucky enough to have them work shit jobs, or multiple part-time jobs just to be able to live, and extreme hours leave them too drained to be able to actually do anything in their free hours. This is insane, as far as I can tell, systemic, and I have no idea how to go about sanely fixing it.
Number 2 is an interesting animal as well. I'm not going to touch on specifics of what's being done, why it's claimed to be necessary, or anything else. What I want to touch on is the mindset of those making the decision, both here in the US, and those in other countries around the globe. Re #1, there are a lot of very unhappy people around, and governments (our own included) seem to have gotten it into their heads that they can somehow learn about and control chaotic events. In reality, the control they seek is not only imaginary but impossible. People are inherently unpredictable, and no net, however vast, will catch everything and everyone. It isn't impossible to seek out that control, however, or hurt a vast amount of people in the attempt. Control is fundamentally something created by force, and one only has to look at repressive regimes, or chaotic ones like Iraq and Egypt, to see where that road leads.
I guess what I'm saying is this. Problems, economic and otherwise, are causing chaos that we're (as a species, not the US in particular) attempting to deal with through surveillance and control. That just doesn't work, so we need to find some way to build up support networks and trust in them. We have to start being able to trust each other and recognize that our well-being is affected by not just ourselves! How do we do that? I don't know yet, but if you bother to read the news and know people who are hurting, you know it can't really wait very long.
Comments are welcome, but I do reserve the right to hide them if stuff gets nasty. This isn't a discussion of whether these *are* problems. I believe they are, and if you want to touch on that aspect, the rest of the Internet is open to you. This place is for suggested solutions.
