Consequential Confusion

I admire people who do street outreach. It's a hard job. People have become just as desensitized to fundraising and awareness campaigns as they have to the issues themselves. As a result these people spend hours on the street, often with little reward for their efforts.

Even for those of us who have been involved in similar campaigns, stopping to chat seems more a courtesy than a productive discourse. With all the advertising we've been exposed to, we've been trained to recognize scripted/packaged messages and immediately zone out when we sense them. We smile, nod, take the pamphlet, and walk away. It's almost like we don't even care.

But that's not true, is it? We care. We are human. We are empathetic. So why do I cross the street when I see a clipboard?

Maybe it's because we already know. Lack of awareness is no longer the primary barrier to behaviour change. We have such ease of access to information that by the time we reach our twentieth year it is almost impossible to be ignorant of inequality, of poverty, of suffering. But it's in the nature of our knowing that we find a problem.

We receive more information on a daily basis than any other generation before us, and that high volume necessitates a high capacity method of processing it. Like any other "streamlined" process, I think the quality of our knowing must suffer. When we learn, we effectively file the information away for use when it is needed. Contemplation is inefficient and as a result is only used as a last resort in the learning process.

More and more we use mass media to disseminate knowledge (For the record, I consider 100 people on the street saying the same thing to be a form of mass media). Information regarding global realities is delivered alongside, and in a nearly identical package to, fashion, fiction and frivolity. To our minds, there is really no difference between watching the news and watching a show. So how can we expect, without the aid of contemplation, to treat one as being more "real" than the other? How do we expect take a statistic, and understand it as a human reality? How do we learn to understand the bottom billion as a billion individual persons, each of whom are happy but hungry, innovative but vulnerable, hopeful but trapped inside an uncaring economy.

Even if we take that step and come to accept this information as a human reality, we are now challenged with connecting it to our own lives and really understanding that causal link. It is already difficult for people to fully understand consequences that occur outside of their sphere of awareness. To make matters even more confusing, we have cultivated a society where the boundary between reality and make-believe is becoming increasingly blurry. Gamers spend hours of their lives in a virtual world. They construct a character. They give it a name, a personality, and invest countless hours into levelling up or developing certain skills. That time investment is real, that effort is real, the people that you interact with are real, but the causal chains initiated in a game remain confined to the virtual world. Likewise we can step on a treadmill and run for an hour, never having gone anywhere. In a world where so much "doing" can be so apparently inconsequential, how could we ever fully realize that a small act such as changing the way you buy your coffee has a real impact on the world, and the people on the other side of it? What could an activist possibly say to connect us to their cause?

Nothing. It's our responsibility to be open. It's our responsibility to listen and to contemplate - flip a switch in our brains and contemplate the reality of what they are saying. If you approach information, new or old, in this way you can expand your sphere of awareness and discover new territory in your sphere of influence. This is the zone where new decisions are made. It's where what you hear affects what you do.

Still, issue by issue, it's hard. In the age of globalization, expanding your sphere of awareness to match your sphere of influence is an arduous task at best, and an impossible one at worst. The internet and other forms of mass media have given us access to information, but cannot supply a real connection or a true internalized understanding. You, yourself, are responsible for forging that understanding. It's a deep, exhausting, and life consuming challenge.

It's actually the real reason why I'm trying to move toward buying local, and buying small. I don't know enough about economics to jump on the "globalization sucks!" bandwagon, but it certainly makes it difficult for people to connect with the consequences of their actions. The more I distance myself from that economy, the better I understand my own impact on the world. Maybe I'm just emotionally lazy, but when I buy a side of beef or a bag of vegetables from a family down the road, I don't have to think about it. I know exactly what's happening and I know what it means to them. We are each responsible for how our actions affect each other. That's understanding and security is worth more to me than every article I've ever read on the web.

I woke last night on the bank of the river Styx
My sleep had stolen me, and taken me there.
A wail of song. It was low and I barely heard
The voices of thousands, stripped down and bare.

No throats to raise their voices as in life,
In numbers, in solitude, they wander by
What would've been a whisper by my tongue
From souls screaming with all their might.

The moon broke free from the earth
And left nothing in is place
But sharp edges scarring the wound

So deep, the mantle leaked out
Its protection gone away,
And met the air for the first time

It grew cool from its drifting touch
Covered over the pain
And stopped the blood from pouring free

She passed through years with barren stone
Before new life could grow
Though it came, with the salt and wind

And to see, you'd never suspect
But a mis-shape in her bed
Remembers that she was betrayed

Savannah Storm

Through the window,
Green and barren at the season’s pass,
A tree sways to the song of the wind.
My empty ears
Hear no howl or banshee’s screaming curse
To herald Lugh as he crests the hill

I am drawn out,
Careful closing of the door behind
To move near and stand alongside
As she rattles,
Baubles gently shaking at the sky.
And breezes blow, I am lightened up

Now a feather,
White and flexing in the growing breeze
Hug her waist and join in her dance
With madness -
Smiling, swaying to a silent time
That fairy bards breathe onto my skin .

The Welcome Friend

The day has come to wake me from the east
In dawnlight clothing, as each time before
Oh look - it is the same sun which returns
And greets my stirring at the parlour door.

Some say it is a new day that comes round
Knocking as a stranger from the night
Who knows not how you’ve lived outside the hour
That goes with last night’s dimming of the light

But kindly he comes in and says my name
And tells me of a journey round a stone
Reminds me of the dreams begun in love
And bids me finish lest they go undone.

“Though clouds and lands will hide me from your view
My restless flames will never cease to burn
I cannot die, nor tire nor will I slow
In faith, each daybreak, see - I will return.”


The Follower

I will build a chariot this day,
All shining gold and silver on the sides.
Reigns of silk for horses of the mist
Who need no spurring onward as they ride -
Tireless over mountain, plain and sea
To follow on the ground the flying glow.
Everlasting daylight in our eyes.
Apollo’s doting spaniels far below.
Night will never catch us in his wake
To steal our senses into sleeping scenes.
Darkness won’t deceive or break our stride.
My will - eternal morning by such means.

Ah! But He is passing by my door
And calls for me to follow far behind.
Seeing just a tiny speck of light
To guide me in this narrow, winding line.
“Build, behind the cab, a place to burn
A fire of earth - of flaming sticks and coal.
Keep it ever lit or take the lash
Of lonely winds that chase you as you go.
Woe, if you should waste your precious ride,
But if you keep this geise I will wait
For your host at this days’ only end
And feast with you as friends on our estate.”

Sailor

Between us now, soft drifting silk
Your dreaming spans the fall below
Bright and lovely, easy still
It waivers in the winds that blow
Oh, Silhouette on the far side’s edge
Silk sailor’s knot tied around your waist
My feet would dance on your vision bridge
And finally fall as it slipped away.