A Rant...

In life we all have those we admire.  Those people we look up to and whose words always seem to resonate with us and strike deep into our hearts.  For me, that is my husband.  Those who know him will tell you, he is a happy man, always quick with a smile and joke and who has a heart for others.  He is a caring man who will go out of his way to help anyone.  Often he is moved by the injustices of this world and bears the burden of it quietly but sometimes he speaks out.  This time he says he wrote a Rant...  I disagree.  I think it is a thought-provoking piece about the truth of our society.  It moved me and I hope it will move you too...

The Love of my Life, my Husband, Joshua.

In a confusing time we want so much to identify with the Occupy Group.  I wanted to identify with the Tea Party too.  With each group, I understood people’s frustrations.  Corporations make heartless, soulless decisions yet I have spent my career working for the largest corporations on the planet.  My family is provided for as I turned a blind eye to the pollution, greed and perverseness they represented.  The Government tosses our tax money around like pocket change and seems to have long forgotten that the American People are still in charge.  In frustration, I watch the fringe elements of society latch onto each group and detract from the worthy causes they started.  The Tea Party is now villainized by a few within who used the platform to propagate a revolting hatred that has no place in a society such as ours.  Our President should be judged on his politics and agenda and not by the color of his skin or ethnic heritage.  I see the sneaky underhanded elements of the labor unions that previously were loosing power due to a country that has replaced them with fair laws and now they want to join the Occupiers?

I see the Occupy group as floundering to come up with a message except for one, "We are really upset about everything!"  Are we finally coming to a breaking point?  Are the TSA pat-downs and the Homeland Security checkpoints pushing us to a nervous breakdown?  The intrusion into our personal privacy is so blatant that we just dismiss it as inevitable.  The years of fruitless wasteful wars in Iraq and Afghanistan burden us with guilt.  In the effort to protect ourselves, we have in some ways opened a very vulnerable side to the American Society.  A society so concerned with its own rights and obligations that we have blindly destroyed the fabric of entire nations.  Or, is it watching our children who won’t grow up in the luxury of knowing they live in a Nation so powerful only the insane dare to challenge it.  The TV explodes with constant panic and updates that would reduce the most patient to tears, and yet, we leave off the parts that might make us feel some emotional challenge.  How come we don’t show the dead soldiers coming home from the Middle East?  Are we embarrassed or is it just to powerful of an image to watch a grown man hardened by life cry over the casket of a 19 year old son whose promise and potential were snuffed out by a war too far away.  We have, in a very Orwellian manner, insulated our lives from the things that cause pain and yet we push everywhere for that deep emotional tie to life.  Our movies bring into our home thrilling stories of love, pain, conflict, triumph all falsified by actors who risk very little to portray these emotions.  Is this the upset that we feel?  A disconnection from reality?  We no longer have to look at an animal and choose to end its life to sustain our own.  A hard thunderstorm or flood can no longer wipe our ability to feed ourselves but have we traded this security for something much more disturbing.  Is the FaceBook, Twitter, socially-connected life pushing a new confusion to our children?  They find their friends over web-cams and have to question whether or not what they see is real.  Gone is the old version of community in which you had to physically face your neighbor everyday.  The familiar feeling that if you got into too much trouble your community would rally around.  We lost that somewhere along the way.  Content to hide in our castles and experience life through a dim flicker of what it could be, we laud the athlete, the explorer and the brave by reliving their experiences on screen yet we don’t encourage our children to be astronauts anymore.  We don’t ask for the courageous frontiersman of old.  Let them be safe.  Let them work in an office on an ergonomic chair and properly adjusted lighting. 

The message is very lost on the Occupiers and the Tea Partiers to the point that it is no longer amusing.  What are they really protesting?  I don’t pretend to have the answers but maybe some suggestions.  Stop trying to fulfill life through other people’s FaceBook updates.

Bravely step out and challenge the life in front of you.  I have in my life traveled to 8 countries, 32 of US States and stood by the Grand Canyon, walked through a rain forest, skied mountains, swam across lakes and scaled cliffs.  I have touched fish that have never seen the light of day in dark caves and felt the warm beaches of an island.  I know the overwhelming feeling of touching the lips of cherished companion knowing that I will walk everyday of the rest of my life with her and when I felt I could love nothing else, I was handed a child, small, pink and fragile.  I watched the eyes of a little girl stare into mine for reassurance and a small son mimic me to prove he was capable.  In the crushing darkness of absolute failure, I faced my creator and admitted my own inadequacies only to find a resolute forgiveness.

To you who protest…Change.  Become the CEO who can do it better.  Become a Politician who can change it.  Don’t waste yourself in the mud of Zucotti Park.  Become more.  Our world is sadly lacking in those who make real differences.  There is still a world full of opportunities and accomplishment and we need people who think differently and challenge the system.  Our moon hasn’t been touched in 30 years by humans.  We have enough office drones.  We need real heroes not just actors.  The sea is only mapped at 3%; we have only explored a very small part of that incredible world.  We still have God’s original gift and contrary to the media, it’s not completely ruined.  Explore the world around you and find a deeper meaning to your existence.  Don’t wait on anyone else to change or to better your life.  That choice is your own.