But it's not there. Well, I should be more accurate: the psychological patterns of seasonal depression are definitely still with me. But feelings of emotional isolation, powerlessness, the burdens of unresolvable cognitive dissonance... these are the things that feed my seasonal depression and make it so deep. These things are conspicuously missing right now. There is something else in their place. Something like the spark of THE BIG THING. Change is coming. Change is already happening...
Back in early September, I had these thoughts:
This very basic dissonance [between needing to use a car & the belief that cars are fundamentally destroying our society] is at the heart of most of my current motivations in life. The underlying paradigm that feeds this reality in our society feels very, very wrong. On a daily basis, it makes me want to kick and scream and shake people (especially co-workers) and tear things down and fuck shit up. But I can't, because that wouldn't really be productive. So I channel all that energy into various ways that I can reduce the influence of cars and petroleum in my life.And now I am all up in the Occupy Seattle. Financial reform may not be exactly the same idea as creating a car-free society, but it is certainly on the same path. It has the same seed. Occupy Seattle offers me (and everyone else...) an outlet desperately needed to work to resolve cognitive dissonance.
I am working to help build Large Scale Awesomeness (both inside and outside of OS). I am getting involved in projects and movements and momentum that are bigger than me. WAY bigger than me. Swept up in a current of change that is at once transforming our society, but also transforming my soul. Getting me closer to the vision of myself that I see in my dreams.
It is at once thrilling and terrifying and it all feels so right... down to my bones, and in my toes. Is this what falling in love feels like? Like falling in love... with myself... with all of society and all of humanity and all of everything.
Let my heart be so broken, that the whole world may fall in.
Many people are frustrated with Occupy Seattle (and the greater Occupy Movement), as we get distracted by a scope of change that seems too big for anyone to accept. As we get distracted by the needs of those on the edge of society who have wandered into our occupied camps with needs we can only begin to comprehend, let alone find the resources to address. But compassion can never be a waste of time...
My agenda... the work I pursue within the Occupy Movement... is to try to convince people that we are not at war with each other. Even as the police attack protesters and protesters battle back at them, even as our camps seem pulled apart by violence and addiction... even as those who believe in non-violence (including myself) close their hearts to the work of communicating with others who hold 'distasteful' viewpoints... We cannot start to make real change until we start to open up and communicate with one another.
This is the hardest, the most radical idea. The idea that the only way forward is by continuing to show compassion - to those we disagree with, and those who oppress us, and those who harm our bodies. And this is the biggest challenge I have ever given myself. To transform myself and remake my mind from the paradigms in which I am taught to seek enemies and adversaries. Taught to dehumanize and stereotype and categorize 'The Other'. There is no OTHER. There are only humans, desperately trying to make the best of the beliefs and the resources they have at hand.
To re-define the task: over and over again, at every possible opportunity, remind myself and otehrs of their own humanity. Challenge everyone to love themselves, and in so doing respect the humanity of those around them. Challenge people to see the humanity in those they see as 'enemy', and to seek the ways of finding common understanding.
And it is still thrilling and terrifying. And it feels so right.
