Through the Window

 

We’ve reached a point in society where to detect foulness out of the most mediocre suggestion or statement has become common place. Jokes aren’t safe anymore. Nor is a stance or opinion.

The lot of civilization is so busy claiming their stake in the ground that they don’t even notice what (or who) their sticking it into. It’s all these children jumping around with their hands up squealing ‘I know. I know. I know!’ Acting as if, and believing, they have the answer, and pointing stiff fingers at those who don’t.

The collective way makes it stressful to even ponder the possibility of sharing an idea for risk of retaliation, grandiose opinions, or grandstanding. Everyone seems to be getting triggered by everything. Nothing is safe. Nothing feels sacred. And everything appears a target for attack.

And forget about voicing a concern, point of view, or anything that might be interpreted as offensive to another sect., collective, or group. You can just about call in the inner battalion then, and wait for the irruption of protest.

Nothing is important anymore, because everything is deemed important. And nothing is truth anymore, because everything is meticulously dissected for flaws. You cannot make a stance about anything, because everyone is making a stance about everything.

And we all are stuck somewhere in the middle of this societal pendulum. Damned if we do, and damned if we don’t.

Within this delegated majority, each houses a blatant opinion, as if every singular has drawn a proverbial boxed-line in the sand and stood there—for eternity. Every one latches on to a truth and proclaims it, and sets about to paint this truth on everyone else’s window. And then others go about as proclaimed window washers eradicating the graffiti-laden glass with their own wipers and cleaners. And then the others move in, with their hammers and nails trying to fix the window. And I am left standing on the inside of who I thought I was, looking out into a world through a lens I no longer recognize.

How can we feasibly begin to rebuild a society that is so hell-bent on the individualistic way of what is right and wrong, when in response an avalanche of ‘the way’ is sprouted again and again, day after day, in every which way and every which place? We live in a time when a person, pulled beyond the circumference of his or her acceptable and comfortable safety zone, justifies bombarding bystanders with the makings of a gigantic soapbox, and if not that then daggers of ‘how I see it.’

Have we forgotten to just let people be? To just let bygones by bygones? To stop carving holes into people? To stop igniting fire after fire after fire? When does it stop? Where does it stop? To what end are we headed when people judge everything and everyone, from top to bottom and from inside out? To live in a world where even our unspoken thoughts are accused. Where even our silence is questioned. Where everyone is proclaimed this born villain, as the hungry eyed-spectators watch in eager waiting for the first failing. With money hoarding, fame seeking leeches tumbling off their platforms, as we applaud. Where we look for the faulty infrastructure, the disaster, the terrible—turning to watch the catastrophe and celebrating through massive mourning of misfortune.

It’s not so much the constant bombardment of failings, judgment and opinions that baffle and burden—it’s more so the crowded space that remains, wherein each person is so busy raising his banner of truth and even ‘hope,’ that there is actually no ground left to stand on. It’s overbearingly squishy just trying to move through the catastrophe of what is everyone else’s right way to be, right way to believe, right way to feel, right way to do, right way to talk, right way to stand, right way to create, right way to sing, right way to love, right way to communicate, right way to believe, right way to care.

It’s all too much. I long for peace. For people to just keep their mouths shut, to just look around and be; to just glance outside through the window without trying to fix or attempt to alter another’s view; to stop trying to run a race against the self; to stop trying to prove and improve; to stop with this urgency.

Because it’s the very urgency that’s destroying us. If you want soldiers of democracy, warriors of truth, evolutionary shift shakers, or even a quiet mind that is open to listen, then lay a foundation first. Pave a road with understanding and patience. Open up your mind. Look at something without having to claim the final resting place as your inbox or outbox. Not everything needs to be divided, taken in or rejected. Not everyone needs to be separated. But that’s what it has come down to, hasn’t it?

 

 

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