We’re reaching the end of the week, and yet this one flared my inspiration. There is a lot of invisibility in our world that needs to be uncovered, simply because that is where our attention needs to be.
Here are some articles that hit home:
- Homelessness – No One Sees Me on Alternet
- Military-grade equipment reach local law enforcement – Atlanta Journal-Constituition
- 75-year old Indian Soybean farmer is fighting Big Money – Guardian
- Raytheon’s Riot Spyware – Guardian
Ok, so these are all scary titles, and who wants to read such demoralizing stories? I was even told that you should be optimistic as a writer so that you can be a solution-provider. But seriously, optimism isn’t some 24-hour condition that most of us are capable of holding. When it comes down to it, it’s the action that you do when you’re down that shows whether you really can push through the chaos into the light.
And how do you feel the chaos? Take this scenario: you’re driving along your local freeway, when some Sheriff’s department drives by you in a vehicle that looks suspiciously like a tank. How do you think you feel about a vehicle of war in such an incongruous place? This is the type of invisible that can become insidious if you ignore it. It’s the behind-the-scenes connections that you have to question. Having blind trust in figures of authority will never be a logical choice. I’m sure the people in the French Revolution and other people’s uprising will tell you about their feelings of betrayal from their leaders. But out of bad can come good. Remember those mistakes I spoke of? Well, some of them build upon one another until they take a life of their own. Facing those invisible forces is not a bad thing. It brings the truth out into the open so that we can build a consensus on how to build possibility out of the destruction. Because destruction isn’t always noisy and big. Sometimes it’s an undercurrent that gains in momentum until it demolishes everything in its path.
So, for me, doing the impossible is the act of building bridges. Whether it’s something as tangible as one of wood, or as nebulous as stringing together words into a scene to enlighten, the impossible is building an alternative that gets a large group around an obstacle. Putting out ideas, new and old, to stimulate the creative process of building a future that we can all be proud of.
