The Not-So-Abject Futility Of Giving A Shit

(Thanks to grandson #1 (Rowan Murray) for his participation)

This is a rant. It’s not sugar-coated or politically correct. But the essence of it is simple…it’s me being pissed off and fed up with all the bullshit floating around out there and magnifying a tiny speck of it as I am wont to do every Friday.

So if this is something that you think might upset your precious sensibilities or political leaning, well have a nice day, ‘cause this isn’t for you

This notion came to me a few hours ago. I saw a post from a guy I’m friends with on FB named Mike O’Connor, who was lamenting about the state of political affairs in the US.

He’s come to the conclusion that the left is just as fucked up & mean & nasty as the right in that country. And that got me thinking…always dangerous.Then I went shopping for groceries and mulled it around a bit…even more dangerous. And now here I am with, as Dylan would say…”a head full of ideas that are driving me insane.’

The World Is Fucked, Right?

Something happened a while back. I’m not sure when. Maybe it was the cultural revolution. Maybe it was the net effect of the boomer generation manifesting and all the fucking self-centred navel gazing that came with it.

The United States, which was historically the bastion of freedom and democracy has through the Trump/Republican prism, revealed itself to be neither of the aforementioned, but basically a master/slave nation, with the masters worth multiple billions and the slaves worth fuck all in the greater scheme of things.

The trouble is that their economy is so large that whenever it has any sort of brain fart whole world feels it, and this is even worse these days because the brain farts are more frequent and intentional.

The other major powers in the world (Russia and China) view these brain farts as serious blinks and have not hesitated to become emboldened by the state of political chaos that currently exists in the US.

And so it goes. Round and round pretty much endlessly. And the real trouble is that there are no brass rings to catch. No way for anyone to really gain an advantage. No obvious way to see things returning to normal.

A lot of people want to blame Trump for a lot of this. I know because for a long time I was one of them. But the other day I heard someone I respect say that he is just a symptom. As is Putin in Russia. As is Xi in China.

They are all symptoms of a world in which everything has become way too politicized, and is moving further and further away from anyone’s control, which often happens in a pyramidically structured universe where the bottom get's farther from the top.

Meanwhile…

Life goes on in most places. Life is good for a lot of people who have managed to create the illusion of distance from all of this. Who have managed to see this life for what it really is, which is something precious and worth trying to live well.

These generally tend to be people who are not looking at the world through a particularly long political or even an economic lens. Many of them are ‘willfully ignorant’, which as time trudges on and the political insanity grows, starts to look like a much more appealing life choice.

For the past dozen years I have been embroiled in this mess. But that was my choice and since I am a writer by trade, writing about it is one of the ways I tried to form an understanding of the way things are.

But over the past few years, and maybe it’s due to the bright light that the Trump presidency is shining on the world, all I see now is chaos. All I see now are politicians who have perfected the art of hucksterism, trading their influence for money and enabling the greedy rich to get richer at the expense of everyone else.

It’s Not Just An American Thing

This is universal, because political influence is for sale in almost every country of the world to one degree or another. I just tend to focus on America because it really is the country at the top of the heap of this activity.

Putin sells his influence to the Russian oligarch class. African government officials pad their bank accounts by selling mineral rights and enslaving their people to harvest them for large multi-nationals. Countries like Switzerland profess to be politically neutral, which just means they will hide money for anyone. Most of the laws made in countries around the world are paid for by vested corporate interests.

None of this is new. But ... now there is a new generation of people out there who have come to realize that this is a zero-sum game and that if the game doesn’t change soon, there will really be no world left. No growth. No clean air or water. No real opportunity and worst of all, no hope.

So these young people are starting on the long hard road to changing the way things are to the way things need to be.

They are spending a lot of time tripping over their own feet these days, as they try and push the old guard out of the way, but at least there is some sense of vision and hope, even if it is just in the energy of youth and the burning desire they have to change the zero sum game to something more substantial.

Nobody Can Really Predict The Future … But

I don’t think the future is as all about money as most people think it is.

I think the future will be all about unification, solidification and the fair sharing of ideas and resources for the common good of everyone. The future will be about powering the earth with energy that doesn’t clog the air with poison, with foods that don’t cause cancer and diabetes and a host of other ailments. A future where countries trade freely with each other for the common good.

These are not just items on my wish list for the world. But a small part of everything that much happen if the human race is to survive on this planet for longer than the next century.

I have no idea how long this will take to manifest. It will probably be after I have left the building, but I really do think this will happen, because A) it’s possible and B) If it doesn’t happen nothing else will really matter anyway.

Nothing like a life and death struggle to get the old creative juices flowing.

jim out

Jim Murray is an experienced advertising and marketing professional and amateur photographer. He has run his own strategic and creative consulting business (Onwords & Upwords), since 1989 after a 20 year career in Toronto as a senior creative person in major Canadian & international advertising agencies.

He is a communication strategist, writer, art director, broadcast producer, prolific marketing & op/ed blogger & beBee Brand Ambassador.

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