how does it feel … to be without a home … a complete unknown … like a rolling stone ???

Late at night with TV’s hungry child, his belly swells. Well, for the price of a coke or a smoke, I could keep alive those hungry eyes. 

Power! 

I sit and I try to make sense of the world around me.  I try to understand the challenges, the solutions and the reality of life in 2008 on this insignificant little rock of ours.  Staring out the window of a bus, at a busy street, into a bottle of quickly disappearing beer, at a blank page with a pen in my hand, I sit and I think.  Power is the destination to which all roads eventually lead. 

As with pretty much everything, it is defined by its dichotomy: powerful and powerless, and the indiscriminate blob of grey in between where most of us make our homes.  This is oversimplifying, I know.  Even the most powerless creature has some power, and nobody is powerful all the time, but the concept is abstract, and I don’t feel like writing a book. 

The powerful will always, and often unconsciously, exploit the powerless to gain what they want.  This is the nature of power and the powerful.  If one wants something and can get it, why not have it?  If one has the ability to create a reality where one can get more, why not create that too?  This is the nature of want.  Buddha says we are all addicts and the only thing we are really addicted to is craving.  From morning to night, we want, we want, we want.  This is life. 

There is no sense in fighting it. It’s nature, survival of the fittest, and humans exist within it.  Bacon said ‘knowledge is power.’  Humans have the greatest capacity for retention and dissemination of knowledge.  Thus, we are the powerful.  May the weakling polar bears, Bengal tigers and great white sharks burn in hell for eternity.   

Oh look at me in my fancy car and my bank account. Oh, how I wish I could take it all down into my grave, God knows I’d save and save.    

So who is powerful?  Of course, the answer is you.  When was the last time you voted for a politician who said he wanted to make your country weaker to make other countries stronger?  When was the last time you voted for a politician who said he wanted to strengthen your economy so that you could have more of the things you want?  You are powerful, and you are exploiting the powerless to get what you want.  Those who disagree with me, raise your hand.  If you have a diamond or gold on your hand, laugh out loud at yourself for being naïve.  (but it’s so sparkly), and put your hand down.  If you don’t, pick up your mobile phone and call the child soldier in the Congo who is guarding the mine that makes that phone possible. 

Just because you believe that the product you buy is just a product that now exists entirely for your pleasure doesn’t make it so.  That product is the material incarnation of a vast web of interconnected lives spanning every corner of the globe.  You are, for the moment, the end of that web.  Look around at all the things you have.  How many lives exist in those things?  You are the anchor to which thousands of webs are rooted.  What kind of anchor are you?

Man, take a look again, take a look again, at things you have collected. Well in the end it all piles up so tall to one big nothing, one big nothing at all 

It’s ok.  This time I am not criticizing.  I am powerful too.  Much worse, in fact, because  I am power hungry.  Perhaps you crave money, respect, sex, food, pretty things.  You would be surprised how little these things interest me.  Raw power is my craving, my vice, my lust.  I am the extreme outlier, the 0.0001%.  They say power corrupts.  Bleak prospect.  No sense fighting who you are.   

So, exploitation of the weak by the powerful is inevitable.  I must grant that getting what one wants does not always entail exploitation, but it does frequently, and one can’t deny that our species seems to be most content inside that happy bubble called blissful ignorance.  Exceptions aside, what can we do? 

They distract, distort and deny.  Wars are being fought.  People are without food.  Billions suffer.  Much of the world exists largely as a mechanism to feed the desires of the west, and that world is not doing so good.  Because it is being done FOR us, it is being done BY us.  But don’t despair.  Despair leads to avoidance and avoidance to withdrawal.  What we need is the opposite.  We need consciousness.  We need awareness.  Awareness is another kind of power, and mass awareness … well … now we’re talking about something.   

Take a look again.  Take a look again.  Everyday things change, basically they stay the same.

What are you buying and what is its impact?  I would conjecture that every war in the world has a white capitalist (or many) behind it.  If you are buying those products (oil, diamonds, gold, mobile phones, etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.), you are supporting the child soldiers, the corruption, the suffering.  How does the diamond improve your life?  Is the phone worth it?  How can you do better?  How can we do better?   

What newspaper do you read?  What television shows do you watch?  Do they support a more sustainable, equitable world?  Do they allow (or epitomize) corporate interference in the media?   

Where do you work?  Does your employer support free media and fair trade?  Who sits on your board of directors?  On whose boards do your executives sit? Why don’t you know the answers to these questions?  You live in a world with transparency and accountability.  Don’t squander it.  Stop being a sheep.  Sheep are the problem.  Be powerful! 

Forget about the reasons and the treasons we are seeking. Forget about the notion that our emotions can be swept away, kept at bay. Forget about being guilty we are innocent instead. And soon we will all find our lives swept away. 

Though it might cost you a little time and effort, simple awareness of yourself and your place in this world will not diminish your quality of life (and you can still have your $6.00 coffee at Starbucks).  You don’t even need to change anything.  Simply be aware.  Be aware of the impact of your dollars.  The modern globalized world is the shining triumph of the free-market doctrine, wherein the will of the people shapes the market through the neutralizing power of the dollar.  There is power in the market.  Real power waiting for you to exploit it, so be aware!  Compassionate awareness will drive small changes all on its own.  In a real time world, small changes snowball and the reaction of the market can create signifcant changes upstream and down. 

Think of all the things you have bought over the past 12 months.  Are you any happier now than you were then?  Seriously, think about it.  It will only take a second.  How do you define your personal path to happiness?   

What if just by buying a few different things, you could make a real positive difference in one life?  What about a thousand lives?  The simplest product contains the living hours of hundreds or thousands of people.  What if simply by being aware of the impact of your dollar, you could ensure that all those people, or even one of those people, would now be paid enough to live a respectable life?  Could the knowledge that you are improving lives, villaiges, countries, possibly make you happier where all your possessions have failed?

Whether you are aware of it or not, your dollar is your vote in a way no ballot ever could be.  The question is, what are you voting for?  A better world, or just a better world for yourself?

Look around about this roundabout this merry-go-round and around.  If at all God’s gaze should upon us fall, it’s with a mischevious grin, look at him.

Peace and love!