I used to laugh or ignore my sisters and friends when they talked about zombies and the recent onslaught of zombie movies and chachkies and whatnots, not to mention the fabulous "How to Survive a Zombie Attack" posters available to all interested parties. Then I begin to think...what a perfect metaphor for what I see has become of the US citizen. And I am not excluded from this generalized statement either.
We are fat and lazy and removed from all sense of the community of earthlings let alone residents of the country. I'm the last person to claim I am patriotic, and this, my friends, has N.O.T.H.I.N.G. to do with patriotizm, but instead a call to empathy and compassion and respect for humankind. Technology has enabled us to remove ourselves from the reality of the human plight and reinforce we are but the cancer of the earth. We can sit behind a screen and keyboard and say, "O yeah, I'm against that" or "I will join you in your cyber-world sit in" and just hit send to donate money or food or goods to those in need. But what this does is remove our soul and consciousness of the darkness that we are creating. We don't realize that the donation is going to our neighbor's house, or that arguement has gotten physical, or that kid just joined a gang because he's afraid of what tomorrow with bring - we turn our heads and go back to our games, and songs, and movies, and virtual world and tune out - we no longer need Leary's Tune Out opiates. We've lost sight of our community and the living breathing web that we live and that when one strand breaks it will affect the entire delicate foundation.
I challenge you to go to that soup kitchen and serve the food, volunteer at an orphanage and spend quality time with the youth of tomorrow, report the pet abuse or spousal abuse or child abuse or rape or car jacking! Connect with your human kind. Stop letting fear and ignorance destroy what has made us unique. This is by no means a Pay it Forward sentiment. This is meant as a lifestyle adjustment - one action, though it can make a difference, must be repeated for a total change to occur: a return to community. We suffer the consequense of our own needs to be special and have something and be someone and appear a certain way...instead all this has done is make us all the same, and useless. I remember my grandmother saying it takes a village to raise a child...and being a new monther I now understand that concept. We have been foolish with our drive to be independent and separate ourselves from our roots, our DNA our history. Humans have made it this far because we worked together and for each other. The further we slip away from what makes us human the more we have become the zombies.
We the people have also lost sight of WE THE PEOPLE. By no means do I single out a president, congress, House, Senate, Commissions, Associations, State, Local...I blame ALL of them. The agenda no longer concerns itself with THE PEOPLE, but a person or group or flippant ideology: a distraction from the important issues. America was built as a new land to include personal, religious, and many other freedoms as a RIGHT, not a luxury. Machiavelli was not invited to this new land...yet I look around and see his Prince everywhere.
I overhear one person say, "O you can't say that or you'll get put on a list," or my favorite, "I wouldn't go and say that...you might make them mad and they'll (insert verb here) and ruin it for the rest of us." WE THE PEOPLE are afraid. We are being governed by fear. We don't need to opiate our masses...although we seem to keep the pharmas in business these days...we are sheep, zombies, fearful little creatures who can't stand up and fight anymore. We sometimes picket and sign petitions and babble to our neighbor...but we don't DO anything. We assume it could be worse or it'll work out somehow or we accept that our fight is meaningless or won't make a difference in the end. We bicker and bumble around in circles always chasing our proverbial tail. We as humankind have devolved while our machinery now houses more intelligence and control and sophistication.
Consider our modern day entertainment and our obsession with "reality" TV, which thankfully is waning from our mainstream channels. We focus on pitting one person against another, glamourizing what should be considered in poor taste, disgusting and disrespectful. We no longer respect anyone including ourselves. We unashamedly cheer on the lowest form of human behavior and then make them role models for the next generation - my apologies to the Snookie and Situation fans. I'm all for sex, drugs and rock n roll, foul language, and pushing the envelope, yet there is a point when we've taken it to an extreme and have set the bar so low that the world sits back and laughs at what should be our shame. People should be free to be who they are; no one should judge based on race, religion, weight, sexual preference or any other difference, therefore, why glamorize the hate of it all.
Our media outlets sensationalize the small stuff and make issue where there should be none. They contribute to the fear mongering of our leaders. We fled the princes and kings and monarchs and oligarchs that behaved in these tyrannical and hypocritical and demoralizing ways - how could we welcome these symbols back into our lives. The News, as it is called, runs ADD segments of horor and misery in a tone that elicits the worst emotional response. No wonder we all have panic anxiety disorder and live in a perpatual state of depression and manic expression. We hear of this shooting and that death and this fire and that accident and this weapon and that funeral and this storm and that economic bomb and this riot and that disease and this loss and that loss and I could go on with every negative imagry available at my disposal. And the happy children who received gifts from Toys for Tots get 15 seconds until we are redirected to the local amber alert. What SHAME. The Media fuels the fear so that we remain puppets and zombies. All the news stations say "exclusive:" All our magazines claim "best results." All our commercials state "may cause serious side effects." Yet we follow like fools, unquestioning, afraid with eyes faced downward.
You ask, "Well do you have any answers or resolutions?" Or you ask, "What what the hell are you actually doing about it then?!" Have you mummbled, "I'm not fat, lazy, a zombie or otherwise." Or maybe you are calling me an idiot or liberal or far something. I choose to call myself me. I don't care if you like me, agree or disagree with me. I just want to know if one voice can be heard in a crowd of billons.
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