[890] Lesser Gods

I've been trying to write a certain kind of blog for at least two weeks. Maybe after watching “I Am Greta,” I'll be able to find it.

There are problems big and small. We address them, or don't, in the same fashion. We regard them as big, and respond inadequately. We regard them as small, and perhaps ignore them. Rarely, perhaps in war or specific disease eradication, can I recall gigantic problems being addressed in gigantic ways. In fact, when you look into the details, it's a dogged and select few who get about the organizing and persuading to make the rest work.

There's an idea that you don't want a king who wants to be king. It should be a begrudging obligation and responsibility. It should come with the “divinity” bestowed upon revelous privilege. For so long we've only known the power of kings as something to abuse. We're kings of our own story, insofar as we ignore our neighbor and history. We tax the planet insatiably. We use the language of war until the words indefinitely obscure the violence they retain. We look for heroes and scapegoats.

I identified a lot with Greta. She speaks, the world imitates. She learns, the world hurls opinionated condescension. She doesn't want to be a person who says one thing and does another. She's an extremely begrudging leader. She responds reflexively, “No, we're here together.” when praised for coming to give a speech. She knows that for every increasingly angry or emotional talk she might give, it's going to take us all. She does not falter on this point.

As I've gotten older, I've had to reevaluate what it means for me to be a leader. I have a lot of not-exactly-empty words about being a loud, combative, and obnoxious voice, if nothing else. I dream of driving around with a mega-phone and fact pamphlets. I rehearse what I might say on stage in a talk or to reporters. The things that I've learned about my capacity to cause a fuss and draw attention are ripe to be exploited by the media noise machine. I could see myself dance and smile and laugh about whatever bumbling following or accolades I might receive. I'd then sit back and watch Trump get elected again or some other oligarchy-based right-wing tragedy unfold every day.

My understanding of myself, power, and my relationship to it has changed. I don't think attention means anything in and of itself. Attention is cheap. Commitment, focus, dedication, and truthfully serving an ideal? That changes the world. It changes it in dramatically terrible ways, and makes incredible saves here and there.

I think it's easy to confuse my conception of truth. Truth is ambivalent. The power of it indifferent. I don't try to speak the truth to obtain some kind of badge or out of a sense lording pride. I try because I decided I wanted to make my individual impact on the world in spite of how impossible and shit I think most things are. It sucks to feel abandoned and naive. It sucks to be poor and always in struggling to catch-up. It sucks when your water smells like sulfur and when everything you own seems to break at the same time. It sucks talking about it for as bad as it sucks, and hearing silence suspiciously disguised as tinnitus.

If I were ever in a leadership position of my design, it would be to first lead with the ideals and practice of what I believe in. That's writing and the land. That's my budget being hyper focused on paying off debts or bills and investing in tools. I'd want to be in a world, small as five acres, of people leading themselves through the ideals and work they stand for. If and when it draws attention, I don't want it to be for its novelty. I want it to be as a provocation. I want what I build to make you feel like shit and then immediately feel like you need to create something like it in your world.

Greta is finding out the hard way, just like I had to, how much of it is talk and pageantry. They'll cheer you on. They'll fixate on your image or at least their caricature of it. They won't, you know, do anything after the splendid walk through the city streets. 10 or 20 will try. 1 or 2 will succeed, kinda, before being wrapped up in the greater artifice as they learn the language of “compromise” and “maturity.” What are you supposed to do then besides carve out your little space that you hope fills with water and one day becomes a river?

I like to think I'm ready for it. I think I can handle the bad reviews, the thousands of opinions, bot, troll, or otherwise, about how I sound, something I've said or done in the past, or just how incomplete and wrong-headed I am in being soooo whatever the adjective. At the same time, I want none of it. I want to be smarter than to get sucked up in that kind of attention hole. I want to overwhelm with my force, not get battered around by rage and hype machines. I want the example I set to be as strong as I genuinely feel about what I'm trying to accomplish in the world and who I believe needs to be standing next to me.

The “argument” for driving on the correct side of the road makes itself. I want to be understood at that deep psychological and normative level. I want to infiltrate and divert power across so many mediums, I hear my talking points on your lips and in your headlines. I want to blithely wave my hand at what I'm doing when asked for a comment. I want to turn privileged and poorly dressed information into instantly accessible resources like a tool you might see on Star Trek. They don't have time to argue with user-incompetent software!

I think this takes the kind of “reflective grind” I've been in what feels like indefinitely. I lost the zealotry to sacrifice everything in service to my most compelling ideas. I don't have the energy to fight every battle. I have what I intend and believe, and as many alters as I can erect in service. There are so many churches, humble and ornate. If nothing else got built, people ensured a church did. I'd prefer a star ship, but the same underlying mechanism is what's at play. What do you believe in?

I have brief moments in my day where I can sometimes see the information I've given someone has actually helped them. They had no plan, I told them what to do. They had no understanding, I spelled it out until they almost get as bored with the details as I am. I believe what I'm doing is a good thing. I think people need organized, practical information that will help them gain control of their lives. I think that while I'm supposed to be dealing with a “difficult” population, I just see people as ridiculous or boring as anyone I've ever met with a little less money, tact, or luck. I use this understanding to knock everyone down several pegs.

I'm never tempted to exploit these people. I want to shit on the leadership of places I work. I want to get angry at coworkers who put in less than an appreciable amount of effort or respect for themselves and the nature of the task. My world gets better when people are accounting for each other, and when I see myself actually helping. It's brief, and why I'm not suited for ongoing empathy-based work, but it's there. I'm not willing to act that by virtue of my title or experience, I'm anything more or less, in a fundamental way, than anyone around me. As such, the artificial and empty words used to justify how the world looks stick out as the disproportionate source for the generalized misery that burns people out and makes the future look bleak.

I think people deserve to lead their lives. I don't think this comes without a consideration for the world they inhabit. Never in the history of our species have we been so unequal, faced challenges so large, and faced the kind of catastrophic consequences of inaction, denial, and mindless fighting over what side of the road we're driving. I think you are obligated to lead. I think you need to take bigger steps in service to your voice and perspective, and I think you need to defend it when no one's around to hear or support you. I think more people need to hear what's wrong, the truth about how wrong it is, and what's going to happen if it doesn't get fixed.

It's not Greta's job to save us. I've already pulled out of the “argument.” We continually serve our heroes up to be devoured by the attention-machines; “follow me!” What's your daily devotional after you concede God's not there? What's your understanding of “the problem?” I need to see it. You need to see it. We are built around saying one thing and doing another, while the arbitrary swings of power maybe, kinda, work here or there. Where are we going to get the appreciation for the divinity in the work that needs to be done without talking about it, deliberately, with a plan, and a sense of responsibility to get it done? Is it space we're going to continue to cede to the most delinquently faithful and ideologically possessed?

I go back to “work” tomorrow. I did “better” in staying on top of my notes and mileage this week, but it's still not complete. I get to scramble for a few last-minute hours in service to my wage-slavery. I get to carry on like the sliver of “help” I provide, be it in visitation or information, is supposed to sustain me until I find myself with enough paychecks saved to call it quits. I find the world outside of genuine effort and creation absolutely miserable. I hate myself slogging through it. I hate every time I'm compelled to use the word “practical” in service to it. I hate every wasted minute and repeated thought about abuses of power, money, and someone's otherwise good nature and skill. It's going to take considerably more than my voice or effort to change that. I won't pretend I believe help is coming.