(r)evolution???

       i woke up to people running down the dorm hallways, then someone knocked on my door. they asked me to turn on my tv. i saw the second plane hit live. in a daze i went to my first class and it was the only thing people were talking about. i knew what had happened, but i still asked. it didn't feel real. a few of the others hadn't heard yet and voiced their confusion with mine. the teacher dismissed the class early, the rest of the classes were canceled for the day. i sat huddled with strangers, new friends that i had met only a few weeks before, staring at the television, watching the planes fly into the towers over and over again. then they cut to them as they crumbled, as people ran from the dust clouds. we sat silent, occasionally paralyzed by fear or shock or anger. when the conversation started, it was of war, and suddenly my fear wasn't for the people in the towers -- it was that i had just turned 18 and was now eligible for the draft. i wasn't a very warlike individual.

       my friend dan wrote an excellent post today. you should go read his because he's always been better with words and ideas than me. i wish i shared his optimism about our country catching up, though. yesterday, on npr, i heard an author talking about how he thinks we've gone in exactly the wrong direction. in some ways we've changed for the better. (i got an email this morning from a meetup.com co-founder about how 9/11 was part of the impetus for creating a site that would organize people to meet up in person and create a community, much like the little communities that were formed and bonds that were made when people were forced to come out of their apartments and help their neighbors ten years ago.) but we're a mess. economically, socially. the emergence and especially the continuation of the tea party is to me very alarming. people are scared, panicked by change. we took risks. they were bad ones. the world is still trying not to collapse.

       only on the precipice do we evolve. i've written about that line before. when looking for that link i was surprised that it was only last october when i wrote that. it seems like it could have been as long ago as the attacks. just looking back at that old post has changed my mind about this one a little. it's not optimism so much, but a small hope at least. i've been talking about hope with my therapist. i've been losing mine lately. again. for me it's become very difficult to tell the difference between hope and delusion. i, like the rest of the world, have been very close to the edge. i hope we'll be able to see it as an opportunity. i've been fighting, though. still not warlike, no. or at least not in that sense. but something has changed. i've signed those petitions just like dan. i've been trying to stay better informed. internally, too, i'm fighting. i'm getting help. maybe this time..... who knows? i'm slightly terrified to see where we'll be in another ten years. but there's some hope there, too, if only because there always is.

       where were you?

the quintessential human delusion...

       it's no secret that the last few months have been pretty tough for me. even i'm starting to get sick of all my whining and "woe is me." maybe it's the fact that it's autumn (by far my favorite) or that i have something of an income now, or perhaps it's simply that i'm getting used to the way things are, but the thought struck me this morning that i'm actually thriving. it might only be on a level equivalent to that of a bacterium in a petri dish (in terms of social standing, not rate of growth), but i'm bolstered by the realization that in some ways i've been at my best. i came to this conclusion after speaking with a couple friends in similarly tough times. their attitudes and feelings reminded me of my own, and the hope and optimism that i have for them allowed me to take a step back out of my own wallowing to see that the dark times often turn out to be some of my favorite.

       several days ago i happened through a bit of channel surfing to come across the remake of "the day the earth stood still." the character played by the wonderful john cleese, here proclaimed a world leader (as a thinker, not a person in a position of political or religious power), said "it's only on the brink that people find the will to change. only at the precipice do we evolve. this is our moment." my feeling has been something like that, a throwback to my old perhaps naive but still favorite topic of hope, a thing which the second matrix film profoundly characterized as "simultaneously the source of your greatest strength and your greatest weakness," a statement that i've found to be quite true (which is perhaps the reason i'm so fascinated by the subject).

       i know that i have been evolving over the last couple months. faced with a precipice of my own, many times (and still) wondering if it would be better to give up entirely on my rather ridiculous dream of sustaining myself as an author, it only takes a glance at my notebooks and computer documents to see that i've written more in the last month or so than in all the rest of 2010. and i have a job which may afford me the chance to be self-reliant within a few more months. the economy is still very squarely in the crapper, as is my mood more often than not, but in keeping (relatively) up on current opinions and trends, there's certainly a note of cautious optimism. such is the case with queer rights (at least in the u.s.) as well. the phrase "all men are created equal" is still something of a humorless joke, but there have been several extremely important advancements in the courts as well as with public opinion (which, for the first time in recent history, the (still small) majority supports equality). will this be a great human precipice that will bring about some wonderful evolution? probably not. but there's hope, and that's the point.