Post Three.


There have been many times in my life, under prolonged stress, when I realized I was screaming deep inside (even stabbing myself repeatedly, though that image is for another time). But this time, I realized earlier, there is only one facet of the cause that's personal. All the rest is what seems to be the world itself disintegrating--or, contrarily, closing in. A fatuous once-naked male poser elected to national office; the breakdown, no matter how politicians and analysts try to pretty it up, of any real, substantive change in how people have access to health insurance and health care; the escalation of a useless, wrong-headed war in Afghanistan when people there have gained nothing by our desultory waging of it for EIGHT years, but are still in poverty, and women despised and oppressed; the ghastly, horrific earthquake in Haiti and all its toll, and the excruciating slowness with which aid has reached its victims, causing yet more deaths of those who otherwise might have survived. And now, very likely, the end of the whole American experiment, of the republic representative of its people's will. Fascism. A corporate oligarchy that, as of now and barring any successful efforts to rein in the absolute power of the corporations by legislation, will serve only itself, and grind individuals and their best interests under its heel absolutely. A coup by Supreme Court decision. Big Brother.


And so I find myself screaming, inside.


Also, there in my head, it is so NOISY. Where is the quiet I need to create, when every day I find myself committed to action, actions, of some sort or another? I don't mean that to sound as passive as it does, because I know full well that I actively committed to each and every one of those actions, even if sometimes reluctantly--more often, willingly. But it's too much. It has--I have--to stop, and listen. I'm pretty sure that the screaming will stop, or at least pause; that I can MAKE it stop, so that I can hear. Still--living in a time like this, with all the crises coming to a point, it is NOT an option completely to hide away, not to fight. It would be so morally wrong that all that avoidance or cowardice would accomplish would be to start a different sort of screaming, in my head. In my soul.