When I was a wee lad in second grade, I was swinging on the playground during recess; my friends and I were swinging with wild abandon. Our dreams and our feet touched the sky, stretching the horizon to its limits. In my bliss I couldn’t see a girl that was trying to talk to me, from the ground she motioned for me to stop, but I was on a mission of my imagination. I went up I went down I went up and then BAM she punched me. I lay flat on my back; I watched the birds and stars spinning around my head for a minute or two. Then I looked up, and there she was, she possessed blue eyes so deep I forgot my fat lip. I was speechless in awe of her; “your turn is up, butthead” rolled off her angelic lips, it was that moment in time I was in love — or at least it felt like it.
We as humans perceive things and situations differently than others might perceive them. On a day-to-day basis, signals get crossed and assumptions are formed because the lack of information being shared. This is problematic for all of our community groups locally as well as on a bigger global level.
Just the other day I called on some friends to help me with a problem occurring in the community, but their schedule didn’t include me or our problem. I didn’t realize that it wasn’t on their priority list and there were more important tasks on their hands that outweighed me. My feelings were hurt and a struggle between my feelings and the problem at hand began to arise in my mind. I thought I was in their circle of the group. I assumed wrong.
So I will pick my feelings off the ground, and put them back in my pocket and continue to walk in the direction my spirit leads. Yes, I needed that lesson in humility, even at the cost of trust, so hastily placed on others by myself. Sad to say, but true! Some people have ulterior motives.
I look back to a memory once a long time ago when there was a girl that I esteemed as a beautiful person. I reached out and exposed my vulnerability of feelings and got crushed. Her eyes were on my friend, and she used me to meet him. It would have had a lot less devastating effect if I wasn’t just a stepping stone, but I warranted no reason or value in her thought process.
This not only happens on a personal level, but also on a community level locally and worldwide. City officials, planners, developers, and special interest groups try to sell their ideas to the public every day, with graphs and figures that they pull out of their hats. Telling us why we absolutely need some project or development to achieve a more livable community.
The question that they always will evade is, who exactly will benefit from the development? As they squirm in their elected, or self-appointed chairs, they consult with their lawyers or the people inside their circle to make sure every i is dotted and every t is crossed, and then they begin the dance of politics with their perfect smiles and primped up egos, only answering what they feel necessary to appease the public or elected officials on their crusade at hand.
Like a cop telling some homeless person to move along, he/she blurts out a command to go somewhere: It does not matter to that person that there isn’t any place to go! And the shelter systems don’t give a rat’s ass about violations of human rights because it doesn’t affect their sense of dignity or their bottom line financially.
All done and said, in the end the shelter systems provides CEOs with full-time salaries, some of them six figure amounts, while the people who are on the short side of the stick called poverty are kept in a perpetual transition mode, living in conditions that keep them a captive customer, an economic prisoner. Then the well dressed CEOs show up at City Hall and have their appointed people tell every one what “great leaps and bounds” they are making with all the millions of dollars they received, matched by federal dollars, of course.
When alluding to the U. S. Constitution's preamble; “United we stand, indivisible with justice and liberty for all”: Is it just me, or does anyone else feel nauseated too?
On a national perspective, we have watched and tolerated economic injustice and genocide of Third World America and Third World countries, the rape of all of our environments and our social structures — and for what? So American corporations or Saudi Arabians can have another best year ever. It seems to be the fruit of their true spirit.
It also shows the true motives behind their actions imposed on the Palestinians and the Ameristinians (homeless) imposed daily on people in the name of the almighty dollar.
Sure, some of us read the headlines — so neatly packaged for us so it won’t upset our breakfast or our day. Sold to us daily proclaiming; “building stability in the region” or my personal favorite, “protecting our national interests.” Stability and interest for whom? Has anyone ever pinned them down on exactly whose stability or interest they are talking about? Could it be the 2,600 American soldiers killed, or maybe the 44,000 Iraqi civilians killed in a corporate-driven war, or maybe the 6 million homeless people in America who are criminalized because of their status. If there was ever a time so eminent to learn about motives and ulterior motives, it was yesterday.
The sheep were so surprised when the whale threw herself upon the beach. Starving lambs killed each other daily, while overfed politicians gave a great speech, with lots of little green army men for children; just exactly what are we trying to teach. And even still, the sheep are surprised when the whale throws herself upon the beach.