Written sometime around mid-November...
Since the last I wrote, I have had a number of self-realizations. Of course, these are the sorts of things that yound adults have all the time. My story is not one out of the ordinary.
My focus has turned to the topic of justice. Self-justice, social justice, political justice, spiritual justice. The differences between "the freedom to" versus "the freedom from", and everything in between. I don't have all the answers, but God, do I want them.
I've put on some weight. However, I have been working on improving my physical appearance otherwise. I bought a watch, I bought my own winterwear, and can afford my own car repairs. I am trying to justify my own existence, I suppose. I am an adult now, and much to my parents' early behest, I have finally, finally been acting as such. My life, my career will begin as soon as I graduate. To the people closest to me, my family, I will begin working on the greatest gift I can give: an intense research on our past. I intend to draw up the Curtis' geneology, offered in dedication to my father, his father, and our forefathers hence, as a justification for where we are, where we came from and where we may be.
"History is in the hands of the conquered." This is a familiar saying in our field. Where is the justice in losing the stories of those used, down-trodden, and ultimately defeated? I needn't remind you where our culture stems from. The principles of truth and justice to live in a free society (free FROM tyranny, free TO be private), the principles of the Enlightenment, were lost. Our minds were preverted either by the reality of September 11th, or by the reaction of our government. America once stood for two oppositional truths; the former being the truth of liberty and privacy (with minimal government intervention). The latter being that of capitalism, consumerism, and the almighty dollar. As we grew in number, in geographic space, and in international power, the latter began to consume the former, thus creating an "us" and "them". I speak now for "us", those subject to the overreaching power of "them". Will we fight in the Middle East to defend "us" (the people who love liberty and the power to go where we want, own what we want, and not have to answer to anyone but ourselves)? Will we fight in the Middle East to defend "them" (those who wish to control "us" by means of widening the gap between the poor and the rich, those who ultimately sealed our fates in passing legislation to take away our privacy)? I feel the effects of their control in my life: In a matter of speaking, they chose my profession for me. They sent my best friend, my brother, to fight for THEIR freedom, not my own, in Iraq. They created a system of numbing my generation and creating a class of disinterested fools, and set them loose into the wilds of our modern society. Where is the justice in that? When did we go wrong? I'll be to my generation a story teller, a lore keeper, and maintain the light of our noble past with what little oil is left for it. Consumerism leads to greed, greed leads to jealousy, jealousy leads to classes...I don't need to tell you where that leads...
I don't have an agenda, per se, except to tell exactly what happened. I love where we came from, I hate where I see us going. My thoughts are a mixture of Herodotus meets Marx meets the prophets of the Hebrew Bible.
....and I can't wait to move out.
My focus has turned to the topic of justice. Self-justice, social justice, political justice, spiritual justice. The differences between "the freedom to" versus "the freedom from", and everything in between. I don't have all the answers, but God, do I want them.
I've put on some weight. However, I have been working on improving my physical appearance otherwise. I bought a watch, I bought my own winterwear, and can afford my own car repairs. I am trying to justify my own existence, I suppose. I am an adult now, and much to my parents' early behest, I have finally, finally been acting as such. My life, my career will begin as soon as I graduate. To the people closest to me, my family, I will begin working on the greatest gift I can give: an intense research on our past. I intend to draw up the Curtis' geneology, offered in dedication to my father, his father, and our forefathers hence, as a justification for where we are, where we came from and where we may be.
"History is in the hands of the conquered." This is a familiar saying in our field. Where is the justice in losing the stories of those used, down-trodden, and ultimately defeated? I needn't remind you where our culture stems from. The principles of truth and justice to live in a free society (free FROM tyranny, free TO be private), the principles of the Enlightenment, were lost. Our minds were preverted either by the reality of September 11th, or by the reaction of our government. America once stood for two oppositional truths; the former being the truth of liberty and privacy (with minimal government intervention). The latter being that of capitalism, consumerism, and the almighty dollar. As we grew in number, in geographic space, and in international power, the latter began to consume the former, thus creating an "us" and "them". I speak now for "us", those subject to the overreaching power of "them". Will we fight in the Middle East to defend "us" (the people who love liberty and the power to go where we want, own what we want, and not have to answer to anyone but ourselves)? Will we fight in the Middle East to defend "them" (those who wish to control "us" by means of widening the gap between the poor and the rich, those who ultimately sealed our fates in passing legislation to take away our privacy)? I feel the effects of their control in my life: In a matter of speaking, they chose my profession for me. They sent my best friend, my brother, to fight for THEIR freedom, not my own, in Iraq. They created a system of numbing my generation and creating a class of disinterested fools, and set them loose into the wilds of our modern society. Where is the justice in that? When did we go wrong? I'll be to my generation a story teller, a lore keeper, and maintain the light of our noble past with what little oil is left for it. Consumerism leads to greed, greed leads to jealousy, jealousy leads to classes...I don't need to tell you where that leads...
I don't have an agenda, per se, except to tell exactly what happened. I love where we came from, I hate where I see us going. My thoughts are a mixture of Herodotus meets Marx meets the prophets of the Hebrew Bible.
....and I can't wait to move out.
posted by James at 9:18 PM
1 Comments:
When did you get so smart-ish? I agree, except I don't think we are disinterested, I think we don't remember that there is more out there. At some point in our lives we all strive for more, but then we get so consumed with our daily lives that we forget and push it aside. Part of human nature is to strive for more knowledge. We think we can turn on CNN and literally get everything we need to know, but we can't. The problem is, we aren't enlightened or interested enough to do that. It takes big events to shake us. It takes small events to shake us as individuals. We need something that sparks us into seeking out what is the real truth, or our real truth, if there is such a thing. To wake us from our slumber, we need to come down the the individual human level. So you going to do that for us? I hope you do! :D
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