In and Of a System

Tonight, I'm going to bring you into the mind -- or an excerpt therefrom -- of Yours Truly, on or about June 27th, 2006. Let's dive in:

The bottom line is that many of us humans have done very well by the system as it currently stands, but many, on the other hand, have not. My hypothesis is that education and enlightenment are the primary tools at our disposal to help bring balance to the system. The short-term goal should be to eradicate poverty. The long-term goal should be to evolve humanity toward an unknown and higher moral purpose.

A couple of imprecisions aside, I'm inclined to high-five my younger self, for he was right. And it ties right back into the theme of this blog, of course. Many people with psychiatric-mental-psychological (whatever you want to call them) disorders tend to fall squarely into the latter category of my first (referenced) sentence up there. Rampant individualism, so sexy and influential in empowered American culture, has tipped the scales of our cultural rhetoric and policy from the compassionate to the draconian. We are quick to blame others for their station in life, for their financial difficulties, and for their impaired mental status; but we are loathe to consider the devastating impacts of intergenerational poverty, illiteracy, lack of education, lack of nutrition, abuse, neglect, trauma, biology, etc. Worse yet, while working ourselves up into a lather of righteous indignation -- "I worked my fingers to the bone to get where I am! I had to overcome so much!" -- we tend to completely ignore the many privileges of our birth that have directly or indirectly made manifest our happier station in life.

I'm grateful for my station in life, and I hope you are, too. I think it's incumbent on us all, though, to approach one another with compassion. And my dream is that our system ultimately reflects that.

"Think globally, act locally."
"Be the change you want to see in the world."