On Independence

July 4, 2012

I used to be proud of this day. Unfortunately, I have read my history, which never leaves me shy of ashamed. The pit of shame grows deeper every time. There is nothing I can do about it.

We Americans will never fight the right war of independence - we are too blind, too shortsighted for such bloody activity. For all our pomp, trampling around on the "home of the brave" and "land of the free" -- when will we learn to look backwards and examine just how valiantly our fights were won?

When will we ever weigh the cost of our illusive freedom (for turning a blind eye is might blissful and a Big Mac is more pleasing than shoving the likes of Wounded Knee down our throats) against the cost of dignity?

I realize now, of course, always too late, that no destiny was ever manifest but that which we create and execute ourselves. Divinity fled from Eden as we marched West and jumped off the cliffs of California. And what a white man's burden is that! Chasing God all the way into the sea to claim our "destiny" all in the Good name. And questionable faith.

The idea used to be beautiful to me. It was beautiful until I learned how much of its full meaning I had to omit: life - if I were a land-owning white man; liberty - to plunder and pillage and oppress - if I were a land-owning white man; and the pursuit of happiness - repeat the refrain again. Though the definition has been revised time and time again, Americans have still never quite defined "happiness," and I'm sure we never will.

If it really is that picket fence, painted shiny white but termite infested, then it's not my dream. And if it really is money,l gotten through deception and derived from imaginary confidence or the lack thereof - it is not my dream, again.

July 5, 2012

I have built my own dream, far away and I know the irony of it. East not west but still just as manifest as ever, expanding borders of attitude and ideology, again with my presence that is not native. Am I just as guilty as everyone who won the West?

People always have a way of looking back on history and convincing them selves that they aren't continuing it. It is a shame, then, because there is nowhere to run, trapped on this green and blue sphere that we systematically destroy. It is a shame that for all my thinking, it will always be human.

Don't misunderstand, I am not self-hating, only frustrated. I am not out of rope, just lonely. It is all empty space except for where the atrocities are. Maybe there is a veil somewhere that ripples occasionally and lets some beauty through. Or maybe beauty is something we contrive, so desperate for goodness we start hallucinating our greatest desires. The heat is strong. And the mirage is seductive. But its water won't save us.