Sedna Speaks to Another Generation

I bought a taco the other day at one of those roach coaches that dot the major pedestrian thoroughfares all over L.A. -- it was across the street from the subway station at Wilshire & Vermont. Riding home through the large intestines of Tinsel Town, I wrote down my thoughts in a journal to post later...Coincidentally, when I checked out a home-biscuit's blog he'd beat me to the punch...bah-stuhd...The first two paragraphs was the reply I was going to send to his post but I just kept on going...sometimes my rants turn into raves...


You're preaching to the choir, my son. I didn't watch the documentary about Tommy Smith and John Carlos' black-gloved stand in Mexico City...I didn't have to as I have an uncle who pulled my coat about that turn of events way back in the 70's.The pace of life has become practically impossible to keep up with so we've got to make decisions...fast, so, unfortunately, our generation does not have the luxury of time to think on its side. Our generation, like abused children, need to redirect its attention to the turmoil within before we can focus on the state of the world without. Our generation needs to get-born-again-hard about reclaiming its birthright. Our generation needs to atone...in the cosmic sense of it all: our generation got some "splainin' to do".


Our generation is a hodge-podge of values heaped on us by "the Greatest Generation" --- a self-styled description that I find suspect based on the sweep of its finality. The latter, children of the Depression, whelped the baby boomers of the 50's and the civil rights strivers of the 60's. The trippy-dippy-hippie-ness of the late 60's into the 70's served as the mid-wife which slapped the asses of the latch-key kids who harbor, to this day, an apathy that consumed us all during the "me decade", the Reagan era which brings us to the now; a time that's fiscally devolving into the world that the so-called "Greatest" came bawling into. A time when political officials and industry insiders keep their constituents/ clientele tethered to their re-election/money-making schemes...$2.50 a gallon? Ah, the circle of life...we all get together and partake of this truth...


Our generation believes in building more prisons to house non-violent drug offenders but sit by in an idle stupor while white-collar criminals divest honest people out of their life savings only to get the kid gloves treatment when they're caught...as a group we've been inculcated with the mindset that resistance is futile and that, yes, the end all be-all is to own a house...out in the suburbs...miles away from the sturm und drang of living in a crowded city...Whenever I hear some humunculus try to justify why they won't leave the job they hate with the latter as a preface, I become dispeptic...contrary to what your prezz-nitt exemplifies, you can't always have your cake and eat it too...forgetting it all and shopping is not, in fact, good for what ails you. So white/ brown/ black/ yellow flight into the protecitive bosom of gated communities in the exurbs is out of the question; an antiquated concept that sooner or later we're going to have to get real about...as a whole. The manifest destiny, homesteader-thang was once considered an irreplaceable ingredient in the glue that inextricably bonded every member of this society -- that American dream has become a never-ending night terror. Remember the Norsemen/ Vikings' cultural expansion model? The forces of entropy have been busily at work as it seems everything has begun to decay into another marketing angle for those who ply their trade in the real estate and petroleum futures games...we're just pawns in a world rife with powerful flaks that keep our collective priorities in an endless cartwheel...a constant spin cycle...


..."they envy us because we share the gift of freedom", the mantra of denial that many of us have been hoodwinked into believing because it was beamed in on the cathode rays emanating from their TVs...a gift?...The Inuits (Eskimos) have a proverb that goes something like this: "Gifts make slaves just as whips make dogs." Indeed. I also think of another, homier, sled dog colloquialism that holds truest in today's world: "if you're not the lead dog, the view's always the same." There's always some asshole directly in front of you, going in the same direction. Ouch.


Above is a picture of Sedna, the Inuit goddess of the sea; goddess of victims. Like the truth itself, she was once a beautiful woman. Flawless. She was courted by men far and wide but became wary of the army of suitors trying to woo her away from her father's hearth, that is until she was courted by a sea gull -- a consumate liar. See if any of this sounds familiar. After regaling Sedna with vows of an endless supply of food (promises of economic surplus?), a house filled with servants (tax-cuts for the wealthiest of the top 1%?). The erstwhile goddess of the briny deep was forced to live in poverty and squalor (record unemployment?)...At one point Sedna's father visits her and she beseeches him to take her back home with him with which he complies (the search for WMD/ corroborating evidence to wage pre-emptive war?) but the gull's tribe gave chase. To save his own life, Sedna's father threw her overboard into the icy waters (tort reform?) and when she tried to get back in, he cut off her fingers (social security regulation?) which morphed into the very sea mammals and fish that the Inuit depend on to sustain their way of life -- as things tend to do in creation mythologies told all over the world (a rib, anyone?)...

The lesson of Sedna's saga is quite simple: life's too short to live like a victim, so don't be one. Back in 1937 Eleanor Roosevelt wrote, "No one can make you feel inferior without your consent." Sing it, sister! I couldn't agree more. If you want a revolution, you've got to be ready (and willing) to fight through the miles of concertina wire stretched across the frontlines of your heart and mind. For your very soul. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Anything less makes you complicit in the big fat lie that my homepiece was railing against in his piece. Stop asking the "Why" question. Ask the "How?" as in "how in the fuck can one learn to unlearn what they've been indoctrinated to do from kindergarten forward: shut up, sit still and look to somebody else for edification. Quantify your station from the perception of others who will define you by your purchases, your job, your zip code...


Having said all of this, I still retain a modicum of hope...I have no choice -- niether do you. I try to keep walking my path. Continue to walk down yours. Embrace whatever conclusion results from your journey because everyone's struggle is simultaneously prosaic and quotidian. This shouldn't get your nickers in a twist though because the living of a full life can be inspiring too. Some want a revolution and they want it now but, from what I've seen, that's not the way things always work out...it takes time which is difficult to accept when you really don't have much of it to sit around waiting for those that are "lost in the wilderness" to catch up...sadly, I'm in that last lot...so I'll continue to bide my hours... all the while gathering information to pass on to those who come behind me...perhaps someday we'll all be able to look back in the rearview mirror of our wind-powered vehicle and breathe a deep reflective sigh of petroleum-free air, realizing that that was, in fact, our generation's revolution; parsing out what's going on in our world, not for money; just for the sake of doing so. That people yet to be born might want to keep shaking the trees and think for themselves instead of waiting to be told by "trusted brands/names" in the media...perhaps that day may never come...I'm certain that it won't in my lifetime, still, I don't let that dissuade me. Despite all of the weeping and gnashing of teeth, we should remember to keep our eyes on the goal, what we're all really here for: to pass the baton. I know that that's worth fighting for: on the road of the messenger, it is always night...Laters...


Sidenote: Below is a rap/ poem I wrote back in the day ...I used it in a past reply to a comment but I think it truncates the sentiment above too...double Laters...

POWER

...Could you continue on in earnest while you're living the lie?
A vicious circle in which men die -- in the streets;gang bangers,
"oh the lead them shoot!"
(I think) we all get together to partake of this truth.
The struggle's over POWER and the heat is real.
Dividin' up the youth with precision and skill.
It's torture.
Destruction.
Confusing.
The Massives.
Deep in your foxhole when the enemy hits ya.
Should you be peaceful or do what fits ya?
Aggression is easy, compassion is harder,
'cause you can't forget How the system scarred, ya.
Fast and furious, with plans to smite us.
Strategically planned and inhaled like crackdust.
Arms akimbo I stiffen my jaw. I feel enforcement-
But where's the LAW?
My guard is up whenever I walk down,
The streets and boulevards where he can be found
-in vicious packs I'll dive., a black Kamikaze --
I'm incognito so none of the cops see.
My weapon repels them.
My brains are snipin' .
So later for racists, 'cause I ain't hypin'
A situation.
Keep doing the right thing.
The words are brimstone with a message of lighting and...
POWER!
1, CeeP