If Abnormal is the new Normal …
And Idiocracy is the new Ideology …
And POTUS is the new Wakeup Call …
And Oprah is the new POTUS …
And Finger Pointing is the new Sports …
And Sports is the new Sex …
And Media is the new Medea …
And Politics is the new Junk Food …
And bi (partisan) is the new Gender Wars …
And Scandal is the new Drugs …
And Tweeting is the new Terrorism …
And Women are the new Men …
And Rage is the new Romance …
And Governance is the new “Shakespearience” …
And Chaos is the new Order …
Then my new best friend is my Self,
And Inner Guidance is my Breath.
If this past humdinger of a twitter-finger year didn’t already make it amply clear that we’re ALL in this mess of our humanness, then hunker down for the finger-twittin’ classroom of 2018.
In 2017 we were enrolled nee hurled into a chaotic crash course on Humanity without shock absorbers to blunt the fall. It made Climate Change look positively mild compared to the emotional Climate Change conditions gusting from the West (Wing). So extreme were these conditions that not only were we broadsided but so were certain despotic foreign leaders whose traditional roles got upstaged by the new leading tweet-man.
As a result, our unfamiliarity with this inflammatory brand of Political Parent Figure has unleashed a culture even more mired in Division – and also potentially great Vision, if we can graduate to the next lesson and learn to see beyond what we’ve been shown to what we feel … to anticipate beyond what we expect to what we don’t ... to know beyond what we’ve been told to what we sense. If we can thaw the Ego and draw upon embedded Wisdom to navigate the confusion we might just nudge our evolution.
But first things first: it’s a dirty, unused faucet yet someone’s gotta run it – even if they’re running it from The White House.
Though morally wrong, War has historically been good for business – on the Winner’s side. It creates opportunity for rebuilding and a stimulus package for economic growth, the implicit message of which is understood by many a Leader. POTUS has incited a global war whose current stimulus package promotes emotional growth. He has unconscionably tapped into our collective unconscious by turning on our metaphoric tap water which sat idle for ages: the “swamp”. Those first water spurts are always erratic-rusty-dirty. An old, unopened faucet needs time to run before it either runs amok – or begins to flow clearly.
Our initial gushes are mixed with gunk and golden nuggets. The enraged world smoulders no more with its questions. Now it gropes for answers and grabs at vindication. We’re becoming both tuned in and tuned out from the fallout. We’ve become hyper-sensitive to nuance and inflection which has fostered errors in perception. We’ve become so vigilant we’re verging vigilantes. And we’re also brain-drained by this very same.
Learning curves are exhausting. So is trying to sift through what’s real from what’s not in opposing currents of status quo vs. bucking bronco. Part of us yearns for the familiar days of old (a mere year ago). And part of us wants to turn that page – to rip it from its binding and re-write the entire storyline.
Everything’s shifting and one nation’s growth spurt from “Adolessons” to young adult has prompted the rest of the global body’s in kind, who writhe in incredulity while desperately trying to reformulate a failing formula.
If Breakdown means Breakthrough then we need to courageously let those fissures continue to crack us open … to breathe humbly into vulnerability … to lean into the disruption and shake off yet another unconscious layer even as we shudder … to wobble with incremental baby steps back toward the heart of our human instinct which has been seized by a maze of amazing Progress nonetheless.
It’s as if Mother Earth threw us a curve ball with a POTUS EXTREMUS, hoping his wish to raze the swamp would somehow raise our consciousness. Like one gigantic global Group Therapy, out with decorum and in with public forums. Ancient Greece meets the tweets as we fight for our right to Be … to put the human back in Humanity.
From blaming to shaming to inspiration and creation, there’s a curious and unexpected combo afoot in 2018’s classroom-of-the-absurd. As ripped and raw and divided as we’ve become we’re also becoming united. The button-pushing of our Technology is forcing our Humanity. We’re morphing rapidly into the latest version of our constantly emerging identity. We’re talking more – about human relationships. We’re venting more – about our human emotions. We’re becoming more informed – and even exercising our right to be on “antisocial” media as we witness unlikely journalists, pundits, celebrities and regular ole folk now expressing the otherwise Unaddressed in full public view. Media-friendly personas show signs of wear as their candour bleeds through their practiced veneer; guffawing, welling up, snickering & bickering, and behaving almost visibly human in ways we’d rarely glimpse a stoic media-generation ago.
What newfound wrinkle is unveiling on the face of our Global Selfie? Sometimes wrinkles are beautiful. They show signs of Life.
We live in a “mind-field of reactivity”. We’re unleashing in extremes and sometimes venting destructively … inappropriately. The risk of powerful finger-pointing lies in the power, not the finger. When Disgruntled meets Festering, they wed in a potentially disastrous marriage of Witch Hunting. Which hunting? The hunt for a scapegoat by those whose Voice feels oppressed and neglected – but whose judgement isn’t always objective when meting out the punishment of the power of the finger (which is finally able to point out so many problems).
POTUS EXTREMUS is an unresolved global malady which brewed incessantly and matured sufficiently … to force us to finally See. Squint and wince we may at the harshness of the darkness that we’ve held at bay, but this is the price we pay to play hide-and-go-seek with our Humanity.
So Hocus Pocus Where’s Our POTUS? Right here, where it’s always been. Within… where decision-making and judgement-calling and temperance and tolerance and discretion and wisdom and the mess of forgiving must all collaborate ongoing, on behalf of our divided inner states which continually try to undermine us.
If you like Unreality TV keep watching the show. If you don’t like repeats, turning the channel won’t change the station until we channel the turn internally – to break the programming. Then we can turn the television to “televisionary”, and view an exciting new face of our Global Selfie while making history in synchronicity: Synchronistory.