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www.kevacho.com
©2002-2024
Kevin Michael Vance
Writer - Portland, Oregon
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June 06, 2010
Stream of consciousness...
Where are we as a society, as a civilization? Are we kind? Are we generous? Are we the better part of civility, or the worst? Bust a hole in the ocean floor and watch the thousands upon thousands of crude oil spew into the gulf coast and what do we do? Stand on the shore and point. Motion for others to step in and do something. Give the president and the company responsible for such a devastating act, a simple, painless slap on the proverbial and theoretical wrist.
I don't know. I truly don't. The only thing I know is this: the older I get, the less and less I want to be a part of what the world and America is becoming. Selfishly, I want to live away from society, write my stories, play my silly games, and live the remainder of my life in some vague simulacrum of peace and solitude. Because, what I see on a daily basis, in my work and personal life, is a society and a civilization that is cannibalizing its self, chomping away at the very heart and intellect of what makes a community, a society, civil. And what is that, what is the heart and mind of civility? To me, it has, and will always be, simple. The foundation of civilization is communication and manners- decorum, if you will. Nothing happens if we cannot, or even refuse to, communicate with one another, and forward motion, an impetus towards progress and change, can never happen without decorum, without some basic understating of the inherent virtues as such age-old ideologies as honor and respect. Unless, of course, our society and culture is fast moving towards a state of totalitarianism; which, I realize (sometimes painfully) American culture has been leaning towards, more and more, in the past few decades. Without the basic concept of manners- knowing that, there is a right and a wrong way in which to deal with your fellow American- society is lost. I believe this is the road, knowingly or unwittingly, that society has chosen to trudge. And I also believe that in the end, it will lead to our inevitable doom. I see so much lack of communication, so many rude people and so few polite and decent folk that it saddens me. I admit I am bitter and I am cynical. Nor have I ever been a strong proponent of society on a whole. I have, in fact, struggled to go my own way and clear my own path. And in so doing, I have striven to live with precepts garnered from a myriad of sources, my own code of conduct. As well as to live with as open and honest a heart as I could have mustered. No one is perfect, and none of us is perfect. But think about the people in your life. Not the people that you know intimately, but the people who pass through your life: your grocer, your waiter or waitress, your cashier, your "gas-pumper", your cook. Lift your eyes from your "blackberry", pull the ear "buds" and the "blue-tooth" from your ears and realize, truly realize, that real life, your life, is passing you by. You don't know it yet, because you're so entranced by what is happening out "there" and not giving proper attention to what is happening right in front of your own down-turned nose, but the opportunities and chances you so desperately cry for might be staring you in the face.
Just a thought.
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