Wednesday, August 11, 2004
Homeward Bound
You know what? I wanna go home.
When I first started learning about the horrors of the world, I found it all very motivational. My own problems paled in comparison to the waves of suffering that I felt wash through every cell of my being as I connected empathically with some of the most tormented people and places on the planet. I couldn't help but rise to the occassion, engaging in a combination of writing, thinking, and small but impassioned activist efforts as I sought to turn my vision for a better world into a reality.
Somehow, it all seemed to click. The world was filled with suffering, and I was here to do something about it. It was terrifying, but I felt that I understood my purpose in life -- sacrifice in the service of the causes near and dear to my heart.
But after a while, it got old.
I still feel a commitment to helping others. In fact, I feel like that commitment only grows with time as I shed more and more of my own personal neuroses and discover more energy and love to contribute to "The Cause." So, as I've known for years now, this effort to serve the improvement of my community and society is going to be a lifelong endeavor. But at the same time, doing all of this healing has awakened in me a very healthy and natural desire to live an excellent life, surrounded by a loving community, situated in a truly free, democratic, and ecological society. And that's not where I'm at right now. So...
I wanna go home -- home, to a place that doesn't exist yet, and may never exist at all. Home, to a place where I feel safe, secure, accepted, and loved. Home, to a place where I can live in harmony with the Earth rather than having my very survival be dependent on various degrees of ecocide and homicide. Home, to a place where the contents of my mind and heart make me a beloved member of the community like any other rather than that odd person who has all of those crazy revolutionary ideas. Home, to the place where I can take a nap on a warm summer's day without having to worry about how many lives may be lost or ecosystems may be destroyed because I didn't spend an extra five minutes supporting some activist cause. Home, to the place where I can fall asleep in the arms of a lover who truly understands the contents of my heart.
Ahh... is it time to go home yet? I've been feeling homesick like this for a while now. At first, it was a very counter-revolutionary feeling.
"You know what? All of that focus on trying to save so many lives with such meager personal and community resources really screwed with my head. Maybe I should take a break for a few months, maybe even a couple of years."
But that was back when I still had so much healing to go through. Now that I'm feeling a bit better about myself, and I've cleared away some of my martyr complex issues around helping others, I'm much more in touch with my genuine feelings. And aside from some personal feelings that I won't go into right now, one of the biggest things that I feel can be summed up in a single word:
Revolution.
With these two eyes and this lovely mind o' mine, I've seen the potential for human beings to live together in true harmony with themselves, each other, and the Earth. Now, with my heart opening up more by the day, I feel an overwhelming desire to see this vision become a reality. That homesick feeling is transforming from a source of depression into a motivation for action.
I can FEEL what it would be like to be home. If I close my eyes, I can feel what it would be like to live a revolutionary life, to live in a revolutionary community, to create a revolutionary society in the shell of the current one. I can feel it in my heart -- not as some random fantasy, but as a very real possible future that is rooted in the circumstances and potential of today. And it's just as real to me as all of the suffering and oppression that exists in the world today. The more my heart opens, the more hope I feel, even as the world around me descends into a maelstrom of global fascism. Where there's heart, there's hope -- and my hope is growing stronger by the day.
So, I wanna go home. It's going to be a long road from here to there -- but the journey is definitely worth it.
1 comments
When I first started learning about the horrors of the world, I found it all very motivational. My own problems paled in comparison to the waves of suffering that I felt wash through every cell of my being as I connected empathically with some of the most tormented people and places on the planet. I couldn't help but rise to the occassion, engaging in a combination of writing, thinking, and small but impassioned activist efforts as I sought to turn my vision for a better world into a reality.
Somehow, it all seemed to click. The world was filled with suffering, and I was here to do something about it. It was terrifying, but I felt that I understood my purpose in life -- sacrifice in the service of the causes near and dear to my heart.
But after a while, it got old.
I still feel a commitment to helping others. In fact, I feel like that commitment only grows with time as I shed more and more of my own personal neuroses and discover more energy and love to contribute to "The Cause." So, as I've known for years now, this effort to serve the improvement of my community and society is going to be a lifelong endeavor. But at the same time, doing all of this healing has awakened in me a very healthy and natural desire to live an excellent life, surrounded by a loving community, situated in a truly free, democratic, and ecological society. And that's not where I'm at right now. So...
I wanna go home -- home, to a place that doesn't exist yet, and may never exist at all. Home, to a place where I feel safe, secure, accepted, and loved. Home, to a place where I can live in harmony with the Earth rather than having my very survival be dependent on various degrees of ecocide and homicide. Home, to a place where the contents of my mind and heart make me a beloved member of the community like any other rather than that odd person who has all of those crazy revolutionary ideas. Home, to the place where I can take a nap on a warm summer's day without having to worry about how many lives may be lost or ecosystems may be destroyed because I didn't spend an extra five minutes supporting some activist cause. Home, to the place where I can fall asleep in the arms of a lover who truly understands the contents of my heart.
Ahh... is it time to go home yet? I've been feeling homesick like this for a while now. At first, it was a very counter-revolutionary feeling.
"You know what? All of that focus on trying to save so many lives with such meager personal and community resources really screwed with my head. Maybe I should take a break for a few months, maybe even a couple of years."
But that was back when I still had so much healing to go through. Now that I'm feeling a bit better about myself, and I've cleared away some of my martyr complex issues around helping others, I'm much more in touch with my genuine feelings. And aside from some personal feelings that I won't go into right now, one of the biggest things that I feel can be summed up in a single word:
Revolution.
With these two eyes and this lovely mind o' mine, I've seen the potential for human beings to live together in true harmony with themselves, each other, and the Earth. Now, with my heart opening up more by the day, I feel an overwhelming desire to see this vision become a reality. That homesick feeling is transforming from a source of depression into a motivation for action.
I can FEEL what it would be like to be home. If I close my eyes, I can feel what it would be like to live a revolutionary life, to live in a revolutionary community, to create a revolutionary society in the shell of the current one. I can feel it in my heart -- not as some random fantasy, but as a very real possible future that is rooted in the circumstances and potential of today. And it's just as real to me as all of the suffering and oppression that exists in the world today. The more my heart opens, the more hope I feel, even as the world around me descends into a maelstrom of global fascism. Where there's heart, there's hope -- and my hope is growing stronger by the day.
So, I wanna go home. It's going to be a long road from here to there -- but the journey is definitely worth it.
1 comments
Comments:
You have reached a point which I reached some time ago: I realized that Yeats was right when he talked about "too long a sacrifice can make a stone of the heart". One needs to sing, one needs to dance. One needs to feel the sun dappling through the trees. One needs to go home....
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