Those with the power and authority to help us, save us even, when things get a bit too much, or too difficult for us, the cared-for and needy. Even if no help is forthcoming, it’s nice to imagine that it’s on the way, and that those inside are responding to their human instincts to help others, as they were once helped themselves.
But something doesn’t feel right. The expectation, the hope, is not met nearly as readily or quickly as it once was. The sounds uttered, the gestures made, are no longer accompanied by resolution or action, yet those who feel themselves entitled to support wait nonetheless. And wait some more. The feeling of uneasiness grows. The ratio between abstract hope and concrete action shifts, and not in a good way.
The “Apagão” (last April’s national blackout), the fires (annual), and now this unholy visitor Kristin are quietly pounding our collective, national sense of safety in Portugal, as – on a global scale – military conflicts, trade wars and scandalous, disgusting accusations chip away at our sense of trust in world leadership.
It’s, on one, actually many levels, not a pretty picture, more a pretty pass that has standing, rarely decreasing levels of anxiety – well-formed and struggled with in the pandemic, and now taken to a new level – the new normal.
There are levels, however, where this must make sense, and I for one can’t have it any other way. And perhaps, like me, you knew this was all ‘in the post’ decades ago, as did anyone who cared to ‘do the math’ or look behind the curtain of the ‘American Dream’ and its many variants that are adjusted to local taste and culture around the Western world.
What was built, post-war, on the pain and suffering of the majority to please and pamper the few was never going to be sustainable. We all played with the formula and, mais ou menos, depending on our level of privilege, took what we could and hoped for the best. Why wouldn’t we, and how could we not, once drawn into the game, whose rules were determined even before our arrival?
No judgement then, and certainly no manifesto, far left or right, up my sleeve to take away all this madness and instantly deliver a world that works, truly, as a wise man once put it.
As we stand, I’m as culpable as any other who’s in this system, which looks like it’s on life support, awaiting some new organs. And if I were the physician in this analogy, I would be making the patient comfortable for the ‘transition’, not filling his veins with adrenalin, chemotherapy or any other shocking or toxic fix, whilst giving him and his kin false hope.
As my eyes see it, and heart feels it, this current manifestation of human life (the induced coma of Western life) must be accepted for what it is and, perhaps more importantly, what it was. A fine specimen in his day who, despite his faults, did great things for which he will be remembered, just as he made mistakes, upon which we might not dwell. But it was a good innings, and as all things come to pass, so too shall this moment in human history, where new life and life-forms must be born, in life’s inevitable procession.
Let’s build on the legacy, the good bits, and embody them in a new and upwardly mobile version, fit for the times in which it exists, this time, now, and not a Biden-like shuffling shell or Trump-like blustering relic of by-gone times.
Other poster boys of a past we might best leave there (in the past) are available, and I make no apology for holding up the USA for special scrutiny, personifying, exemplifying as it does, a system pretending to offer so much, whilst by any sane account, cannot continue in its current form.
It is the apex of ideological form over authentic function. Its ‘dream’ is now a nightmare that only waking up can resolve. The US continues to lead the way, like it or not, in modelling the way of life that gave so many of us so much. But as it frantically reverses out of the cul-de-sac it’s now lost in, ideologically possessed and at war with itself like a cancer-ridden body, we might all learn from its horrifying plight.
An American Buckminster Fuller, mentioned before, suggested ‘a world that works’ vision, which aimed to make the world “function for 100% of humanity in the shortest possible time, without ecological damage or disadvantaging anyone”. A vision that I believe is possible. A possibility I haveto believe is possible, for my life to have meaning and purpose. Otherwise, what’s the point?
And if you’re with me, doesn’t it have to be all or nothing now, and an idea that takes everyone with it? For, after all, was it not (is it not) a partial vision, one that prioritises and excludes, that is the cause of the suffering we now see; that many feel, right in front of us, in real time on our TV screens that deliver the ‘breaking news’ that the world isn’t working?
As I have broken cover, and dared to speak in this desperate, idealistic and even mad way on my Good Morning Portugal! show livestream, I have quite rightly been asked the question: “So, what is the solution?”, to which I have the lamest-sounding, but believe is a truly profound answer.
To anyone sick and tired of being sick and tired of this Groundhog Day, hamster-wheel charade, who wants answers and relief, I say: we will all continue to do what we do, and all that will change is the way we see things. And how we see things will change what we see.
In uttering this, I acknowledge how actually unhelpful it sounds. However, have we not learned yet that changing the outer world is at best exhausting, at worst useless? The world that works is an ‘inside job’ just as all of humanity’s greatest shifts have been. Isn’t the whole outer world telling us, screaming at us, that “we’re not in Kansas anymore” and – as we take a collective look behind the global curtain – that the wizards are a fake, and it’s all been a dream?
A world that works, like sweet charity, begins at home. Within.
Read Carl Munson’s previous article: What we hold onto defines us
