C’mon, Matty, C’mon
Every few days some article or essay or blog makes the rounds. It ends up in my in-box multiple times, sent from various lists and friends. It gets posted and reprinted on numerous websites and discussion forums, and it generates lots of comments. This week, the article du jour is Matt Taibbi’s The Big Takever in Rolling Stone magazine.
I’ve been reading Rolling Stone for years. And I’ve grown to appreciate Taibbi’s writing and his voice. He’s no lightweight. And he’s funny as hell, a talented writer with a great deal to say. But for all my appreciation of both magazine and writer, I find myself frustrated. I want them to dig deeper. I want them to see farther. I want them to work harder.
I struggle with this whole blogging thing. I struggle with my own ego structures, and how they too often get in the way. And I remain unclear whether any of this actually helps anything, and how. I’m not convinced that it’s good for me to be here. And I’m not sure, when I am here, what I can say that will serve the planet. But I’ve found myself, these past couple of weeks, flashing on the image of a toddler learning to walk, and how one parent might stand next to the child, holding her hand until she is ready to let go, and how another parent might stand across the room, squatting with arms outstretched, calling the child to take a step… and another… and another. And I think maybe who I can be is that parent across the room.
And I notice that I wince as I write that. I can hear my mother’s voice, cautioning me to not get “too big for my britches”. So I must remember, even as I stretch out my arms and call, to turn around now and then, and notice the farther parent who is calling me, to step beyond my wounded and dysfunctional ego, to grow out of my infantilized encultured habits of mind. Sally calls me forth. As do so many of the good people now in my life. The Earth calls me forth. Collapse calls me forth. Spirit calls me forth. The Universe calls me forth. My own essential self calls me forth. C’mon, Timmy, C’mon. Take another step. And another. You can do it…
And who am I, not to do that for others, when I know how deeply I honor and appreciate those who do it for me?
And so I say, c’mon, Matty. C’mon, Rolling Stone. Take another step. And another. You publish some great articles about our present predicament, Rolling Stone. But you don’t yet see how almost every aspect of your publication holds up and exalts the very culture responsible for that predicament. Take that step. Question your assumptions. See farther than you have been seeing. And take those steps.
And Matt? Yes, there are some real scum-suckers responsible for the economic shitstorm now blowing around us. And your work to explain and uncover and reveal is essential. I cannot thank you enough. Truly. But if we keep our focus on those individuals, we miss the culture in which they are embedded. And we miss the larger forces at work here. Take another step. Look closely at oil and energy. Bring in the climate angle. The dying oceans and forests. Bring in the population situation. Look at the effects our culture has had on our collective sanity. Start tying things together. Start digging for the roots. Everything is connected. It’s all of a piece. We can no longer afford to focus on isolated bits. And we could use your talents, and your passion, to help us as we move beyond the collective delusion, and into some new thing that is emerging. Take another step. I’m right here. You can do it.
I don’t really know where we’re headed. I just have this feeling that we’ll only get there by taking new steps.
TTG
Email This Post To A Friend
This entry was posted
on Friday, March 27th, 2009 at 9:45 am and is filed under Touching the Ground.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.