The number of crazy things that are getting put out on the intertubes these days is just astounding. It is difficult to believe that real people in the US are saying these things in public. Perhaps it is really true that we have been invaded by the body snatchers and these aren't people who spout this shit. Maybe all these shows and movies about zombies are trying to tell us something. Maybe I should just take the hint.
People are saying things to each other and about each other that simply defy belief. Perhaps it has always been this way. Before the internet we might not have known. 50 years ago when the country had ½ the current population we might not have cared since we could avoid the crazies. We just didn't run into so many people.
I read about a photographer, a photojournalist, who doesn't trust digital image because it can easily be made to lie. Only analog film for him. Perhaps we've lost our analog trustiness. Everything is digital now and can be made to lie. Whatever it is, it sure seems to lie with ease these days. Between the true stories about those who lie and the made-up stories of those that tell lies, how can we find a way forward? Can you even trust this blog? Can you trust yourself?
It seems that these days that most of what is in the news is invented. One side or the other is generating crap to dis the other side. It is all a game. Framing. Sound bites. Dog whistles. Slogans. Bullshit.
How can we hold the country together with everyone increasingly at each other's throat. Too many guns. Too many people in each other's faces yelling. Too many people locked up in prison. Too many politicians only interested in winning the next election. Too many people.
We try to remember the "Andy Griffith" world of our youth when the country was emptier and safer. We wonder why we can't have a place now like that. Could it be because such a place would be commercialized in about 15 minutes, swarmed with the idiotic press corp looking for "an angle", filled with politicians claiming it was their idea/legislation that made it happen, politicians claiming that the other side with ruin it with their idea/legislation, overrun with loonies with guns who are mad they can't have lots more guns in the new-found "Mayberry", left-wingers complaining that it isn't solar powered and right-wingers pissed that Muslims are allowed in?
I don't know what it all means. I'm sure you don't know what it means either. None of us do. We have to have someone, a group of someones to demonize. Someone to blame for the state of the world. The President. Congress. The Supreme Court. The blacks. The whites. The Muslims. The French. The Russians. Big oil. The asshole down the street with the loud dog. Somebody. Anybody. Everybody.
Space aliens. Plan 9.
I can't ask why we don't all get along. We've never gotten along. We've all been at war with each other forever. It is worse now because there are more of us with instant communication and lots and lots of guns. More guns than people. And more people than space.
A bit of a rant here. These leak out once in a while. I need to visit another country for a while. Australia's on my short list but Sweden and Botswana are coming sooner. I need perspective. I need breathing room. Radio silence. Snow on the TV. Quiet. Zzzz.
I need to stand behind a camera and look for beauty. With the limits of a viewfinder, I can crop out just enough idiocy in the world to find a small piece of sanity again. I want to see small things that make me smile. I want to capture a smile, a pattern, a feeling that restores me and gives me hope. I want to download those stolen images onto my computer and try to make them look like the voices in my head tell me they should look. I want MY digital lies. Not those pushed on me by the voices outside my head. I want a tiny modicum of control. Don't you? Don't we all need some time where it is quite enough to allow the voices in our own heads to be heard? Do you even remember what they used to say?
If you are like me and want some space to let your spirit catch up with you, then come with me.
How often I found where I should be going only by setting out for somewhere else.R. Buckminster FullerI'm setting out for foreign lands. If I'm lucky, I'll find America.
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