Occupy: My Head - The Thicker the Head.......

Cranium Thick; Change Hard

I want to flippantly call this all about how the possibility of positive change in one’s life, is proportional to the thickness of that one’s skull.

Literally, obviously, it’s not true.  But sometimes, it sure does seem like it.

Living here, in the wild North Country of Michigan, I sometimes feel like a minority. 

I’m a fat white middle aged male, so I don’t mean in ethnicity or gender, or age.  Especially for this area.

I mean in just some of my politics and social mores.

I believe in gay marriage.  As a rule, I find the institution of marriage an antiquated and silly institution.  In practice, having a life partner is often delightful, fulfilling, and necessary.  If someone wants to hold a ceremony, and call it getting married; more power to them.  Everyone should be able to do that if they want.  Male, female, transgendered, it doesn’t matter.

I’m not in love with guns and hunting.  Don’t misunderstand, as a testosterone filled male, who is a professional mechanic by trade; I love beautiful mechanical objects that can make a loud noise, or blow something up.  But I don’t think everyone needs one, or that I need to carry one, or that I need to go out in the woods to kill the very animals that I so enjoy seeing.  Granted, some animals in particular are overpopulated due to us killing off their natural predators, so taking them as game in regulated numbers to supplement our food, is a good thing.  But I still don’t do it. 

I really could go on, and on, and on.  But I won’t.  I’m also not Republican, or conservative, or the owner of a huge pick up truck, or anti technology, and lots of other things.

I’m not patting myself on the back, because often I wish I was like everyone else.  I tried to be like them, when I was younger.  It was fun to fit in, to have so many common interests to talk about.  But it was a lie.  It wasn’t who I was.  It sucked.

I’m just sad and frustrated.  When I try to correct someone’s idle comments, sometimes those that I find pretty distasteful; it’s like I’m talking a foreign language.  I get blank stares, and grunts to indicate that they did hear me.

If they took the time to actually argue with me, at least I would know that they cared. 

I’m going to grab the current Occupy Wall Street movement as an example here. 

Few people up here know about it.  Many have heard of riots taking place in some of the larger cities around the country.  But so few know what it is all about.  So few recognize that it is all about their own issues.  If I try to tell them of what the 99% headline is all about, they insist that that isn’t them. 

I wish I was younger, I wish this was happening before I got married and had kids.  I want to tell myself that if this were so, that I would drop everything, and go to Detroit, or New York, Or St. Louis, and join the Occupy movements.  Try to have my voice heard, to tell the world that it needs to change.  The future depends upon it.

But I’m a coward.  Sure, maybe not to the naked eye, but I am.

I used to be fond of a certain truth.  The smart man must be prepared to drop everything, and get out of harm’s way, when it becomes clear to his logical mind, that it is time.  Don’t take clean socks, don’t water the plants, don’t lock the house.  Just throw the wife, kids, and dog into the car, and get the hell out of there. 

It has a survivalistic flavor to it, but I think it’s probably right.

That ideology doesn't deal directly with Occupy, except in the mindset of this:  If you truly believe in something, you should act on it.  Not tomorrow, not next month, but now.  If you wait, it may very well be too late.

And yet, knowing all that, deep down in my bones, I do not go.  Such a thing, is just not possible.

And that, as Yoda would say, is why I fail.

I wish Occupy Wall Street all the luck.  I’ll send encouragement.  I’ll send small donations.  But I won’t go. 

This all makes me wonder, if I am an all too common component in today’s society, maybe all over the world. 

I want change, I have lots of ideas, and I can go on and on about how I think it should be.  But when the rubber meets the road, I’m surrounded by naysayers who believe what they hear, I have a family I don’t want to let down, I have a job I don’t want to lose.  I have all the excuses I need, to not do it. 

But I hope I am a small minority of the change minded people in this world.  I hope the Occupy Wall Street movement does not fail.  I hope not too many people are hurt or killed along the way.  I hope that real change, and reform takes place. 

Just because I fail.  Doesn’t mean that you have to.

Cheers, to the black ale of cowardly complacence.