You may have noticed I don’t write a lot for someone who has a blog. I’m not really a very good “blogger”. I mainly write when I get something I think is significant enough to take the time to write. It’s usually something I’ve been looking at for a while.  Some question I may have got a  whole or partial answer to. I guess once you get a handle on what’s going on in the world, and why, the questions become narrower. The answers more specific. Maybe they takes a little more piecing together.  I still don’t like not knowing things. Not necessarily knowing the unknowable, I just don’t like not getting answers when I know the answers are there. What I’ve come to see more as I spend more time here is the importance of good questions. I can drive myself crazy not coming up with the right questions. Without the right questions we just can’t get the answers. The main question I’ve been focusing on lately is why do people not see their future. That wasn’t the right question. The answer to that question is: They do. The better question is probably what future do they see?

If people saw what I see there would be a lot more noise. Not more blogs. Not more news or news letters. A lot more noisy action. When I was thinking about the question the other night something came to me – I think it’s close to an answer. When I get close to an answer I start writing and see what ends up on the page. The first thing that wound up on the page was:

To Big to Fail…..

When I heard this phrase recently I thought, “Who came up with that and why?”. The people that put this stuff in front of the populace always do it with a good reason. They aren’t chatty. The chatters that chat about what the serious people decide make it look kind of like we’re all involved in something. Like we’re all in this together. Nancy Pelosi is chatty, news celebrities are chatty, but we aren’t in anything together. Well, I gues we’re all in the same boat. But that’s just another saying. As a public our actual sphere of influence is small. If any person had a large part in the game things would be different. The real deal is – we aren’t in the game at all, and can’t get in. There are people in the senate – that can’t get in. People like Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich are way outside the game. The DC peerage, who believe themselves to be “players” would really like to see them gone. These two are part of a very few people in politics who actually get elected. You really have to be a special type of human being to get “elected” to government. The people who run the game will cut them down quick if they try something like – running for president. Presidents are appointed. So what about this to big to fail advertisement?

What message is it meant to send? People all live inside their individual stories. The stories take place between the individuals ears – or antenna, depending on where this post is read. The stories all have the same titles: “This is what life is all about”. It may be worded differently but they all say the same thing. The stories are all a little different depending on where you grow up. In the U.S. the predominant story has a hero. This comes from watching many many movies and reading and listening to stories with heroes in them. At some point, in the growing bigger process, we all decide what life is all about and most have settled in to a hero based life story.

They’re is a large group of people waiting for a savior to come and fight a courageous battle. The white knight, the sheriff who cleans up the town, the detective who tracks down the bad guys. We can’t get enough of it. It’s soothing. It reinforces our story. Why do so many people watch cop shows? Very few of these shows have really good acting. There not really written real good. Most of the main characters are snotty, angry, narrow minded fundamentalists with targets to take out there frustrations on. Almost any book is better. Most of the shows I see (when I walk past the TV) have main characters I’d like to beat up. That’s what would happen in real life. But it’s not real life. It’s a justice fix.

People don’t like the stories that say…it’s not like that….that there is no hero going to arrive in the nick of time. You can’t sell a movie where in the beginning there’s a villain who’s mean and evil and he’s torturing and killing and when the movie ends he’s still torturing and killing. People would say – that movie sucks. It’s pointless. Another movie that wouldn’t sell is one where people just decided to not participate in the madness. Any story where they didn’t fight or die or risk their lives to save the day – but just stopped participating – wouldn’t sell. What would the reviews be on that? Well the story starts with a land plagued by a tyrannical government who was on the fast track to taking everything a human being needs to be happy and then – the people ignored them and started doing something else – kind of leaves you flat huh? People want there killers killed. They also want others to do the killing. People want a hero – that will kill for them.

Isn’t that what happened in the Jesus story? OK, said the people – let’s rock – there they are, there’s the evil monster…what? What do mean be nice? Somebody needs to die. I think this need to be saved has become an addiction. A real addiction is never a coping mechanism. Coping mechanisms are designed to help people cope. Addiction is always a method of escape. That’s what I think has people stuck. It’s not coping when we wait for someone else to do something – it’s escaping. It’s a manifestation of fear. People are addicted to pretending. They’re hooked on hope. Comforting ideas. I’d like to come up with something else but I can’t.

So who is the dealer? Who’s peddling the comfort story? Like any good operation there are a lot of people involved. You have the kingpins, the hit man, the book cookers, the drivers, the spokespeople. (It takes a village) In fact if it’s looked at in this way – like a drug cartel – it’s easy to see how to put a stop to it. The only thing a dealer really needs to thrive – is addicts.