Tributaries
Away from the mainstream pop culture, tributaries of rich media and ideas flow and feed those who are willing to break away from the pack.
I have always sought these experiences. But now I have found new meaning in them.
Lately I have come to realize that our economy is becoming more and more driven into the mainstream. And while tributaries still exist, those who make their livelihood from them are finding it increasingly difficult.
And yet they remain. Whatever the trials and tribulations they must endure, they are committed to sustaining the flow and avoiding the currents that grow stronger and threaten to pull them into the mainstream.
There are still many who believe that a rich society, diverse and free from constraints of the mainstream is worth whatever price they pay or wealth they shun in order to partake in it.
I fear that someday only those who do not have to spend their days and nights earning what they require to survive will have the luxury of participating in the tributary streams.
The current is indeed strong, resistance more difficult as our means of meeting demands of survival become more taxing. Opportunities for those who wish to opt out are dwindling.
A fundamental change in society, our values, our economy is in order.
To opt in, is to require us to live dual lives. One where we commit ourselves to values, ideals and goals that are not our own. To join the mainstream is to shed some of yourself in favor of the larger body.
While this may always be true as long as we are concerned about our universe and our impact on it, it need not be so, when choosing how to make a living.
I have noticed that so much of our infrastructure is designed to serve corporations rather than individuals. As a result the well being of people in our society has become a low priority.
Have you noticed how many "deals" declare benefits that are not in your best interest? Well this is fodder for another post and not the intention of this one.
My intent with this post is to simply suggest that we all take some time, daily, to step out of the mainstream and support a tributary.
Visit a Mom & Pop shop. Support a local artist, musician, craft person. Find some art, music, video from some obscure artist on the internet and let folks know about it.
There is a tremendous amount of great work being done by people who will never swim in the mainstream, some by choice and some due to circumstances.
Frankly, I think that the quality is better, and the rewards are richer in these tributaries. I think you will too.
Visit the Krackpot for some samples of Tributary works.
posted by Charles Bergeman @ 12:57 PM
5 comments
5 Comments:
I like your post very much for its perspective and its calm tone. I say "calm tone" because I think in your shoes, that is reading between the lines and living in your USA, I'd be on the side of radical revolutionaries - if there are any - rather than local crafts. I would sing "Where have all the Flower People gone?", not for their dubious decorative qualities but an integrity of vision that is lacking today.
I might stand on a windy street corner in Chicago on a wooden box and declaim Allen Ginsberg's Howl.
But I do not wish to detract from the simple power of your essay. Here in England I am with you.
Yves, thanks for the comment.
I side with the revolutionaries too.
However, the protests of yesteryear are no longer effective. (They spoke to a different time, circumstances and place)
I see revolutionaries today as those who find new ways to live in our society. They step aside from the mainstream and find a flow more in tune with the direction they are seeking.
To stand by the mainstream and complain that it is going in the wrong direction does not alter it's course.
However,if I passed you on a windy street corner in Chicago on a wooden box, I would take a moment to listen to you speak.
"To stand by the mainstream and complain that it is going in the wrong direction does not alter its course."
But if one explained rather than complained? Have the people no power? Is this what you are saying?
Is the country which is violently imposing "democracy" upon selected parts of the world incapable of any form of democracy itself?
It's a rhetorical question, because it's apparent that the answer is "no".
Democracy is the art of lying to win votes. People-power is the art of getting angry to change history.
"Terrorists" and "insurgents" are angry enough to sacrifice their lives to change history. If they knew a less ugly way than suicide they would use it.
The people of America are enduring a more nightmare existence than those in Orwell's 1984. Words have utterly changed their meaning and they don't realise it. "Freedom" and "democracy" are what they don't have. With a president who has dragged their reputation to its lowest ever, they are powerless to do anything about it because their politics is become a mockery.
Yves,
The current Administration has worked diligently to destroy Democracy while engaging in a unprovoked "war on terror" (which is not an entity, rather a technique).
Meanwhile they have eroded our freedom and rights, and centralized power in the Executive branch.
I have a long history of engaging those who support this course of action. So much so that I spent a long time working for a corporation that is part of what some would call the Military Industrial Complex.
What I discovered is an unrelenting commitment to an ideology that is not only harmful to our society and the rest of the world, but also to those who support it.
Revealing the irony of their position does nothing but anger them. It does nothing to alter their opinions.
Explanations (calmly, logically spelled out), are interrupted with talking points, in raised voices, with an arrogance that rebuffs any attempts to sway their opinions.
I have hundreds of examples of career limiting conversations I had with those who were in high level positions in this corporation, to no avail.
They had their corporate offices in San Francisco. We were shut down on a few occasions by protesters at the beginning of the Iraq war.
I sympathized with the protesters, but I knew their message was falling on deaf ears.
Finally after participating in the development of a web site used to solicit vendors for work on the Iraq re-construction (only weeks after the war started), I asked to be laid off.
I felt like Cindy Shean must have felt when she recently gave up in frustration after the Democrats gave in to Bush and continued funding the war after previously supporting a time line to get out.
There were other reasons I did what I did having to do with outsourcing, having to lay off friends of mine, and an impending relocation of the business to a more politically friendly part of the nation.
After all of this, I have come to realize that the best approach is to support those who are of like mind, rather than rail against those who have failed to see the light.
We feel disenfranchised. The "flower children" are not gone, and they are not hiding. But they are in survival mode.
And as such, they need our support. Don't abandon them and give all your attention to the "lost children". They have enough attention already, and they are indeed a lost cause.
I have a 15 year old daughter. She and her generation are not lost.
They are beginning to see the light, and we need to point them towards it, not into darkness.
Focusing on the lost children is to focus on darkness.
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