mahiwaga

I was inspired by this meditation on racism, which describes the well known evils of over-generalization.

And I got to thinking how people-of-color’s outrage at white privilege will be a never-healing wound.

For one thing, there are way too many white people out there who don’t even acknowledge the fact that there’s a problem. Yes, Virginia, there is racism out there. Sure, we’re not getting strung up on ropes or kept out of diners, but it’s there all the same. When otherwise educated people can still stupidly characterize an entire ethnic group as lazy or stupid, you’ve got to realize that we’re nowhere near a solution.

Now, the trickier part are the white people suffering from so-called white guilt. They are, on one hand, people who are enlightened enough to acknowledge that there is a problem. But they are also (OK, OK, I recognize the irony and yes, hypocrisy, of over-generalizing here, but language just ain’t efficient enough to mince words) prone to taking offense too easily when they are accused of “just not getting it.” Yes, I know you’re on my side, but, frankly, I’m not going to be the one to allay your guilt. What’s done is done, and I’m glad you own up to it, and I’m glad you have the strength of character to admit it, but forgiveness is not forgetting, and you know what, you’ve got to come to grips with things on your own. I’m not going to the salve that eases your soul.

It is, on a sociological level, a lot like a relationship between two people. I mean, who hasn’t been in a relationship where you were used or betrayed by the other party? It’s the same thing, you go on with life, you let it go. You don’t necessarily forget it, though. That betrayal, that abuse, is now part and parcel of your life, and even if the betrayer and abuser sincerely mends their ways, you can’t just go ahead an disavow that part of your history just to make that person feel better. What’s done is done. Deal with the consequences.

That said, is it possible that racism and all the bad feelings associated with it ever disappear? Probably not until we’re done with dividing people up into races. That’s probably at least one good thing about globalism—the gene pool widens considerably, and maybe in a few generations, we will all literally be one color, and this kind of bullshit won’t matter anymore. Oh, don’t worry, there’s lots of other kinds of discriminatory bullshit to wade through anyway.

I wonder if maybe the main reason why guys don’t listen to their sixth sense is the fact that most of the time it tells us completely freaky stuff over which we have no control over.

You know how I’ve been pondering this feeling of potentiality? I seem to lost my grip on it. Maybe it’s just that it’s gone, but I kind of feel like it’s still there, just out of my grasp.

Maybe foreboding? I don’t know. I just watched “An Inconvenient Truth” at the Arclight yesterday and I’m pretty much resigned to the fact that we’re all screwed. Although I am tantalized by the idea of Al Gore running for President in 2008, something I know he has publicly disavowed.

Yeah, there’s this sense that all this potentiality is on the move. Great things are afoot, way over my head, out of my hands. I am a single dry leaf caught up in the raging windstorm of time.

I did have the weirdest vision yesterday, though, in that twilight time when you’re not really asleep, but you’re definitely not awake either. I dreamt about the Unhealing Wound in the Land, a deep ragged scar in the icefields of Antarctica, opening up into the empty Void. The Messiah dives into this scar, sealing up the Wound, and leaving an unending trail of ice behind him, layer upon layer upon layer. In the distance of the Void lies the Singularity, a huge Black Hole that is the source of the Universe’s sorrow. The Messiah gets sucked into the Black Hole, spaghettified by tidal forces, broken up into elementary particles. This occurs exactly at the Event Horizon, and so appears to be frozen in time for all observers outside the Black Hole. The spreading wall of ice follows him down as well, obliterating the Void, but getting sucked into the Black Hole as well, likewise freezing in time at the Event Horizon.

So this is the state of the Universe, the obliterated Messiah transfigured in eternity at the Event Horizon, with the wall of ice holding the Void in check.

I had a few more weird dreams early this morning as well. I think maybe that’s what setup my mood of disquiet. Ah well.

OK, I didn’t mean to make my last post sound ominous. Maybe it’s because tomorrow is June 6. (You know, 6/6/06. I don’t think the Devil really gives a damn about the vagaries of the Julian and Gregorian calendars, so it probably doesn’t have any significance to him, although it may very well have significance to some Satanist or nihilistic terrorists a la Columbine.)

But, yeah, I’m obsessing on that imagery of the Unhealing Wound, and I realize that I haven’t been taking good care of myself. The way I’m living my life (specifically, the way I’m eating and not exercising and not getting enough sleep, and all that) gives me another good 15-20 years tops, which, in all honesty, seems like plenty, but I suppose I should make sure those years are good ones, and that none of them involve cardiac catherization or cracking my chest open to sew in some bypass grafts.

I wonder about the chicken-and-the-egg problem: does your emotional state determine your state of physical health, or does your physical health determine your emotional state, and clearly the two things are intertwined, and while it looks like this is an insurmountable task, to eat healthy, and to get in shape, you know what K’ung-fu-tzu said, a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step and all that.

Feh.

The other thing that I was pondering during my trek down the I-5 this evening are noctilucent clouds, basically clouds that form way high in the atmosphere that glow in the dark becauses they’re so high they’re actually still getting sunlight. Some tie this phenomenon to global warming (which is on my mind because of “An Inconvenient Truth”) but I think the jury is still out.

Still, I don’t think I can tell the difference between a noctilucent cloud, and clouds that glow because they’re reflecting the ambient light from the surrounding city. I’ve frequently been bedazzled by this effect as a child during the summer, when it’s like 11 p.m. and the sky still looks like twilight. At least that’s what I’m pretty sure the phenomenon is caused by. I could be wrong.

Feh.

Have I ever told you that I’m not looking forward to my 30th birthday?