…Ever heard of Black Rock City?

So Last night I found out about the Burning Man Project. For a week every year, a whole city emerges and people from all kinds of different places come to live there. After the week, it all gets packed up and put away. This odd festival is all about community coming together, and about artistic expression. The place is filled with art and huge installations, and theatre and music and…well, lots of stuff.

All aspects of the event emphasize participation and acceptance of Absolutely Everyone. It’s an environment where people can just be themselves without getting judged or anything. A neat idea.

Maybe we’re not 100% doomed, if some 48000 people can actually make this work. I wonder if that means that 48000 people are going back home at the end of the week with a fresh perspective of equality and teamwork to show to other people…

We can always hope.

A neat something-something

This is just something I’ve got a soft spot for: Art/Activism. I discovered Poetry Slams fairly recently and it was amazing stuff…In its Most Basic Terms, it’s a poetry competition. Judges are randomly selected from the audience, and each poet gets three minutes to talk. There’s usually a few rounds before the winner is picked… But anyway!

{This guy (Eric Darby)’s website is  http://www.ericdarby.net/, in case you like it}

My point is that this is a gateway for mindblowingly powerful messages, and I loved every bit of it. Some of these people are really speaking up on current issues, refusing to just follow the uncaring path others have chosen. Some are more indirect, speaking about more personal matters like love or frienship; their own story, but this is still activism I think. By exposing these stories, they allow us to identify with them and realize that we’re really all equals in this world (Eventually we have to get it in our brains and act on it no?). So there, now you know. A lot of cities host their own official slams, and if yours doesn’t, you’re encouraged to start one up. Basically, poetry wins. Thumbs up.

“Meh”

When Luke Skywalker asked Yoda if the dark side of the force was stronger…Yoda explained that it wasn’t stronger, but it was easier to follow.

Now, we’re probably all familiar with the word “Meh”.  My best attempt at defining it would be…”A general expression of uncaring that goes beyond even going through the effort of saying ‘I do not care’”. Would this be accurate? I’m not sure. It will have to do for the time being.

 But in the world we live in today, I find it hard to believe people can actually walk around not caring. People are at each other’s throats over political, religious, and a zillion other differences, there’s poverty and starvation and mass manipulation by the media and…you get my point. We’re pretty messed up.

So here’s a theory: It’s not that we don’t care. It’s that if we took the burden of worrying and thinking about all these issues we’d  go crazy. And at first glance, no one seems to be doing much to make things better so caring could even alienate us from other people (odd how such a delusion could work, considering that promoting change would be the result of a sense of connection with people who are somehow not getting the elements they need to live happily).

We know, somewhere in the back of our head, that we should be doing something. But it’s much easier not to. It’s much easier to stick to our every-day routine. And Because we also know, deep down, that ignoring the problem is just not right, we keep ourselves distracted with an overload of mindless entertainment. We avoid learning about the world beyond what we see every day, because then our feelings might overcome our fear and we could (God forbid!) make an effort to get active about one cause or another.

Conclusion? “Meh”. Could it be that the word doesn’t quite mean “I don’t care” but “I want to convince myself that I don’t care because I don’t know what to do”? At least when “Meh” is the response given to things involving discrimination, poverty, war, etc.?

 If this was the case, what’d be the cure to this wave of intentional ignorance that so many people end up living in? I’m not too sure, but maybe it’s a matter of courage. All it takes is the guts to turn around and face the fact that if we don’t act up, our future could get grim…And where does this courage come from? Well, if it helps, know that there’s an ever-growing number of people who are just fed up with ignorance and impotence and so if you choose the harder path, you will not ever be alone.

Oh, and did I mention that making a difference in someone else’s life feels super good?

To put it short…it may be hard to work for the well-being of our world, but it is certainly more satisfying than the alternative.

I don’t know, just a loose idea. Thoughts?

Blog Birth Thingy

So here’s a post at nearly midnight, despite the fact that the little “This page doesn’t work” sign was neat in its own way, but some celebrating is needed; after all our baby blog is all brand new and sparkly. Time to cut the ribbon!

And so Zián ran out with a pair of big big scissors and cut off a ribbon. There was much dancing and celebrating, people ate delicious pie and ice cream and whatever your favourite foods are.  There were talking animals and fairies in jars, but they were soon freed because people knew that faeries, like all other beings, deserve equal rights. The faeries then also ate and danced and celebrated. Everyone had a super good time.

Then Zián was awakened from her dream by the sound of evil unleashing. This was because while napping, she had walked up and cut off a chunk of Kim’s hair, leaving an embarrasing baldspot. Kim was not pleased.

As a Happy New Blog Day Present, Zián bought Kim a toupee.

She’s not allowed to have scissors anymore.

(Happy Blog Birth Thingy!)