A Meditation: Using A Dead Man to Get Attention?

This is not a criticism of everyone, but a mediation on a few. Perhaps I'm no better than they are of whom I am writing about.  I did after all post a photo of Hugo Chavez and Muammar al-Gaddafi as my cover art on Facebook and as my header on Twitter. I posted two comments about them on Facebook, and did a few Tweets and Re-Tweets on Twitter.

Hugo Chavez lost his two year battle with cancer yesterday evening, and it wasn't a surprise to me. In 2005 I got experience with cancer when both my grandmother and her son, my uncle were diagnosed.  Grandma's was surgically removed, but my uncle's could not be because of the position of it and its' nature. (Another uncle currently has lung cancer.)  My uncle was given chemotherapy. Grandma lived several months after the surgery, but she was 93 and did like many elderly people will react after surgery. She forgot how to eat .  A feeding tube had to be inserted in her stomach.  Then she developed pneumonia and died.  The cancer killed my uncle the day after Christmas Day, and my grandmother followed him the next. She was never told her son had died because no one wanted to upset her.  My family watched them  slowly die over the year 2005.  I am experienced with cancer, and I sensed that Hugo Chavez would not survive. 

I am not a worshiper of any human being.  There are people I admire or like very much.  Most are dead though.  I see only a few living people with admirable qualities these days. They may appear to at first, but most make a slip on down the line.  It doesn't seem this era will permit people of true integrity and unselfishness to be.  Some feel that you can't be a Christian or a devout person and have compassion for others.  If you are religious you must be in the tradition of the American neo-conservative or the Muslim fundamentalist in the arena of politics. The political and social justice people of today feel that one must be an atheist or an agnostic to really have any genuine, compassionate social or political ideology.  Religious belief will  just get in the way in the real world.  They are very wrong.  But just like the old and my group built up a lot of prisons of the mind and heart the young in their twenties and thirties are doing the same thing.  Plus the young have the added disease of constantly seeking attention and notoriety.  Are they truly concerned about people and issues ,or are they using other people and the issues to self promote themselves? 

I was telling mom tonight about how some were reacting on social media about the death of Hugo Chavez.  My mother is 74. Getting a lot of attention never mattered to her.  There was no movie theater where they lived when she was growing up.  She was almost twenty when they got a television in about 1957 or1958.  My mother was pretty and still is at 74.  She never thought much about her looks.  Her group didn't seek every instance and nugget and grain in life to self promote.  Many people were private types back then and wanted to keep it that way.  There certainly wasn't the internet where anyone can easily do self promotion and appear to be important.   There was no celebrity culture like it is today. The celebrities had their place, and everyone else had theirs'.  But people back then didn't live in such a time as now with its' alienation and emptiness which we as humans continue to power and drive to a place we don't need to go.  But we are already in that place, this special prison we somehow walked into.

I look at the little kids on up to those through their 30s and a few beyond.  Due to the nature of these times there are a few even in mom's group who are powered by this need to be great and important. Usually they are the ones who can't cope with being old and probably always were the kind who were self important. 

Tonight when I told mom about the people who did blog posts in a split second, about the battle for the best cover art on Facebook and beyond containing Hugo Chavez, the repeated opinions of some and one after another going on for hours about his death, mom said about the blog posts especially, "They are like SEE how smart I am."  She laughed.  "You mean to tell me they're trying capitalize off a dead man?"  I told mom about those who behaved with class, posted a little and didn't get into a wild competition with Hugo Chavez photos, and we both felt they were being sincere and were not involved in self aggrandizement in a dead man's name. 

I am a fan of Hugo Chavez but not a fanatic.  I don't have all this gushing adulation. He was imperfect like all humans,  but I like him because he was fearless in the face of the US government's bullying and threats.  His mission was the elevation of the poor and oppressed.  He was also one of the very rare leaders who was not obviously physically black and who courageous enough to admit to having African ancestry.  That takes a lot of bravery because plenty don't want to be perceived as black or African even if the DNA is hidden somewhere.  Both Hugo Chavez and Muammar al-Gaddafi shown with goodness in several areas, and they had their flaws like any human being.  I only worship God, not men or women. The latter will betray you, ignore you, or even if they are there and loyal, one day they will ultimately pass away. 

It is not always about what we do, but how we do it and the impression we leave.  Many people crave the spotlight. Some seek attention at any and all costs. They use people, even the dead ones. There are the pseudo-analysts and experts. There are the princes and princesses of mainstream, alternative, and social media.  Do they have any human feelings for anyone outside of themselves I wonder sometimes?  

I never like it when someone is quick to call me an expert.  I don't like words like activist either because so much has been polluted by certain camps of people who go by that title.  I also don't live in a place where I can really be affective in getting across any unorthodox information to wake people up.  There's a certain mindset where I reside, and I can't get any support.   But I have honest compassion for people, and that is better, I feel than a lot of grandstanding. I write and do the best I can when I feel well.   If I can make a child happy like the one I worked with yesterday, and I was told he was a problem student, but he took to me and obeyed me as I helped him to learn leaving the class with a smiling face, I feel good.  It isn't all about me.  I praised that child, helped him, and to see his smile and hear his good-bye was enough for me.

Many of us lack humbleness.  Being humble is not weakness or being a pushover.  However, we are told that in order to succeed we must be competitive and always ready with an answer.  Never admit that you don't know or are in error.  We are told that if we have good looks and brains to use one or both to get ahead so we can be the king and queen of the hill. We are told all these things directly or indirectly in this worldwide culture, and along the way we have become selfish, obnoxious, plastic, bombastic, and ultimately less likeable because of our pride.  This is the world we live in.  To survive it I laugh about it with my mom sometimes, but deep inside I cry. 

Rest in Peace Hugo Chavez.  I am not sure what ideology I have.  It's not one thing though.   I'm also learning and observing. I used to be a Democrat. Now I'm a Pan-Africanist. Politically I lean more towards socialism somewhat and towards Orthodox Christianity faith wise.  Since your eyes were on the poor and despite the imperfections, your concern for the impoverished and oppressed showed your heart was in a good spot.  Jesus hung out mainly with the poor, though some want to say he drove a Cadillac and was living like a billionaire, but some of us don't buy that.  Some want to cut Him completely out of the picture, but  He was a threat to the establishment of his day as well, nonetheless He was perfection. 

Thanks to those in social media who handled things with class tonight and then went on about your business.  I really hope this post didn't come off as me trying to use a dead man to draw attention to myself. This is meant as merely a meditation and an observation. 

A Black Shia Muslim Convert Speaks

I was looking at this latest interview yesterday from independent journalist 108Morris108.  As always I enjoy his interviews because he seeks out intelligent people connected to the source of a situation, ideology, or conflict.   

Sheikh Ahmed Haneef, who is interviewed in this video, is unique not because he is a black convert to orthodox Islam but because he is a Shia who studied in Qum, Iran. He was once a Sunni Muslim.  I really enjoyed this interview because he covered very well in a short period a number of topics from the affects of slavery on blacks to the ideology of Shiism to consumerism and its affects on youth. 

I also recommend more of 108Morris108's interviews with various people from Libya, Syria, Turkey, Afghanistan and others including some Americans who think outside the box. The link to his YouTube channel is here: http://www.youtube.com/user/108morris108. You don't have to agree with all the ideas on his channel, because I don't with everything either.  Some videos are not of interest to me, but most are. I just think it's good to expand the mind at least a little.

Bring in the Parrots: Language Predictability and Other Insanity

The average person is pretty unimaginative.  The average is just that...Average.  Everyone does about the same thing when it's all average.  Everyone waits to copy the next boring or vulgar idea when it's all average.  Everyone says about the same thing, uses the same words when it's all average.  We live in a very average society that's falling even lower where mediocrity and evil are concerned. Not being able to communicate very well and listening to feel good messages with no depth are all very much part of the now in America.  

I'm thinking about overused words and phrases that a lot of people use.  Language can have so much beauty and depths of meaning even in a very utilitarian language like English.  No, English is not Mandarin Chinese, Arabic or Persian, but we could do much better than we do in our use of it. We could stop the linguistic laziness we've fallen over into and try to arrange our words creatively and with more thought. 

When I was younger, black people were sometimes criticized regularly for using bad English. Then when I was in graduate school, a new term came out called "Ebonics" which gave a name for black slang and BAD English.  One thing black people did manage to do and never got any credit for was make English in this country a little more colorful and complicated.  Racism and being in a kind of a isolation from the majority group, led many blacks to rebel and not want to "talk like white folks".  Black people did their own thing with English by making it colorful, raw, poetic, humorous, even deliberately changing the spelling.  Some of us even would get angry with other minorities who decided to assimilate and use terminology and voice intonation that imitated white people.  

Still I just drifted over into the race and language issue before it knew it. Really this is about words and phrases that really get on my nerves because they are over used, and when I hear people my age who are middle aged or older using them I think they must be going through a mid life crisis.  Fewer and fewer people want to grow up in America anymore, so woe to the children.  I see it everyday too when I'm not living the life of a part time hermit.

These are the overused words and phrases I keep hearing and reading, and that I despise with untold passion.

*kicking the can down the road--- A favorite with our mainstream "journalists", economic "experts," and our politicians (the respectable mafioso).  When I hear them say it I get visions of a Norman Rockwell painting the subject a little redheaded boy in overalls, barefoot, kicking a can down a dirt road that runs between two farms.  Maybe the phrase is coded. The "journalists", economic "experts", and mafioso politicians want us to be unaware and asleep to the present.  If we are naive and innocent like that little redheaded boy and believe in fairytales and wait with our bowls held out for their feel good messages not based on reality, we're more easy to handle.  

*at the end of the day--- Another favorite with the trio mentioned just above.  Maybe they think by using this near the end of their comments, they sound rhetorical or dramatic. They do kind of lean back in their chairs, if they are sitting, and nearly sigh, "at the end of the day," so languidly.  Ahhh, the actors.

*the 1% and the 99%--- These two overused statistics appeared with the Occupy Wall Street Movement which was inspired by the so-called Arab Spring or as some call it The Islamic Awakening.  We Americans don't put much thought into what we do or who we follow.  We just jump in like adolescents emotional and sentimental sans research and follow the titanic down the drain.  Yes, I'll admit that I believed in the "revolution" when it started in Egypt.  Being who I am, I haven't had a totally cushy existence that I can identify with an oppressor, but I noted the warnings from unconventional sources rather early, so now that Egypt is ruled by a junta and some say the Muslim Brother is bad news, Libya ruled by atrocity and mayhem, and some say it ain't all that terrific in Tunisia, along with the other horror shows that are playing out in the Middle East moving down from North Africa south, east, and west into sub-Sahara Africa, the thrill is totally gone.  Besides being driven by sinister elements and entities and the pitifully gullible and young, I just see it as a tragic farce, I mean fad. How do the Occupy Wall Street crowd know the rich comprise 1% for sure.  They could be .1%.  Sorry bro, but I like facts myself.  Can they prove to me we are the 99% or the 99.5%.  See what I mean?  People just jump on a bandwagon and roll.  If they had really been smart, they would have never modeled their "revolution" after the "Arab Spring".  But what do I know?

 *awesome; amazing--- I can kinda accept a teenager or someone in their 20s using these two even if it is a little grinding to hear and read over and over. I've even thrown out hints on my Facebook page to find a synonym for these words.  I'm an English teacher by profession.  I've taught in three countries and on four continents.  I come from a poetic background that goes back to reading nursery rhymes when I was a little girl to Shakespeare in high school and majoring in English literature.  I don't like to see the language trashed and brought down to the minimal.  I became even more radical about my beliefs on language being used well and expressively and not repetitiously when I began reading Sufi poetry.  

We've lost the art of conversation and debate in this culture. We just hop up with some little slogan or platitude too frequently for my tastes.  In some ways social media like Facebook cause us to communicate less and express ourselves less.  I try to use Facebook as an educational tool, and what I post is controversial at times, but I am just a fanatic about putting information out there for people to use and to contemplate.  I want people to think critically, so they can truly be free.  I don't know where "awesome" and "amazing" came from.  I suspect a movie or TV show, but it is overused.  When I hear people my age and those in their 60s using it over and over I cringe because hearing it repeatedly ain't cool.  It's past time to stop running with the crowd like you did when you were in grade school and college, and talk like an adult.  

My message in the end is to be yourself even where language is involved.  Be an individual with your own gifts that God gave you.  Stop being bland and a carbon copy.