Hypocrisy

It occurred to me the other day while I was sitting in traffic. I was surrounded by SUVs and minivans, headed for a major artery which leads out to the suburbs. Most people live a lie.

I am a person who lives alone. I have no children. I recycle. I drive a fuel-efficient subcompact. I pay property taxes at the same rate as everyone else. I keep up my property. I did not overmortgage myself. And I am gay.

The people around me appeared to be affluent suburbanites. They were driving wasteful cars. They were disobeying the lane markers. They were driving one to each huge vehicle. I would be willing to wager than many were overleveraged.

I am perceived by a majority of the public as deviant, unworthy of basic legal rights, a threat to children.

I would ask: Who are irresponsible to children? Who are irresponsible to the planet? Who are deviating from that which is right and just?

Peace

World peace requires individual peace. To realize this is to realize the magnitude of the issue. The achievement of individual peace by millions of individuals who are still struggling for survival on a daily basis will not occur in one lifetime or many lifetimes. This is the challenge of the person who is committed to peace. Maintaining individual peace and hope for world peace under the real circumstances of today requires rigorous practice.

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving about what and to whom?

Traditional societal holidays are clung to by those who benefit from a traditional, conservative society. They are ceremonies of validation. They are fortifications of conformity. Since these holidays have a core value of generosity and fraternity, they are far from offensive, even to social outsiders. However, the degree to which these holidays excite and amuse is proportional to the socioeconomic status of the celebrants.

Could we have an annual holiday of self-evaluation, honesty or meditation? Would those in power support a measure to give everyone the day off for these activities, which do not entail buying food or consumer goods?

Thanksgiving is like the celebration of a successful dice game. If the genetic and socioeconomic variables of your birth and subsequent life are lucky, you might be more prone to be thankful. However, if your variables have been most unlucky, Thanksgiving may well seem a hollow gesture. Many rush to religion in the latter situation. Imaginary friends, judgmental deities, these support a delusion that life has some humanly rational underpinnings. This is simply balm or opiate.

If society were truly human, in the fullest and finest sense, every member of it would indeed have great reason to be thankful every day of the year.