The Occupy Seattle scene at Westlake Park emanated a quiet and profound strength when I stopped by to show support last week. People talked in small groups about things that mattered, and homemade signs induced honks of support from passersby. Instruments were played and songs were sung. Free soup was handed out. And the tents, tarps, and sleeping bags illustrated great resolve.
It was much more Gandhi than Guevara. The protest I had imagined – a homogeneous group of counter-culturists like something out of Forrest Gump – was not to be found. With occupants ranging from soccer moms pushing strollers, to shirtless college kids braving the autumn crisp, to men in suits stopping by on their lunch break, the growing movement of our times proves both elusive to define and powerful in its breadth.
Things aren’t right. We all seem to know this. Yet because of today’s omnipresent umbrella of megalomania, we can’t point to one specific thing to change in order to make it all better. There’s no single unifying cry of “Hell no, we won’t go!” or “No taxation without representation!”
True, we know that the banks are shitty and corruption among our leaders is rampant. We know our government is not ran “of the people, by the people, for the people,” rather of the dollar, by those who have the dollar, so that they may have more dollars. We have some sense that the country has become too big, perhaps the Earth too small. There are so many things needing change in our world it becomes difficult to know where to begin. But if the will exists, the direction will come.
And the will does exist because back in school we were taught that a feudalistic society was not a fair manner of government – it is not conducive for the majority’s “pursuit of happiness.” Yet medieval is exactly what our system has become. There are nobles and lords who own everything and make the rules, and then there is the rest of the population. We are indeed the 99%; and our Matrix lives have become nothing more than economic instruments toiling in serfdom to aggrandize the wealth and power of those with wealth and power.
It is true that we live in a greed culture, but it is intertwined and enabled by our own ignorance culture. A thousand times a day – through television, billboards, celebrities, clothing, and cars – we are told how it is and what to believe. And without question we believe it. We live in a dehumanizing world of the bought and sold, the new and the newer. Owning a cellular phone that can pinpoint your exact location relevant to the nearest McDonald’s has become essential to our lives; we have forgotten that Magellan and his crew circumnavigated the globe with a sextant, and that even more so we are animals with a built-in directional coordinating systems called instinct that even concrete cannot pave over.
Exercise is something done begrudgingly on a treadmill in front of a television, play having all but vanished from the modern life. Comfort and luxury have triumphed over passion, courage, curiosity, and integrity as indicators of a life well lived.
And these cycles of change – away from the human and toward the mechanized – are speeding out of control. How different was the world ten years ago? Twenty years ago? Today’s communication is executed with texts and tweets. When was the last time you handwrote and mailed a letter to a friend? How does our generation’s vocabulary stack up against our grandparents’?
The thoughtful is being murdered by the instantaneous, and when this happens our minds become a blank slate ripe for enslavement.
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Among the Occupants last Monday were two guys playing chess on a 12’ by 12’ cloth board laid upon on the concrete. Moving the feet-high pieces with hand or nudging them with foot, the players moved deftly around the board competing at this ancient test of human tactic and cunning. Knights moved up two and over one, rooks roamed the board like lions, and each player protected their king while pursuing the other. No explanation of the rules was needed; the players and the growing crowd knew how each piece moved and how to achieve victory.
The beginning of any work is the most important. The Occupy movement is in its nascent. Our will has been established, the board is laid out, and the pieces are coalescing. Yet, if we are to overthrow the modern lords and their glutton-institutions we must focus this raw energy to forge a unified strategy – one borne of human ingenuity and executed with human perseverance.
