The Melting World

And why not fight the power?, as my son suggests above in his thrift store find of the month and his Linus shirt.

Those in power are typically pretty boring, from what I’ve seen at a far distance…and they usually have horrible taste when they re-design whatever building they purchased for some horribly unoriginal business idea. Some of their clothing choices, like pink polos and those boat shoes, hmmmmm. I see a lot of ugly design decisions.

When I see an abandoned building, I think impractically: community arts space, drum circle, jazz improv theater, rope swings like spider webs in elevator shafts to climb up and down from floor to floor.

I never see things like a store for assorted cereal or flavored popcorn, or charbroiled steak, or Walmart or Chilis or etcetera corporate replications in anytown USA.

Mauve, for example, was dull rich people’s idea of a good color in the eighties, and in Minnesota (and probably everywhere?) it is still selected, sadly, for office waiting rooms, along with its equally disturbing partner, seafoam green. What is it with these ghastly colors of nausea and seasickness?

Does great power and cash-at-hand bring great reduction in one’s creative gifts? A passing thought, but I’m sure there has to be those in the world who have power and creativity–and they even stay concerned for those without the first. Maybe someone like Yo yo Ma? Mister Rogers (RIP)? Maybe you have to live in NYC or Paris to have it all?

But let’s just say, for the sake of my cynical mood, the world is pretty simple and ironic about its cosmic structure, i.e. those with the most creative energies and ideas are those who are most subjected to bone-crushing jobs and trials and tribulations of ridiculous tasks, like making handouts for a meeting, and those with absolutely no ideas, no fighting spirit, and lots of re-hashed ideas, are sailing a yacht right now (away from the oil spill, of course). It’s another idea of gentrification–the dying of the suffering, the climbing onto of the suffering by the privileged few, who wear some sharp-toed shoes, and the dilapidated becoming a Victoria’s Secret and a condo high-rise (mauve trim) and everyone else has to move out to a new cheap place rich people don’t want, yet….

Thinking about the world like that is cynical and simplistic–after all I hope to someday not slave away at a 9-5; in fact, I have forgotten that I rarely have slaved away at a 9-5–four years at one job like this 9-5 is blurring my sense of reality. Sure, I never had power or much cash sans 9-5, but I had freedom, and people who trusted me to do my job well and gave me space and time to do what I thought worked, and let me admit if/when I made a mistake, and repair it to, usually, a better plan.

Okay, screw it, my generalizing and simplifying doesn’t work because I want to be someone with ideas and someone with empathy, and also someone who isn’t forced into cubicles and micromanaged. Maybe NYC or Paris, Toronto, Tokyo again? There is Rio de Janerio, as well….Tell me this is doable, people.

A living wage. What is that exactly? Does it mean I need to do a job that merely pays my bills and shut-up and keep quiet, do not question authority, or does it mean, freedom to think, to make mistakes and build from them, to be creative in both work and daily life, to trust people. Does it mean breathing/creative room for one and all who dream big generous dreams?

I think you know which one I think is a living wage. Just please don’t tell my current employers, who seem to have a lot of power, my answer. Keep it vague. Especially don’t tell the ones who bought the mauve chairs in the waiting room and who painted the walls seafoam green. At least, mum’s the word until I can leave.

My son gives me a lot of good ideas–it’s all about finding joy where no one else sees it. You can find great joy in standing and watching a freight train roar past you, in a book about a little girl who learns how to explore the earth from an ant, and in eating frozen mixed berries. There are ways to confuse them–those in power–into thinking they are controlling you, and to actually have fun outside after work, or when they are too busy counting their coins.

And finally, yes, wear the furry black and white undetermined animal hat you found at the thrift store. It works miracles. Take a risk now and then. Smile, ball your hand up to a fist, and fight the power. Fight the powers that be. They probably don’t realize you think as much as you do!