Okay, I'm old. Not ancient, mind you. Just been around the block a time too many to be called cute, innocent, bursting-on-the-scene, or any other youthful descriptor you might want to apply to a biomass of energy exposed to all the universal elements for over fifty years.
I shave, but jeez all those little lines seem to be bunker trenches that follicles dive inside of to hide from the artillery blast of the electric razor, and then spring back after the scheduled shock-and-awe of the morning routine to stubble the whole face.
Problems are like those damn hair follicles, just when you think you've mowed them down for good they are back at you scratching your sweetie's face, or maybe some other sensitive areas of bliss, and ruining the whole night.
People and problems are inseparable. Some have a few more than others, but problems are an experience we all share. The biggest problems have always been our own, and were ones that close friends and family got to hear repeated on a frequent basis. What are friends and family for, after all?
Our daily problems could include being short on cash for the rent, the car payment, credit cards, school supplies, a doctor's bill, drugs, or food. There might have been a relationship problem with a significant other, friend, coworker or family member to chew over regularly. We might fret over deadlines at school, or on the job, or stacked up work with no end in sight and these all heap themselves on the problem pile.
All of these were enough to keep the headache medicine business booming, but now when the macro problems of the credit markets, the job markets, unemployment, the housing crisis, the health care system, the education system, the never-ending wars at home and abroad, the energy crisis, global climate change, and with every-other-disaster-waiting-to-be-broadcast-into-your-home life today seems to be all about problems, which must be what all those anti-depressant scrips are all about.
Why can't we solve problems today? It feels like our petty little individual problems now seem like small droplets in the ocean of problem scum. The government today has no power over the forces that have made a ruin of the economy and our total society. We live under giant corporate rules where the decision makers are loyal not to people, not to governments, not to any religious or philosophical tenet but only to the word money. Money emerged these past three decades as the reigning theology for the world.
There is a fascinating documentary on the subject of corporations and this new religion, or fierce devotion to all things money. The Corporation is a documentary of extraordinary breadth and intelligence, and is based on the book by Joel Bakan. The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power. It has a Who's who cast of major thinkers and protagonists that range from Milton Friedman to Michael Moore and every point of view in between. The DVD comes not only with the excellent documentary, but also includes on a second disc a fabulous interview collection with all the major people who spoke in the film.
Problems need to be understood in order that we may solve them. We have been misled for too long on the nature of our biggest problem, and we must start to retake our culture and our rights back from those who truly have co-opted them under the guise of a legal system the people now cannot afford to participate in as advocates. What the big companies never told the world was that when they cut out the middlemen they cut out most of the people. The Corporation is truly essential viewing for anyone who seems perplexed by our rapid loss of personal liberty amid a dysfunctional and impotent set of governments.
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