Hope amidst the bullshit...

I found this post, this morning...

Trusting people less...

It's amazing how long people will go on with the same problems going unresolved...

Thinking about it...and how little effort so many people put forth in life...

I somehow found hope amidst the bullshit...

I realized that if Metallica can come to terms with how fucked up their relationships are with one another...

Then, perhaps...all of the rest of us can, too...

My friends...the ones who've really lamed out on me, at this point...

They're more like Metallica -- with less musical talent, right now...but they're my friends...so I don't give a shit how much or little talent they have -- than they are like Abraham Maslow...or Amartya Sen...or Joe Nye...or John Quincy Adams...the lawyer who represents the Amistad slaves to the Supreme Court...though they are much more like these guys than they know, as well...

But if Metallica can begin to come to terms with how shitty they treat one another...and how shitty most people treat one another, really...

Then perhaps all of us can...

In Amistad...Anthony Hopkins brilliantly portrays Quincy Adams...who quotes John C. Calhoun, the famous Southern seccessionist...and Adams' vice-president, at one point...in a publication in the Executive Review, put out by the office of the President at the time, Martin Van Buren...

As Anthony Hopkins as Adams says before the Court:

"And this is a publication of the office of the President...and it's called the Executive Review...and I'm sure you all read it...at least I'm sure the President hopes you all read it...this is a recent issue...and there's, uh, an article in here written by a keen mind of the South...who...it's my former Vice President, John Calhoun, perhaps...could it be?...who asserts that:

'There has never existed a civilized society which one segment did not thrived upon the labor of another. As far back as one chooses to look - to ancient times, to Biblical times - history bears this out. In Eden, where only two were created. Even there, one was pronounced subordinate to the other. Slavery has always been with us, and is neither sinful, nor immoral. Rather, as war and antogonism are the natural states of man, so too slavery. As natural as it is inevitable."

Now, gentlemen, I must say I differ with the keen minds of the South. And with our President, who apparently shares their views. Offering that the natural state of mankind is instead -- and I know this is a controversial idea -- is freedom. Is freedom.

And the proof is the length to which a man, woman, or child will go to regain it once taken. He will break loose his chains. He will decimate his enemies. He will try and try and try, against all odds, against all prejudices, to get home.'

"Give us us free," Cinque shouts in an earlier courtroom..."Give us us free"...

I don't know what more I could do to demonstrate that freedom offers us the space to be more productive, decent, thoughtful, responsible, wise, and good...

But I plan on doing it for the rest of my life...

My friends are welcome to go on pretending...

But I won't...

Because I love them...and me...too much to keep pretending that they're doing better than they really are...

I've not cut them out...I don't think I'm even capable of that, anymore...

But they do owe me an apology...

No work again today...our bosses said it was too cold...so I've got stuff to get finished up for my teaching job...

Have a good day, everyone...

Love,
Ben