To Philly

And I'm off! The train moves fast--an express press pressing its way down through the states. I had panicked back on the track when the train approached. I now understand it was how the Acela train resembles a worm. A worm with speed.

I don't see anyone here who could be going to the Pre-service Orientation. Everyone here has six plus years on me. Maybe I have the wrong idea of what other VISTAS may look like. What should I then look like? Perhaps only myself.

I have very little clue as to how I fit into the working world. Maybe my issue is that I am seperating the "working world" from the world. Thud my self cannot fit into the equation. I could choose otherwise. I could choose to at everything as in within the whole world. I could stop boxing it all up. Nothing ever gets clean that way.

Walking with the dead

The internet was cool on our computers at home but when we began to carry it with us, it became a flesh eating virus. We are zombies mindlessly roaming—drifting about in a haze. Not paying attention to our friends, or family, or selves. We have become unfocused to the point of total dysfunction.

(laughter about the daylight. despite it my airy weary head is heavy

with dis—dys—something. i'm not quite altogether sure)

As zombies our only interactions with other humans is to prey upon their bodies. We pick mindless disputes—arguments through comment wars we won't win. Winning is never the destination. We pick these fights because the only way we remember to survive is by blindly ravaging upon the beating and breathing flesh of what we once were.  

I'm probably wrong...but where else would I be?

Media is a distraction.
A lot of people say it's a distraction from the "more important" news. But all of it comes in forms of media so even the more important mostly ignored stuff is a distraction??

I don't pay attention to almost any of it.
I get my news from a social media feed.
I don't care about any of it.

And even the things I should know; all the wars and wheres and whys. Because knowing how people are killing and thieving is still a distraction. And knowing what is happening within a country I can't even imagine, distracts me from the fact that there are homeless people on the streets where I live.
It distracts from all the roadkill on the streets where I live, because there are too many roads and not enough homes.
It distracts me from the fact that bees are dying and we're ripping up our plants, claiming them to be weeds. So that the only places where the mugwort and plantain grow are on the side of the streets where I live.

And to the "educated," this makes me ignorant.
There is this lie that in order to be connected to the universe we must be aware of "important worldwide current events."

But I already know there is suffering elsewhere because I am experiencing it here on the streets where I live. And I weep for the suffering everywhere. But all I can do for elsewhere is weep.  In order to make change, I must focus for here.

We are bending ourselves over this lie of uniting worldwide. But what have the Nations or the States done to end the hurt? How much suffering would end if stopped trying to fix everyone else's? Uniting as we know it requires categorizing, it requires class. A place where everyone belongs.

Does it make me less of a person, not knowing? Am I less because I choose to narrow my focus on here and now instead of there and then?

If so, does it make the Sudanese boy who does nothing but run and starve less too? He knows not of the suffering of elsewhere. He cannot afford to distract himself by it. He is too concerned with his own environment and where he belongs within it.

That is our issue. Unification is the antonym of individualization. We are so concerned with involving ourselves worldwide, that we forget to involve ourselves where it is physically possible. Within ourselves. Watching the news and reading articles have replaced tending gardens and feeding the homeless. Knowing what has replaced knowing how, leaving the "educated" forever lost, wondering who they are.

Up, Up to get Away

     I am out of my old neighborhood and that itself is a giant step. I do not think i will be leaving Rhode Island, or even Providence, any time soon. Not for a few years at least. Anybody who suggests doing so just annoys me because it is not even something i feel that i can even consider. I like to think that anywhere i happen to be is where i need to be at the moment.

     It's not as though i am opposed to going off somewhere that i am called to by opportunity-- I just don't think that time is right now. When it happens it happens. But right now, in order to survive and strive i need to focus on being successful within the environment i presently reside in. I want to be able to achieve at least that. Then maybe I will better at identifying the justifications of natural and necessary suffering when i see them.

     I will be able to withstand all i want to run from.