The western world seems like an old man who has lost his
balance. The collective nations have “fallen and they can’t get up”.
These countries are being overwhelmed with violence. Their
children are dying in mass shootings in schools and colleges, buildings are
being blown up, riots in the street are becoming more common and there seems to
be a general loss of faith in our “law and order” societies.
Through all of this, our leadership is hiding behind the
curtains, frozen in indecision while the Earth keeps spinning.
The Middle East, teeming with oil and homeless emigrants, is
such a confused and hopeless place that we now have countless different
factions in Syria, Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, and Yemen fighting three and four-sided
wars. Further complicating things is that Russia, the western nations and
Turkey are sometimes supporting or undercutting two or three of these sides at
the same time, which leaves everyone dancing around each other, blowing people
up but trying not to blow anyone up among the major nations that have joined
the fray. It is total chaos.
We skate along the fringe of some major catastrophe as we
wallow in indecision on the thin ice of world confrontation. It’s like watching
a bunch of firemen argue about who has jurisdiction over a fire while the city
burns. In the meantime, we are running out of cities. The only things we are
not running out of are the aforementioned oil and the supply of emigrants who
are desperate to get anywhere that isn’t there.
We need to find some leaders somewhere in this world who can
put all these quarreling children in a “time out”. So far all we seem to have
are incompetent, immature teenagers who want to flex their muscles or science
nerds who have decided to hide in the band room.
The world is a frigging mess and our leaders are pretending
that everything is wonderful.
Our sub-conscious selves know this isn’t true. If you look
at our literature, films, television and video games, you will see that the
common subject matter is the “walking dead”, the end of the world, mass murderers,
horror stories and superheroes who save us all with special powers within three
seconds of a nuclear explosion.
We have become a world of pretenders with neither the will
nor the leadership to accomplish more. We have become the stupid people in the
ad who hide behind the chain saws to avoid the crazed killer.
The truth is we are standing on the “ocean’s edge, staring
out across the sea. Hoping to find a pilot wise, and a ship to carry me”.
I wrote The Journey
(In the Cat’s Eye, Snap
Screen Press, 2009) a few years ago to talk about the individual journey we
each travel through life. But it also applies to the trip we share as our world
travels its own “journey”. Unfortunately, “the winds of chance” aren’t blowing
too favorably for any of us right now.
Glenn K. Currie
The Journey
When first the waves
washed over me,
I knew not what
they’d bring,
I floated free in
quiet rest,
‘Til the world came
rushing in.
I awoke to drum beats
calling me,
The same that ruled
my heart,
And the youthful soul
that marched therein,
Followed an unmarked
chart.
Each step required
another choice,
Offering different
ways,
Decision trees flowed
endlessly,
A spider’s web of grays.
Soon I came to the
ocean’s edge,
Staring out across
the sea,
Hoping to find a
pilot wise,
And a ship to carry
me.
But no one knew what
lay across,
There was no where or
when,
Even the stars could
only say,
Where I had already
been.
The truth I found,
was I alone
Must bridge the start
and end,
Writing my life on
grains of sand,
The winds of chance
my pen.
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