Dance to the Music of Time
© Helena Lind · Filed Under Features · Add your comment
Oh yes, one might very well think that we are all stuck in
an endless quagmire of downturn and bad news but let us think
again.
Rather than adding to most of the nowadays media stories by emphasizing how terrible the problem is I like to point into some direction of solution.
How to survive and develop,how to make yourself feel better.
If it all really hits you and you believe that you have it oh so bad do this: switch on the news, watch and listen a few minutes to never ending reports about brutality, genocide, true poverty, hunger, thirst and despair. THE reality check. Should put anyone back into perspective quickly.
If you cannot stand that watch real desperation chose a movie or series with certain topics showing folks and situations that are so much worse than yours. I recommend HBO’s ROME.
It shows admirably how difficult and hard life was back then but also how people fought for a better future and tried to keep somehow jolly on the way there.
Rome’s character Titus Pullo is especially dear to me, a true representative of the challenges in those dangerous days back when, a bit of a Jack the Lad, as befitting to the times brutal yet with a great big heart, an everyday hero who always rolls with the punch but looks towards the heavens without questioning his gods’ above or beneath reasons to make things happen for him as they do.
He is as redblooded and ready to live to the full as he is ready to die by so many possible means any given moment.
Nowadays morals yet undeveloped but great personal potential to expand in goodness through fortitude, stamina and an unshakable belief.
We in the so called modern developed countries are so cosseted in comparison
to the past. Easily disgruntled by anything, inconvenienced by trifles and
expecting the world without offering much in return.
But I digress.
To
survive the downturn it is important that we all tweak the way we think.
A very fine and clever man said that capital should serve humanity NOT the other way round. And that’s exactly what’s led us into the current valley and that’s succinctly what’s let us all down: Humanity serving Mammon, another clay footed papermache’ giant who is nothing but a dwarf sitting a mountain top.
A reflection of one of the most dangerous human desires – greed.
So this situation is perhaps a kind of blessing in a very hashed disguise (we’ve asked for it), a challenge to rise to, an invitation to dance to a melodic tune of true meaning rather than to march to that stupid beat in lock step:
Spend! Spend! Spend! More! More! More!
Do NOT stop buying, do not starve
producers and trade but shop it with a sense of aspiration and almost a social
grace. Thus spending money in a discerning way can be both fun and use.
The holiday season is just round the corner and we should not spoil it, neither for those we love nor those who produce, sell and employ people.
We all need a new flexibility, leave the proven wrong behind and look up to something so much better than just brash materialism.
If we achieve to shift our priorities and accept this invitation to dance we may not have to be sorry for ourselves after all but…dancing…uphill…laughing.
Painting by Nicolas Poussin (1594 – 1665) : A Dance to the Music of Time
This article published by MIZPAH Magazine - ©2010 www.mizpah.tv
© Helena Lind
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