The Smothered Scream of a Wage Slave

I’ve been thinking today about passions, dreams, goals (all of the things our society sugar coats into meaning success, money, and promotions). What really and truly makes me happy? Well, writing of course. Not the manual writing I do for my job or the editing I do for extra money….ACTUAL writing. Soul bending, heart tearing writing. Writing that stops me dead in my tracks as the muse takes over and I stare, dumbfounded, at the page.

If I were to break it down in a more scientific sense I would say that the higher the percentage of concrete is when compared to the percentage of trees is in an area the lower my productivity falls. Basically, cities suck the soul right out of me. It’s hard to write when I look around and no longer hold any hope for humanity and limited hope for the earth as a whole.

“Poetry has been able to function quite directly as human interpretation of the raw, loose universe. It is a mixture, if you will, of journalism and metaphysics, or of science and religion.” –Annie Dillard

It’s in and surrounded by nature that I feel at peace. Not so at peace, mind you, that I would only write sappy love sonnets and the like, but at peace enough that my heart isn’t racing in such fear that putting pen to paper is inconceivable. Sunlight helps, as do stars that aren’t diluted by city lights. Crickets (not of the sound machine variety) calm me like no lullaby ever could.

So, I suppose the problem isn’t knowing what I need to be happy and to write—it’s getting what I need. I won’t get it working my 9-5 job (now complete with overtime) in a building with one window surrounded by the most “city like” parts of my city (pavement, too much traffic, and industry everywhere). Yet how do I go live closer to nature and still make enough money to survive in this society?

I really don’t know the answer to that.

“Yes, there is a Nirvana; it is in leading your sheep to a green pasture, and in putting your child to sleep, and in writing the last line of your poem.” –Kahlil Gibran

My daily schedule is enough to drive anyone insane. I wake up at 5:20am (and it’s dark) get to work by 6am and don’t leave until 5:30pm (when it is also dark). If I want to see daylight at all I need to leave at lunch, where I can get a 30 minute dose of daylight. I get home and all I do is sit, or lay, since I’m so exhausted from staring at a screen all day. Sometimes I try to read, but typically I just fall asleep.

Am I happy with this job? Of course not. How could I be? Yet I sell my life away…

The only semi-agreeable option I know of right now is to go to grad school for my MFA in creative writing. The problem is the school itself is in a city. Yet, at least I won’t be working an office job anymore…

“You are a child of the universe,
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.”
-Desiderata

To Cage a King

An interesting article I read today reads as follows: LINK

SILVER SPRING, Md. (WUSA) -- Rob Ephraim was holding a small point-and-shoot digital camera as he walked around the National Zoo in Washington with his girlfriend on Sunday.

While the pair were passing through the lion exhibit, Ephraim said there were shouts and a splash as something fell off a 13-foot high concrete wall above the moat surrounding the enclosure where two female lions were lounging in the sun.

"Everybody is freaking out thinking that a kid has just fallen into the lion exhibit and all of a sudden, out pops a little deer head," Ephraim recalled.

Relieved to see a deer rather than a child swimming in the moat below, attention went immediately to the lions.

"They reacted right away," Ephraim said. And the 25-year-old was prepared with the camera.

The resulting video, posted to YouTube, has been seen around the world.

First, the lions shadow the deer as it swims to one end of the moat. One lion jumps in to get the deer, but breaks off the attack.

Later, the lions corner the deer in a stairwell as concerned zookeepers look out a window safely behind steel doors.

"Everybody pretty much thought the deer was done but maybe five minutes went by and you all of a sudden heard some yelps and the deer literally came flying out," Ephraim said. The lions again chased the deer across their yard as it jumped back in the water.

"They were like big house cats toying with a bird that flew in the house," Ephraim said.

Shortly thereafter, police showed up and cleared the area.

Zoo officials say the lion keepers were then able to lure the cats to their secure indoor enclosure.

With the yard safe, staffers tried to rescue the deer.

It was so badly injured, a veterinarian was forced to euthanize it.

The deer most likely entered the zoo property from the adjacent Rock Creek Park and took a wrong turn in a panic, according to zoo officials.

Ephraim said the deer "appeared out of nowhere" and jumped through a crowd of people as it leapt over the concrete barrier blindly down to the moat.

"This is what they do," Ephraim said about the lions. "Seeing them in a caged enclosure is not that interesting. Seeing them actually go after something in the wild and use their instincts is very interesting. I'd pay to go to Africa to see this!"

Written by Scott Broom 9NEWS NOW & wusa9.com

I had to think about this for awhile to figure out what my take on it was. I obviously felt horrible for the lions, as I do for any animal kept unwillingly in a captive situation. I also felt bad for the deer, since its own natural habitat had obviously been so encroached upon that, horrified, it ended up in a zoo and ultimately in a lion’s cage.

I don’t think that there’s an easy answer for what should have been done by humans in this situation since creating the situation in the first place was a mistake.

I find it sad that the lions still remembered (at least slightly) how to hunt, but not how to kill their pray. The deer still knew to try to run, but not to avoid humans in the first place (which would have kept it out of the zoo). Euthanizing the deer after the lions had attacked it seems like a strange move. Many people that commented on the article said that there were “children watching” who didn’t need to see an animal killed and eaten by wild animals.

How sheltered are children these days? It’s okay for them to watch it on Animal Planet but not in real life? Children need to know that in what’s left of the wild animals don’t go shopping at Pick N’ Save for meat, they hunt it.

I guess I’m pretty much disgusted by the whole situation. I don’t think that killing the deer and tossing its body was the solution. Letting the lions at least eat what they had hunted would have been fine.

What the Caged Bird Isn't Singing

Why our nation is doomed....

Two words:

Big Bird.

Now you may all be laughing right now, shaking your heads and wondering how on earth a cuddly yellow bird could possibly be responsible for the eventual downfall of America. Well, friends, I intend to tell you.

It’s really quite obvious when you think about it. Sesame Street has been around since 1969. That should make the characters that have been on it the entire time (Big Bird included) 40 years old this year. Did the beloved birdie turn 40 however? Definitely not.

Instead of having their characters age like normal individuals on any other street that isn’t Sesamied on earth the Sesame Street gang have decided that Big Bird should turn the same age each year. Until 1991 Big Bird had been four years old for quite some time. In 1991 he turned six (jumping two years somehow). So now, there’s a 40 year old giant bird with a creepy sounding voice pretending that he’s 6 influencing the children of America and around the world.

No wonder our country is going to hell! We have entire generations of children growing up thinking that aging doesn’t happen. When I was young and pointed the enraging fact of Big Bird not aging out to my mother, do you know what she did? She sent me to my room for a nap! We keep sleeping on this major issue and LOOK WHAT HAPPENS. Ice caps melting, rainforests, gone, unnecessary wars!

Don’t even get me started on the fact that the poor bird lives in a city with barely any grass in sight…