Well, here it is, the last hours of 2011 here in the Pacific Time Zone, and time for me to immortalize my thoughts about the year going past and ponder the year to come.
After all, everyone else is doing it.
Before I really get into it, I should note, purely for posterity’s broad and richly detailed canvas, that in keeping with how I spent most of my time in 2011, I am writing this all alone in front of my computer while feeling really shitty after some very unpleasant sleep.
But don’t worry, I won’t let it affect mt stupid fucking objectivity.
Now, back to the year. It fucking sucked.
From the global perspective, these are definitely the “interesting times” of the Chinese curse. The number of weather related disasters climbs every year, and yet, the political will to do anything substantial about it is nonexistent. The world is in the hands of selfish, short-sighted, corrupt children who prefer to just leave their corporate owners in charge as long as they continue to live a fancy Capital City lifestyle, far away from the people they are supposed to represent. And all it takes for the powers that be to keep them in line is a pat on the head and reassurance that they are one of the elite, not one one of the peons.
“Upward mobility” is the biggest enemy of democracy.
On the plus side, revolutions are sprouting up all over. People are rising up and demanding at least the level of figurative democracy we enjoy here in the modern world. The results are often bloody and terrible, as the people in power do not want to share it with the people they have power over… the dream of power without accountability continues to come true for far too many people in the world. And while revolutions are times of war, death, and terror, they are also how modern nations are born. And so I welcome all the efforts in the world to pull your nation and your people into the modern era.
But revolution is also always a sign that things have gotten really bad. Witness Occupy Wall Street, and the corrupt power structure’s predictable violent counter-response. The gap between the people in power and the people being governed continues to rise, as does discontent with the situation. We are told things are getting better in the global economy, and yet people are simply not feeling it, let alone seeing it. The hostility and contempt the One Percent feel for those of us in the Ninety Nine grows more evident and virulent day by day. They have ceased to be intelligently evil by keeping a low profile and making no moves to remind the global population of their power and influences. They clearly feel like they do not even share the same world with us peons. They do not even feel allegiance to the nation of their birth. They do whatever the hell they want and we are expected to just take it.
Meanwhile, the middle class feels itself erosion, with a lot of people feeling like their middle class status is by no means guaranteed in the future no matter what they do. Historically speaking, this is when revolution happens : when the middle class losing faith that as long as they do what they are told and obey the rules, they will be okay. Then when that faith is shattered, people start looking for bricks to throw. You will never find a more dangerous and dedicated revolutionary than the person who used to be a straight arrow lawful person who sacrificed their own individuality for the promise of safety, security, and the approval of society, that warm feeling that they are Good People, like Good Dogs… and then had it all taken away by a cruel and indifferent society that turned out not to be as fair or meritocratic as they thought.
These are the people who will be ready to do whatever it takes to make the world the place they were promised it would be. They can do no else.
So I have no idea what is coming in 2012, but given that by cracking down with such absurdly obvious malice on Occupy, the Powers that Be have rejected peaceful protest as a means of effecting change. The next step is to escalate. The hippies of the sixties did not start with fighting cops and planting bombs and taking hostages. It was the hostility and brutality of the Establishment that drove them to it.
And it will take something like that do change things now, I think. I loathe violence and vastly prefer peaceful, civilized solutions. And I am certainly not calling for violence, not yet. But the people are going to have to becoming willing to upset the applecart and get far more confrontational about their tactics. Disrupt order, force the enemy to engage, stay in people’s faces until they listen and understand.
Otherwise, everything goes down the crapper.
On a personal level, fuck 2011. It was just another year of drift and decay for yours truly. I have spent another year treading water and not fighting the tides, let alone the winds. I am happy and proud that I did NaNoWriMo (and kicked its ass… 50K words in 25 days), and in the last month, I have made more progress towards my goal of writing for a living than I have ever done before. That is a very good thing, and I should praise myself for that and hold onto it as a good thing.
But I still feel very lonely, abandoned, and adrift. Perhaps this is Holiday Depression talking, but I am really sick of my stupid life. I need to change things, make a big break, find some renewal and revivification and vitality in mt life. I am so tired of this stupid fucking bedroom.
So in the New Year, my resolution, such as it is, is to find a new life.
I’m done with this one.