At least once a day I check major news outlets in order to at least keep in check with what is going on in the world. Over the past year I have become overwhelmed with horrible things happening in America and around the world. Today I went and looked at the headlines on the Guardian. Sexual assault. The paradise papers. People exploiting other people. The police finally believe Corey Feldman after all these years of claiming to know about pedofiles in the entertainment industry. The government is going to allow drilling on federal land and pushing for more off shore oil. The moron of a President that was elected just one year ago. Hillary finally making a trip to Wisconsin. Gun violence.

100% nothing good. No positive change in the world. No actual strides to change this insanity that is spewing everyday. On Facebook earlier I saw something about how the American Empire is crumbling. Yes. Completely. The main infrastructure of this country is crumbling before our very eyes, and no one gives a shit. I’m glad when I see more folks showing up to protest one thing or another, and new elected officials are actually not cut from the same cloth as the president. But it isn’t enough. What do we do about the hundreds of people who should be paying taxes, but aren’t? What do we do when the president himself hasn’t paid them in decades? Why can’t the average folks of America actually get a break? Oh, yeah, because we have to pay for everything those who avoid paying aren’t helping with! Schools (no wonder teachers get paid like shit), Road and highway maintenance (yet we still have some of the most unsafe bridges in the world and no one wants to fix them), and other incredibly BASIC shit that gets pushed under the rug. The majority of the American public can’t get out of their cycle of debt in order to get ahead, and still no one cares. The rich people really don’t care because they’re not gonna lose anything. The rest of us, we simply attempt to hang on.

Tuesday was election day. It was just for local stuff for me–Mayor and city council. While the turn out increased from 10% to 14% from the last local election, that’s still only 14% of the population of the county. 14%. Give me a freakin break here man. Like get the fuck out and do the one thing you should really be willing to do. It literally breaks my heart and my will on a daily basis to see people so apathetic to the world around them. Do I go to every rally? No. Do I go to the ones that I think are important, yes! Do I go to city council meetings and make sure that shit goes the way it should? When I can. Do I do my best to participate in my local community? Yes. So what’s the hold up? People are just so distracted by the bullshit that has been created to distract everyone that they just don’t care, right? Is it the phone in your hand? The apps that are there to distract you? The fact that you can’t see past the end of your own fucking nose? I’m not perfect, I have an addiction to my electronics, but at the end of the day I know I can put them down and nothing will be different when I pick it back up. It will still be the same dumb shit that it was before…..

I suppose I am just feeling really enraged by the way that we treat each other, and how we’ve all become so isolated by one thing or another that we don’t care about our neighbors or our fellow countrymen. People aren’t safe anywhere. They can’t even go to a church or other house of worship (mosque, synagogue, etc) without the chance of dying because someone was given a gun. And the rest of us see this stuff on TV and read about it in the news and we’re all so numb to it now. It is like it doesn’t even matter to most of us, and that is disgusting. But it happens so damn much, how could you have that many emotions over the same thing that happens basically once a month in America. I think the majority of us would be mental wrecks (and God knows we don’t have the health care coverage to handle any mental issues!). It’s terrible that we’re numb to it, but it more a defense mechanism now than anything else. Am I right? Or am I alone here?

And all of this sexual assault news that is coming out? Like, how is it that society thought it was okay for us to treat each other so terribly?! Women being raped. Men being assaulted. I also find it interesting that more people believe the men who have come forward than they do the women. Kevin Spacey was one of my favorite actors, but now I can’t stand the sight of him. Yet more people believe the two men who came forward about his assaults on them then they do the dozens upon dozens of women who have come forward about multiple men in the industry! Why is that? Because she wanted it right? Because she was wearing something slutty and the men just couldn’t help but give her what she was asking for? Like, give me a break! What does a woman have to do to get a little respect around here? To get someone to actually believe her?!? I don’t understand why they believe men over women when it comes to assault! One person told me it was because it was so much harder for men to come forward than women, especially if the assault was from another man. Don’t buy it.

I practice all of this yoga, and teach these yoga classes talking about learning to love yourself and speak your truth, or whatever else is in my mind that day. And then sometimes I think to myself, why does it even matter? Not that my students aren’t good people or don’t actually take what I say into account and work on incorporating things into their own lives, but if the world is going to fight back so hard against them, then what’s the damn point? Yes, I want to make a difference in this crumbling Empire. What difference is that? Just to reconnect people to their own humanity. To see what it is like to have feelings and actually feel them. What can we do other than exist in our own human nature? But also, why can we not sit back and analyze what we’re doing and how we’re approaching situations. No, I’m not perfect. Yes, I have a lot of work to do on myself and my approach to others. Some days are always better than others, but at the same time at least I’m actually trying.

I didn’t intend this to be such a gloomy post, but that’s the other side of the coin I suppose. Not everything is sunshine and rainbows. Some days, some days there is nothing but giant rain clouds and downpours.

In closing, for those of you who take the time to read this, maybe see what it is that you can do for someone else. The holidays are approaching quick. Maybe take the time to help someone who has less than you. Maybe take the time to be nice to those you interact with in stores or wherever. Maybe even take minute to talk to someone you never thought you would find yourself talking to, listen to their story, and see what kind of things are happening all around you. And Maybe, just maybe, pull your face out of your phone long enough to see what is going on around you, experience your world, and see if you can’t make a difference. If I still believed in Santa, that’s what I would ask him for, people to be nice and actually care for one another instead of treating each other like disposable commodities as we’ve been doing for so long now.

Thanks for reading.

~Namaste~