Pursue life, now.

My friend asked me if my 30’s are less full of angst than my 20’s. I don’t know that I am in any kind of place to comment on what my thirties will/are. But in the 4 months of being in my thirties I have found a few things, so here we go.

My answer to her was that I don’t know that they are less full of angst, but they seem to be filled more with hope and a drive to accomplish. For much of my 20’s something would fire me up on a sole level and engage me, but I would get worked up over a lot of things. I have not been doing that the last few years. I blame school. This whole PA thing has taken some of my fire. I hate them for that.

Perhaps its life? You get a bit more tame as life progresses? I don’t think that is how I will go out. I don’t think that I will fade away, I fully plan on going out in a blaze. I fight against anything that would pull me away from the fire of life, but I am also a sell out. I sell out my ideals and my passions in the pursuit of this bigger thing of life. I say “sell out” but its life, you have to compromise to make any kind of forward progression. Perhaps that is the curse of getting old, you become complacent and start to make compromises that you don’t have to because it is easier to do so than it is to fight the system.

The answer to my friend’s question of angst seems to be this. That I still have my angst, I still get fired up about life and about the failures of our system, about the oppression of people, about the abuse and mistreatment of others, but I am starting to see that the way forward is to also identify ways that I can alter the course. It’s the big question that always comes up when I think of the crap of the world that happens around me. “What can I do?” The answer is SOMETHING. Find a way to fight against the wrong, find a way that you can do your part to fight the system of oppression. If enough of us push a little that becomes a BIG push, a big enough push to make a change, to change the world.

I have been so conflicted as of late, I am conflicted because I am surrounded by conflict. Not overt conflict. Its not that people are fighting in the streets with pipe bombs and tire irons, but conflict is here. Its just below the surface. There is such an effort here to keep the ugly side of life polished up. I guess it is a testament to advertising. This place is billed as a paradise that you can come to and its all beauty and aloha. But the ugly side is that its also a magnate of human misery. The homeless about and are carefully herded into specific camps and locations where they are away from the roads that the tourists travel on. I see them.

Now the question, I have built up enough angst in me to get fired up and pissed at the people that oppress and abuse, but I also have no small share of piss to toss at the people that are just sitting in this situation and accepting it. Get up! Do something! Its hard. How do you live life and provide for the basic needs in a system that is set up to profit the people who have on the backs of those who do not.

I think that is what I am upset about. There are solid options that are open for people to dig out and “survive”. But also it is important to know that “survival” does not include the Cadillac or 5-room house with in ground sprinklers.
It is important to also understand what is happening and not force our “solutions” upon people who are fine and dandy staying in the situation that they are. One of the most important things that I learned from Darby is that “The enemy of good is better”. Don’t force a solution upon something that is good, you may very well break up the whole thing.

It’s a balance between empowering people and rewarding hard work. I guess it’s the basic right of “pursuit of happiness” you are not owed happiness, it’s a right to be able to pursue it. The rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

How do I empower people to pursue happiness? I give opportunities, I don’t have to pull them along kicking and screaming. Just offer a hand if they want it.

M@