No one sets out and steps in shit intentionally it just happens. Afterwards we feel silly and angry that such a thing occurred. Our shoe covered in filth that someone failed to pick up as we do our best to remove it from our person. 

Living in a small town there is a sense of isolation as there really isn’t that much to do. Thoughts turn inwards bringing with it the news and their implications from the outside world. The immediate implications of the choice that the British have to make is the uncertainty that it brings to the markets. There has been a precipitous fall in the value of the pound as the mayor announced his decision. 

There is the matter of the primaries that are happening accross the pond in the US. One candidate with enough bluster is leading the campaign and the people are oblivious to the consequences of his election to their highest office. How is it that he is going to make it all great again? 

Do I fear for the future of this world? Do I worry at how this will affect my own personal goals? The answer to both of these questions is yes but it has its caveats. By making my own world my own life positive I can carry on and insulate myself from its woes to a degree. There are important aspects that have developed that have made this view a reality. Much of it has to do with bonding and visualizing a future with someone special. 

Lately we’ve been having a lot of conversations about how our institutions pull us in various directions. Religion seems to be guiding us along emotional paths towards their direction. We all want to live in peace and love but some of their stances are divisive to the point where the discord leads to war. Our governments say they want to take care of us and unify us as countries with nationalistic fervor but again this leads us to mistrust anyone who is different and who doesn’t fit the historic view of who the country is made of. The markets are supposed to be impartial but we learn through experience and reports that they are skewed to favor those with wealth. 

It is now that we feel that the world is changing and not for the better. Is it the media that bombards us with these messages from the aforementioned sources. The institutions that are supposed to be representing us are just as fallible as the individuals constituting them. We are asked to look back at the supposed idyllic past in order to somehow recreate it in the present day. The past wasn’t that idyllic and there is no way to recreate it now. That past is not what we really want it’s the feeling we are after. 

We are in the present and the problems we face are multiple and somewhat intertwined. There are strategies employed by individuals and institutions that compete for our support. They spin their arguments that say what a constituency wants to hear with no guarantee that they can deliver. Whatever decision is made it will be on the backs of the common folk that it all gets carried out. We already feel enslaved by the shackles of finances and debt. There is no unity of vision just a multitude of groups battling it out for supremacy. There is a resistance to these changes and there is no impartial arbitrator to make it all right. 

Have my eyes finally been opened? No. My mind has always known. There was once an idealism that has been tempered by reality. One still has to eat and find shelter every night. As time progresses those individual pieces have coalesced without the need to drastically alter my guiding principles and beliefs. There is a space for goodness and honesty even in the face opposition. Tactics can be employed for good as well as evil although their end result differs. The challenge is to find the balance between individual and collective desires. How much sacrifice will be needed by each?

 The problem is that one group leverages its power at the expense of another. This imbalance causes fluctuations that at some point surface with their own force and consequences. This is the stream that now has overflown its banks and threatens to flood society. We have only looked at our own property and not our neighborhood. This lack of foresight will threaten and envelop everyone no matter who that is.