Dystopian Dreams

American entertainment oozes dystopian fantasies these days. Walking Dead is probably the most popular one of these. But what is it within these dystopian fantasies that we are all enamored with? Is it the simplicity of survival? Literal survival, not rat-race make more cheese than the next rat survival. Is it going back to a more animal nature? Is it all the killing?

These characters are more in tune with the Earth, they hunt their food (sometimes in abandoned grocery stores, sure) but the more successful, the more USEFUL members of a tribe can kill, trap, farm. I believe its an inherent call to go back to the earthways that we are longing for in these tv shows and comic books. The knowledge we all have inside of us of survival, to build our own shelter, to have close companionship that isn't just one special partner, to have a tribe, to contribute to the common good without expectation of the illusion of paper money, to honor our food with every harvest. At least, I hope it is.

Myself, the fascination with this genre started very young. In fact, after listening to THIS ted talk yesterday, I realized it started before my birth. My mother was in a surviv- or-die situation the entire time I was gestated and she passed necessary traits onto me. Hyper-vigilance. Exceptionally good smell and hearing. Traits that make it easier to survive in rough circumstances, so I've always felt a little off in the American society of excess and gluttony. I expected a different world, I was made for a different world. While I spent the majority of my childhood in that survive-or-die mode as soon as I was pushed out into the "regular world" everything grew uncomfortable for me.

As I seek a path closer to the red road, my hope grows that those dystopian fantasies seed within the collective mind and we find a way to live closer to the land before we kill/eat/consume every resource the Good Earth provides and we're left living in a barren Mad Max world.

Refocus

Nature is wabi-sabi and for me wabi-sabi is the most beautiful of all. From wiki:

Wabi-sabi (侘寂?) represents a comprehensive Japanese world view or aesthetic centered on the acceptance of transience and imperfection. The aesthetic is sometimes described as one of beauty that is "imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete".[2] It is a concept derived from the Buddhist teaching of the three marks of existence (三法印 sanbōin?), specifically impermanence (無常 mujō?), the other two being suffering (苦 ku?) andemptiness or absence of self-nature (空 kū?).

Characteristics of the wabi-sabi aesthetic include asymmetry, asperity (roughness or irregularity), simplicity, economy, austerity, modesty, intimacy, and appreciation of the ingenuous integrity of natural objects and processes

When I am falling in love with someone, I usually find their “imperfections” to be the most charming of all. My high school boyfriend had a wide gap in his front teeth and I found it amazing. I adored it. When I meet new people, I tend to look at them and the thing that society would call “off” or strange is often the thing that catches my eye.

In nature it is similar but everything is wabi-sabi so it is hard to choose. I can look at a group of mushrooms and each one has it's own wabi-sabi element but as a whole they can have this element in the context off all the things around them.

So I am changing the focus of this blog to the natural world which is art to me but is also in need of intent and focus. Lately, its all I can think about. I spent yesterday upset for hours over the state of the environment. I reached out to a close friend who told me to focus on the solutions not the enormity of the problem. We have gotten here so quickly, really only since the Industrial Revolution. So I am going to focus on the solutions and teach myself to teach other to see things the way I see them: beauty in imperfection and the innerconnectedness of everything.