The Future of Collective Sadness

I have been having the hardest time writing for the last few weeks. Perhaps it is this idea that our thinking flies off into the cosmos during the spring and into the summer, abandons its domain within the confines of the skull where it can be used somewhat effectively to solve problems and form various observations into coherent arrangements of words and concepts. There is also the matter of the social situation of modern humanity that can be continually blamed for any series of maladies. A colleague said to me today that her doctor told her she was sick because she was carrying the collective sadness of our country. I think many people are still carrying this burden, unsure what to do with it, watching it manifest as anger, illness, depression, hopelessness or some unnamable emotion that slowly morphs from day to day as though intentionally eluding definition. This onslaught from without, this disagreeable sense of otherness and alienation, seems to be part of a world to which the future is asking us to adjust, embrace even. There does not appear to be a slowing of this divisiveness in society, but we can know that there is an other that is feeling a similar dislodged relation to his or her fellow humans on planet earth. All over the planet there are people utterly confused and astounded by the profoundly alien opinions and perspectives of their neighbors, their countrymen, colleagues, clients, family members, lovers. So, how do we sculpt this knotty and gnarled social stump into a useful tool, like a table, or a piece of art, a heron in flight? Again, the call comes to strive with all urgency to perceive from the point of view of that other person, truly attempt to enter their shoes and walk around for a bit. The future seems more and more to be asking us to grow increasingly whole, complex and loving- despite our best efforts to shrink, to simplify, to hate. It is futile and untrue to blame our inability to write on the times or the season. I am the only one who can make the choice to take action, even if it's a blog no one reads. We can't afford to be silent or to become ill; if we are to carry the collective sadness of our brothers and sisters, we have to learn to transform it. Redwood burl displays its struggles and meanderings throughout the course of time, twisted and rough, in its utility and in its beauty.