The Hell-Sink-y Summit: a sherpa’s guide to climbing out of the global pits
HOCUS POCUS WHERE’S OUR POTUS?
As expert climbers agree, mounting Everest is ridiculously hard. But the descent is killer.
Nearly two years after POTUS began his ascent up the political Everest as our elected Sherpa (with many of us leery about his footpath) it’s as clear as those peaks we’re so distanced from in our current valley, that the dreamed-of summit is a never-ending series of dangerous swerves, inexperienced maneuvers, and inexplicably unorthodox protocol which leaves not just the U.S. but the world teetering on a dangerous precipice.
To “Make America Great Again” is not the end-goal. Nor is “Making America ‘America’ Again”. Nor is “Making The Planet Great Again”. What’s now at stake and staring us in the face is all of the above and more:
“Making Humanity HUMAN Again”
Think of it like indigestion: eating, drinking, feeling, thinking — they can all be healthy — or deathly, depending on quantity, quality, and the ability to absorb properly. A large faction of the privileged classes overate during the good years leading up to our current decay — while most of the world was already starving. Then we got a dose of Collective Starvation which this “unpresidented” administration served up in its various forms; leftovers, fat, bones, or newly concocted “aversions” thereof — most of which lacked nutrients. One faction got some fiber, another some sweets. But all in all it was over-cooked or undercooked or peppered with too much spice in a diet virtually devoid of enzymes to aid our (in)digestion. Now we’re starting to regurgitate. Even the Repubs are getting repulsed.
Continually clutching onto old systems due to fear of the emerging new is going to further disrupt our status quo. This massive wakeup call is a transition forcing the hand of the Repubs’, the Dems’, the Indifferents’ and everyone’s in between. Historically, it’s happened before. And each time we think we’ve heeded the call. But here we are again, in consternation about how on earth we arrived at this juncture after all that vigilance we thought we’d applied — especially after WWII. An athlete works its muscles with dedication and sometimes there are painful contractions, spasms. The Human Spirit is no different, but if we don’t work it out this time it may be our last.
To condemn people for their fear-based actions or stasis is tempting. Especially when visibility shrinks on this level of the mountain as storm clouds rapidly roll in. Reacting swiftly and effectively becomes paramount.
How to coax individuals and societies away from the grips of Fear toward a more nourishing and balanced replacement that still offers edge, competition, and stimulation? This is a creative challenge like no other.
Yellow lights turn to blinking red ones when individuals in power actively or passively condone fear-based behaviour in others — and themselves. Same for entire populations not attuned to clear internal prompts which inform external ones (read: fake ones, fear-inducing ones). Then the blinking red light becomes a bleeding one, and we’re in a winless war which is whipped up by the very fear-mongers who’ve feared addressing their own.
Arianna’s imperative about the lack of self-worth that’s become a societal malady is spot-on. And like Al Gore’s vital missive about Climate Change’s need to address Just Transition for a vast sector of the population fearful of losing its livelihood in the coal conversion, Just Transition also applies to the political sector.
To be the courageous odd-man out and step down from one’s senatorial or congressional seat is no small feat. And if sense-of-self isn’t deeply rooted in worth and alchemy — the ability to reinvent oneself differently, and repeatedly — then shudder one will while privately struggling about what to do or not to. That is … unless one is buoyed by many similar others, who together turn their grips of Fear into Fear-less.
The film classic, The Wizard of Oz, is a timeless tale of backstage Power powered by the Fragile Self. If the entire Republican and Democratic bodies care-fully grasped each other’s symbolic hand & heart on this hairline curve of the vertiginous swerve — and temporarily curbed criticisms & belief systems about partisanship in favour of partnership (based on a handful of transcendent issues that affect Civilisation’s literal rise or demise), we can stabilise on a different plateau of this perilous mountain-of-possibility whereby the new vista jeopardises neither the mountain nor the man.
Are there enough of us strong enough to jump from the stranglehold of chaos that’s become the chaUS of this Sherpa’s misguided footpath? If only part of our Collective is able to react to these dangerous tipping points (while others capitulate, fascinate, speculate, or ruminate in their understandable fear-based paralysis) maybe that’s enough. Maybe we can start by using their fuel to parlay our partisanship-of-fools into a non-partisan one that converts enraged energy into renewable and sustainable.
Driving us back from the geopolitical edge without driving us crazy? Yes, it’s doable … and sometimes it’s even SIMPOL.
