I grow sick of the media's obsession with creating clean and damaging dichotomies throughout society in an effort to more easily produce soundbytes.

I read, a lot, and I even make the occasional attempt to follow whats going on in my society. Frankly, I really hate and despite most of what I see. Don't people realize that we've returned to the same yellow journalism that plagued our country at the advent of the 20th century? That our society now supports a national system of information dissemination with so loose a grip on reality that even calling it news is a laughable stretch?

Because of my history with the church and my struggles first with affirming, and then later recovering from, my faith in Christianity, I tend to gravitate towards news on both ends of the political spectrum that involve religion. Abortion, gay marriage, dominionism and a American-Christian Ecclesiastic Oligarchy all seem to be at the forefront of the news, and though I find the majority of it appalling, one thing in particular seems to stand out:

Do people really that ONLY Christians are able to feel compassion for their fellow man? Is it possible to believe that someone of another faith, or perhaps of no faith at all, is able to feel love, concern, and empathy for their fellow humans, or is that a myth in the context of our modern, broken ethos?

I read an article on a Christian news site about a woman who decided to not have an abortion despite being not being married- okay, in my mind, that's a common situation and it doesn't really register as news much. Yet the woman (the guest writer) claims that many 'non-christian friends' belittled and aggressively confronted her because she chose NOT to have an abortion, calling her a bad person and saying that she'll make a terrible mother. Comments on the article rained in support and love for the modern-day martyr, and those who supposedly said those things are vilified and painted the eternal, unholy enemy.

I for one have trouble believing that situation ever happened. I know MANY people that are pro-choice, for all varieties of reasons and purposes, and I've even met a few people who intentionally call themselves 'pro-abortion'- unusual and uncomfortable for me, but it's their lives. Yet I've never met anyone who would ever stoop so low as to belittling someone because they chose to have their baby. In fact, I've met few people who wouldn't be extremely supportive of a friend that was going through that extremely difficult situation.

Even outside of the eschewed and saintly halls of Christendom, compassion blooms and prospers in the hearts of all who choose to bear it. Love, empathy, and compassion share no real relationship with the faith of a person- those with and without exist inside AND outside every religion. There is no dichotomy of who may feel compassion for their fellow man- it's a strawman built by the raving Dominionist media who call for those of different faiths to be punished for being different.

Have we really fallen so far as to believe this?

Dear Comrade;

A tree is one of most complex and highest-order organisms on Earth. It has well-developed and diverse cell-structures, organ-like complexes within its body, and powerfully efficient means of capturing and creating energy to sustain its life. Over its millions of years of developments, a very wide variety of these organisms have arisen and thrived, creating a landscape that has come to be the very definition of natural beauty in many parts of the world.

Yet there is something curious about many of these trees. In my native home, each year the beautiful trees that were so famous would change colors from green to a blazing red, yellow, orange and brown, and then all of their foliage would fall to the ground, leaving them naked and seemingly dead. Yet, after just a few months of stagnation, buds would reappear as the weather turns warm again and the trees continue to not only survive, but thrive.

You see, like many other functional parts of nature, these trees have learned that life must be met with revolution. The changes that occur in a tree and cause these cycle are not accidental, but are in-fact a very complex process that came after many years of natural selection and evolution. Timing is everything; if the tree reboots too quickly, the buds will freeze off and cause extensive damage and loss of precious resources to the tree. If it comes back alive too slowly, it will lose its share of the limited resources available to competition.

Just as with a tree, or in many other parts of nature, so to must we live with revolution in our hearts.

Stagnation has been the cause of a great many of society ills, and looking around America today worries me. The politics of the day as a disgusting quagmire of financially-rewarded selfishness, hate and deception, and though many people claim it's always been like this, I don't know that it's always been this bad. I think at times in history, we can look back and see some of the darker periods, but never have we been faced with such rigorous and intentional manipulation of the masses to keep them sugar-fed and docile, lazy, and uneducated by those who are in control.

I do not claim conspiracy; the aims of the powerful seem far too obvious for it to be a secret. Consumerism feeds the masses while the heartstrings of religion are pulled to manipulate and drug the sheeple; everywhere, those with power lie and abuse their responsibilities to keep their tin kingdoms and to steal from each other.

The world of the Willing Overlords operates in ways that defy nature, making use of methods and compromises of their underlings that they have somewhere grown unable to feel shame for anymore. Beneath the rotting swamp of their abuses and human rights violations, we struggle to live- to eat, to sleep, and to prosper.

In the primordial ooze, many organisms were faced with this struggle, and few prospered. Through many generations, hardy life continued as it grew powerful and changed the order of the Earth with the revolution of their success. Plants came to dominate life on Earth, a planet transformed to blue and green by their breadth.

Like Walden, I call on all of us to look to the realm around us for strength and clarity of mind. I call on all of us to see the revolution for the healthy and imminent necessity that it is because this winter in our society has persisted far too long, far past the point of acceptability.

Revolution is in every heart of wood, and it should be a furnace that fuels us to the day we day. Where is that fire?

Find it, and burn.

Lately, I'm finding that I'm slowly growing busier by the week and it's a very nice feeling. I have less time at home alone, less time to sit around stressed and lonely and freaking out about money and my living situation. It's a nice place to be arriving at, and I'm finally filling my life up with the sort of stress that I enjoy.

It leads me to really consider what's been going on for the last few years. I haven't had a reliable circle of friends for over two years, and I haven't been in a relationship for three years now- and that would barely qualify as much of anything in his eyes, I'm sure. What's been going on, I ask myself everyday- what am I doing wrong?

I live in an unfinished basement right now. While my bedroom is finished with walls and a ceiling, no other part of the basement has either, just the main concrete walls. I can see the guts of the house- pipes and wiring, drywall studs and a/c vents. I have learned a lot in the process of helping fix up the basement- some of the basics of construction and home repair, etc.

Studs are one of those things. You can't really attach anything to a wall unless you properly find a stud because drywall itself is nowhere near as study as it would appear. It rots easily if regularly exposed to water, and you can actually punch right through the wall if you're as strong or buff as I am. It's a wall- we always talk about leaning and depending on a wall for support through anything, but the reality is that it's the studs that give the support and allow a wall to serve its function.

I think my problem is that I have a lot of difficulties finding the 'studs' in life. I can easily identify the people that I want to be friends with in life but I don't seem to really have the skill to know whether I'll hit drywall and tear through, or whether I'll find a study and have something very nice.

Looking over the past few years, I see a lot of mistakes- a lot of holes driven into the wall. A rain of nails on naked skin, the plaster sloughs in chunks and falls uselessly to the ground. I haven't really hit a stud in a while, I worry; friends or boyfriends, I still really struggle. I just meet someone that I like and start hammering away without pausing to consider whether it's a good idea or not.

So obviously I need a little patience, a little more common sense, and a lot more forethought. My toolbox is bare, alone and desperately in need of quite a few things. How do I develop that?