Just spinning my wheels

Did you ever have that feeling that you're just not getting anywhere? Like you're stuck in the mud and your wheels are just going round and round, spraying muck, blowing smoke ... but you're not budging an inch? I do, from time to time, and this happens to be just one of them.

A friend of mine got on my case last week about being so negative ... why couldn't I find something positive to contribute? Another was on about me not being specific enough, not providing solutions (as if just anyone can simply identify issues). One of my kids wanted to know why I wasn't more involved. Someone else noted that I was being more quiet than usual. And I suppose they're all right. At least in their own ways.

The fact of the matter is it is difficult being an observer of human nature. Yes, I spend an inordinate amount of time (probably while most of you are sleeping) thinking about what makes humans tick and why. This is always a balancing act on the razor's edge between general and specific. Though too many people don't know it, we humans are all pretty much alike: we share a lot in common, not the least of which is our most fundamental attitudes toward our lives: we'd like them to be as hassle-free as possible but know full well, things will not go smoothly. OK, I don't personally know anyone literally struggling to survive, but I would imagine that that last statement of mine still sums up pretty well what they want. To them, perhaps, it is a dream; to us, however, it is a wish.

The greatest challenge to observers like me, though, is trying to figure out why we insist (at least it appears to me as a type of insistence) on doing things that are in our own worst interests. For those of us in the industrialized, developed West, we know our oil is running out, so we demand even more; we know that fossil fuels are shortening the life span of the planet, and we demand to use more; we know that big money is robbing us of our and our children's future, and we demand they be given even freer reign; we know our governments are abusing and restricting our long-fought-for rights, and we demand that they speed up the process; we know that our corporate overlords are repressing us and squeezing us dry, and we encourage them every chance we get.

I'll be the first to admit it: I just don't get it. There's no escape for any of us, regardless of which catastrophe is coming our way, be it the environmental one, the financial one or the political one. And they're all heading our way.

When I talk of these things to individuals, I get a lot of agreement and lots of good suggestions about what might be done. Yet, when I look out into the world, at our communities, regions, nations or trading blocks, there's not a hint of any of that to be seen. I keep hoping I'm missing something, but I have a nagging suspicion that I'm not, really.

Yep, just spinning my wheels ...