Spittin' Image

Things have changed since I was away these past 6-7 years. Not just obvious things, but things you wouldn't otherwise notice. Like when you age around friends & family, nobody notices. But see someone you haven't seen for a long time; and there might be big differences. eg, I was at federal law enforcement training center, in Brunswick GA, and I mention to this fellow that I used to work near El Toro "out by where the orange groves are." He said "there're no orange groves around El Toro anymore." So it goes. And having gone, won't be back again. And varied songs swirl thru my little mind. My Buddy...days have gone since you've been away. And...now that you've gone, all I have left is a band of gold. And...pave paradise, put up a parking lot.

The examples compound themselves, as things do in our world, or in our minds tracking of it - that federal training center isn't in Brunswick anymore either. So, what struck me (no, not a truck) was chatting on Facebook, lo these many years. I'd thought it was a place to post announcements and so forth. But in my return I see that it's all things to all people. There're wonderful family stories & pics about kids; and sad stories too. There're ads; didn't use to be. All this dogshit I don't want, don't wanna buy, don't want cluttering up everything; but they're there. And politics, that's what struck me the most. People want to share their feelings. In this open place - another song (one I wrote) I'm out there in the nothingness, watching the planets go by; I'm all alone in my empty room, watching the girls go by...

But Facebook, this open place with everyone watching - people express feelings, and they so much want others to agree, to feedback friendship; love I guess. All of us so desperately wanting to be loved, appreciated, acknowledged. I live - I'm sure I do, I got liked on Facebook. And equally, there is hating, of anyone anything that doesn't agree with us. I don't get that, not sure of it. Perhaps our group-self is an infant. It knows to what extent it's arms, hands, feet extend. But beyond that is foreign, strange; could be harmful; must be contained, quarantined, or unfriended. That is - eliminated. And that's a problem.

How is this infant group-self to grow beyond what it is now. A funny here... in a barbershop in Dakota, someone mentions Nebraska, and a guy says "dumb sand lizards." A few days later, in a shop or bar in Nebraska, someone mentions Dakota, and a guy says "dumb sand lizards." So funny, to me. If folks on either side of the river gonna insult each other, can't they at least have their own insult-words. But that's the ticket, on Facebook (as I'm writing this) Republicans and Democrats are disparaging the other with the exact same foul words, for the exact same reasons, and accusing the other of being too f**ing stupid to understand anything so why bother.

I tried chatting with my Republican friends. Well, I wanted to show them the error of their ways. And I was told to stfu; and eventually unfollowed. Then I notice a Republican trying the same approach and was told by a Democrat to stfu, and was unfollowed. So imagine this - Steve McQueen in The Great Escape - bouncing the baseball off the walls in the cooler. Or our little groups pinging their own yes-es back & forth to one another. Is there any point to either. I guess it makes us feel better, feel like we belong, and belonging has to mean some exclusivity where we're special and non-belongers aren't. But there's another thing, just like that pseudo-fight between Nebraskans & Dakotans, we're the same. We're mirrors of each other, identical twins. An outsider would look at this and say "I get it, I understand completely - you hate because the other is...a sand lizard."