So I walked around Boston today getting some footage for a video project I am working on. Part of my afternoon was spent walking along the Greenway which curves around the length of where the rt93 tunnel. I saw a large group at the end of the greenway, I decided to check it out. Turns out it was forty or fifty tents and a couple hundred people all part of Occupy Boston. The Occupy America movement is a fascinating sociological event with a branch in our backyard. People (mostly students) staying in tents, with signs for various political, socioeconomic and other issues, and regardless of Republican or Democrat everyone seemed to be getting along. I took in a group meeting to discuss the greatness of Marxist philosophy, there was a veterans for peace tent, I saw a tent where clothing was being given away, they even have a library. Folk music was being played for everyone's enjoyment and it was actually pretty good.
As I walked through the encampment I got the sense that this was a place for the free exchange of ideas and life philosophy (well, I did not see any representatives from corporate America there). I am pretty sure that there was even a small group freely sharing some ganja; they seemed really happy.
This gathering of people in Dewey Square and the hundreds of people who show up for the scheduled General Assemblies tells me a few things about people in general and Boston in particular. First, there is an undercurrent in Boston (and probably every city in America for that matter) of discontentment with "the system". The system is the conglomeration of impersonal regulations, guidelines, parameters, etc. that seem to be arbitrarily superimposed on society and dictate how a person should live their life and spend their money if they are going to be successful. Discontentment has spurred Americans on to technological innovation for generations, it has spurred community organizers on to bring change to their neighborhoods, it has even spurred corporate executives to make shady deals behind closed doors. People from all walks of life experience some degree of discontentment. We all wrestle with a lack of contentment at some point. Discontentment must simmer for a while before it motivates us to try and bring change to something. What is your simmering discontentment?
The second is that people are desperate to be heard, young and old. Everyone has an opinion, but a cause like "Occupy America" gives people a chance to put a megaphone to their ideals and opinions and be heard much more so than if they stood alone. The need to be heard is what many people from North African nations are fighting for right now. When you are heard you are validated; your station in life has legitimacy. All people long for validation, they long to be heard. People want to be heard. Who listens to you??
Third, I discovered that not everyone there was there for the stated purposes of the movement. Some where there because their friends were there and they wanted to support their friends. Some were there because it is where the attention is and they simply want to be a part; they want to belong. Everyone wants to be part of something big, a cause to fight for. It gives us a sense of identity. In some places in the world the cause is your family; you stand for your family and they give you identity. Here in America it is often your ideals. Your ideals give you something to fight for and give you an identity. When you don't have either of these you long for them, you look for them in anything. Many a high school student and college student has gone through this "looking to belong" stage. From what do you derive your sense of identity??? Is it enough? Are you fulfilled?
In some ways these are the longings of every person who has ever drawn breath on planet earth; they make us human. Being discontent, the desire to be heard, and our sense of identity will shape us and define us. We will be healthy people depending on what our source is for these three aspects of our soul. You may be looking for money, or love. You may be motivated by greed or loneliness. The longings of your soul says something about who you are. How you fulfill those longings says something about who you are willing to be and who you are becoming.
Just a Meandering Thought...
