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Sunday, October 18 The Nobel not Repressed
The Repression This country, not to mention a big chunk of the world is in a repression. Yep I think that word fits better then recession or depression. Repression since that’s what is happening. All the joie de vivre, the open hearts, the spontaneity in spirit seem to be suddenly repressed, submerged under a heaping pile of fear. Of course fear is really the biggest cause of the repression. If consumers had not bugged out and stopped buying out of fear, the stores would not have laid off so many workers. Okay, yes, of course there is real reason beyond fear for this; unethical lenders, big shot wall streeters who took millions in bonuses while their company profits tanked and so on. Essentially there was a real fire and yes it was a big fire, but our fear fanned the fire and turned it into an inferno. Now, it’s going to take confidence to bring us back, or rather forward, to a new place, where we have learned from our mistakes but again can open our hearts and our souls to taking risk. Risk is the focal point for a healthy economy. If you can’t walk into a store and take a risk, that spending that hundred bucks to make you happy is going to be worth it even if times are tough, if a bank can’t take a risk that letting you refinance you mortgage so you have a better rate and a little cash to tide you over will mean a better customer for them in the long run, if investors can’t take a risk that buying stock now is brilliant for the future, then we stay repressed. How do you blow confidence into the hearts of millions of people? Certainly Obama is trying. you gotta give the guy credit Firstly I thought, of course, it's too soon. IT'S WAY TOO SOON! Then too while presidents have won this of course, I never think of this as a presidential thing, but then that’s because I was just a kid the last time a president won. I watched the news footage back and forth on this and I came back to the same thought again and again. Now honeys don’t get me wrong, while I am an Obama supporter, I am having a touch of trouble understanding how he was nominated in February, 12 days after taking office. I mean honey as well intentioned as the man was, and is, that was pretty darn early in his presidential tenure to get such a huge award, but Who knows? But here is what I do know. Whether or not you think he deserved it, whether or not you are a republican and just can’t stand to see a democrat so honored, whether or not the sight of an African American holding the position of president of the united states and being internationally honored stirs up your racism, whether or not you simply would prefer to have seen someone else win, you can not argue with the fact that this is good for America. I don’t know if Obama is more qualified to have won then others. Certainly when you stand him up against Nelson Mandela it’s hard to see how he won and maybe it’s because of my rock and roll heart but certainly Bono is on the top of my list of folks who should claim the Nobel, but folks I have talked to about this, say winning the Nobel has a wholel lot to do with the intent, not always the result. Certainly Obama's intent is peace. So here’s where I will leave it. I can’t say he deserves the award and clearly he is having trouble saying it himself, but I can say that I am glad that he was so honored and maybe the award will put even a little more pressure on the guy Now as to the repression… I believe that together we can make a decision to put aside our fear and choose to believe in this country and choose to blow oxygen into this economy, but we may have to stop watching the news to do it. Last night I came home from work feeling a new burst of energy and confidence that the down economy had ended and that while it might take a year to come around, it was truly coming around. I turned on the news and heard nothing but doom and gloom. How much of the repression was and is caused by the media? Who can blow fear as quickly as they can? Yes my dears, the news is supposed to report the news, but how may times does the news cause the news? My dear J shared a piece of wisdom with me just a moment ago that often when people are in physical pain like back pain as example, they have this feeling that it will go on forever. They feel that their former life is over and this is what they have to look forward to and that many people feel that way about the economy. But most physical pain is temporary and while it may take a year or years for this economy to be repaired, it will also be temporary. What we have in this painful void is a chance to learn, We have a chance to figure out a new way to live. So perhaps ten years from now, we will laugh and say it is because if the 2008-2010 repression that we now have pot-luck movie night with our loved ones every Wednesday and it’s our fave night of the week. Perhaps thirty years from now, we will say, it’s because of the great repression that we now are closer to our friends and family. Perhaps we will say that it was in the great repression that we learned how to share. I choose to believe that we are on the way back up. I choose bravery over fear. I choose pride. If we could all do the same, honey that pesky old repression would be history, but in the meanwhile I say what I said from the first moment of bad news on the news. If we stay honest, open and keep our good-ness and integrity fully intact, rise over our fear to find new possibilities and not only break out the box but smash it to smithereens, we will all be just fine.
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