in the dream

reading about the family that came out in support of the SCHIP legislation and was soundly thrashed by the right-wing attack dogs for it. a 12-year-old child recently out of a coma beaten up in the media for saying it was, oh, 'good' that his family had help to pay his medical bills. crazy left-wing nut.

i was thinking about how far we've come as a species--and also how far back we have reverted, or at least how far we could still go. and i thought of a dream i had a while back.

in the dream there are groups of ragged, frightened, and beaten-down people foraging in a world much like ours, only fallen even more to seed. vines snake their way around lamp posts, broken windows like blank eyes stare out of dead buildings, weeds sprout hopefully out of cracking pavement, seeking the light of a pale sun in a smudged sky. civilization survives, but just barely.

these foragers try to stay as hidden as possible, they scurry in packs from dark place to dark place. alleyways and empty lots are their home turf--unless they are on the hunt. mostly they squabble among themselves, fighting over scraps and bones. fits of violence periodically burst out, settling internal power struggles with thuddings of crushed bone and broken flesh. new leaders emerge, with blood on their hands, leading by fear and intimidation.

but although they are by nature fearful creatures that take cold comfort in the violent ethos of the group--hiding as best they can within the herd and hoping it doesn't turn on them--they regularly erupt en masse from the dark places and set upon unwary people who are not of their tribe. they sense weakness in others as they sense their own weakness, and they know that their only power lies in moving in a herd, a bloodthirsty pack lashing out away from itself so as to distract from its members' individual shame and aloneness. they sense when their beliefs are being challenged, and shown to be wrong, and it sends them into a rage. with bloodlust in their eyes and slathering jaws, they rend the unsuspecting who dare to speak out against their bleak and hopeless ways.

there are others, people who live in the light places as best they can, people who struggle upward, who try to hang onto the things that made us unique among animals--the books, the art, the words, the empathy and the community. they seek to uplift each other rather than beat each other down. but they are still unable to see. they at least are aware that there is something to be seen, they know something is changing, they can feel it in their bones. but there is a blind spot, a sense of something glimpsed out of the corner of the eye that disappears when you turn to fully face it.

and there is a child. the child is born without the blind spot--he can see what we can become, what we have the potential to be, if only we are able to take that path.

this is a new stage of evolution, the precipice upon which balances the future of the human race. we stand to move forward into a new kind of enlightenment, or sink ever-lower into the slime.

the dark, violent lizard part of our brain fights mightily against obsolescence. it is the part of the brain, the part of us as humans that allowed us to scrabble our way out and up, away from the rest of the animals to actually become human in the first place, and it won't easily be cowed or put aside. it is the hunter, and that which was once hunted and at some point stood up on hind legs and refused to be hunted any longer. it is the oldest part of us, and refuses to go gentle.

and for the unimaginative, that narrow mindset is the easiest to which to default. but it is on the verge of becoming obsolete, and that is why it fights so rabidly--all it knows is fighting for survival, and so that is what it does.

but the child, the child. he has seen what we can become, what we can choose. and certain people of the other group have caught glimpses of it too. and they will fight too, in their own way. they must persevere, or we will slowly, unerringly sink back into the killing muck from whence we came.