Although I have been messing around with the blogging on dialogD sporadically now for awhile I really haven’t gotten much traction yet. So the goal of the next couple of weeks is to really just start wading back in on a regular basis and start the process of getting, to steal an old National Lampoon bit, getting totally immersed in my work- kind of like Warsaw cesspool worker Vincent Sluski.
I will get going on synchronizing this effort to the building and expanding of my companion http://www.dialogdemocracy.org/ website and just try to get going to wherever those efforts lead. “Proceed as the way opens…” as William least Heat Moon put it in his book Riverhorse. And that begins by saying this:
I will be blogging about the politics and culture and such like of the current American landscape. Lot’s a guys and female women doing it. But I’m going to put my take on “all of it” out there- and let the chips and good times roll. I have been “studying on this, studying on this a lot…” (Old Tom Joad in The Grapes of Wrath) and writing about it for better than two-thirds of my life now- which shucks now amounts to pretty near 40 count ‘em forty years now and until this blogging and companion Web Site venue evolved into an option over the last 10 years or so I just never found comfort in any of the traditional outlets for the reluctantly intermittent lit guy writer- social commentator- political actor/ poet philosopher- adventurer explorer- writer (again with the wannabe wordsmithing reference) naturalist.
But now I think this is it. The Internet has indeed changed a lot of things- and from this point on I am throwing my URL’s, hat, essays, and collected research and observations into the fray. It is, I believe, my calling, my reason to believe and be, and more importantly I think: hope for the possibility of our Democracy reinvigorating itself, reclaiming itself, and reinventing itself that will be required in order for “We the people of this country, land, earth, and planet to undertake “The Great Work” that we need to in order to find our way into an acceptably free, sustainable, and harmonious future. That is the preamble to what I will now try to simply start saying and then hopefully keep saying.
But, as much as I want to make something of “the writin’’ by doing this- this is as much about trying to be a part of going out and “Getting this whole thing started…” as it is about me and my personal individual getting by creatively and finding peace in the manner I try to make my way in this world. This is, ultimately, a political, social, economic, and spiritual call for progressive grassroots democratic activism and organizing among the vastly diverse people of this great land and ultimately of this amazing and miraculous planet. I believe, sincerely, naively, and hopefully- that we can do better- but only if we transcend where we’re at, individually and collectively, enough so that we can find, chart, and enact a better course.
Many people have discussed where we’re at and where we need to go from here. One of the core books that has inspired my efforts is Thomas Berry’s The Great Work. I am going to start with that thought next time…
Now, I’ll edit a little and get on back to the Boardwalk…
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