"warrior supreme
any true fighters dream
outrageously insane
u
are
to not love her"

that’s what i woke up to as my latest testimonial…and it has made my day!

especially since i spent the morning having a moment of…oh what to call it – technical hypochondria? virtual hypochondria? i saw a report on cnn about the kama sutra virus and realized i hadn’t backed up my files and then i turned on my computer and it froze, and kept freezing and after that every time i turned it on it would work for 5 minutes before it froze, so i was trying to virus scan it, and trying to save all of my files to a different place. tears started to well up in my eyes, and then i decided to not think about it.

it then started working.

whew. i have since backed up everything that matters on here. back it up chris!

a random thought – there’s no clear path into chaos. i feel like the wind is picking me up off the ground and i am ready to fly.

have been hosted in denver by the stunning and brilliant nora. last night involved mango and sticky rice, nina simone, smoke, whiskey, telling of our brushes with death, jammies her mama bought me with dolphins on them, and me slipping into a deep sleep too early. it was perfect, i got so so relaxed. i love nora, her eyes alone are worth three pages. thank you sis! next time malaysia!

now i’m at the true spin conference and there was an interesting presentation this morning on how we present our stories, it’s either institutional accountability vs personal responsibility. it made me think about how much both sides confuse this – it goes back to that left/right battle which is the center of why i hate politics.

we are all hypocrits…the right calls for faith in the institution. when the institution fails, they blame the people – support the troops until they are homeless lazy bums, right? and we on the left tell these personal stories of tragedy in which this personal tale is supposed to lead people to a conclusion of institutional guilt. in the process, we cast ourselves as pathetic victims – and yet for our side of the story to work, we must believe the people’s power is unparalleled. we don’t show the brilliant hero who the system has left on the streets. I wondered – how do we clarify this? How do we tell stories of people that show their power against an institution that is failing?

And of course the context for this right now is the culture of fear – you are taught to fear other people, and trust the institution. People bombing people: terrorists. Institutions bombing people: war on terror. Right now the right is way ahead of us in placing the origin of fear in other people…crazy people want to stop democracy and freedom and want to take your stuff and rape you in the park. We don’t want to hear that the institution is driving people crazy, we don’t want to hear that the institution isn’t taking care of people – is that even the job of…it goes in circles!

my question is, how do you use the tools of the institution to shift the thinking in normal people (when i say normal people i mean people who don’t sit around all day every day thinking a strategy could save a world) enough to realize that their only prison is the institution? how do we communicate to people who don’t realize that they are in a prison? how do we communicate to people who are maybe more comfortable not thinking in terms of questions? trust people, fear the institution.

and plus, almost all the stress for the left comes from the fact that the right is scooping a message that makes more sense for left programs and left policy. one of the speakers – kathy bonk – said its like flowers. most people aren’t trying to garden, they just want flowers. if policy is the earth and issues make the stem, then big picture/values make the blooming flower, and most people just want the flower, a tulip, whatever. to me, we’re at a moment where we have to say bitch give me back my flower! or expose the right’s tulips as faux. fake flowers, fake fruit, fake opportunity – nothing is really being offered by the haves to the have nots. nothing ever changes. you have to grow your own, person to person.

ok gotta go head to pittsburgh. its superbowl weekend…how will anyone want to focus on learning? 🙂

go steelers!