Raindrop Reflections

I had a job interview today. As I made my way to the offices of my potential employer, I got caught in traffic. I know, everyone will say, "well you should have planned for traffic, that was very irresponsible to you." I left with plenty of flex time available for my commute, but I encountered standstill traffic about five minutes into my drive. I didn't get out of the traffic for two hours, but luckily and thanks to the advent of modern technology (the cell phone) I called my potential boss and she was gracious and understanding enough to allow me to reschedule the interview. I was on the verge of loosing my cool and becoming very angry at the situation being that I really want this job and I need the money, since due to my unemployment, I've been reduced to moving in with my parents. Although I don't pay rent, my other expenses are gradually draining my savings. But instead of getting angry, I used the gridlock as a time to reflect upon the the situation we now face globally.
Due to financial problems and an economy that has yielded fruitless in more than a year of job searching I now live with my parents in a rural area about 40 miles east of Houston, Texas. In December I graduated from college for the second time. I had relocated to New York City to enroll in a graduate school and work as a teaching assistant as part of my graduate program. The last year of my enrollment, the majority of my free time was spent in attempts to find a job after graduation. Finding opportunities scarce and interviews even moreso, upon graduating I opted to take my parents up on their offer to move back in. They live close to Houston, which is a the stage of industrial expansion, so there are more job opportunities and being that my cashflow was quickly running dry, a rent free place to stay for a while seemed even more enticing.
My situation is not unique: As the rain drummed rhythmically upon the dented hood of my car, I was reminded of several conversations I had had with friends and acquaintances over the past year--many who are also facing hardships of their own. A vast majority of my friends, both from high school and college, are college graduates who have found themselves moved back in with their parents due to financial strain and the lack of available jobs. Many also, much like myself were gainfully employed until the 2008 market collapse. After the 2008 collapse, with jobs evaporating and the popped housing bubble, causing millions of people to default on their mortgages, enrolling in graduate school made sense for many of us. Getting accepted into a program offered some semblance of stability, and would give us a competitive edge upon completion. Surely the economy would have righted itself by then, right?
Nope. Many of my once very optimistic friends, have now turned a cold shoulder to society. After all, we did everything we were supposed to, shouldn't we be able to cash in on our portion of the American Dream?
What dream?
We have lived on borrowed time and money for much too long, and now the monster that is capitalism's debt-based requirement for infinite expansion running itself (and millions of people, locally and internationally) into the ground. In a world where there are only finite amounts of available resources, the idea that markets can expand to unbridled amounts is not only absurd, but it is a bold-faced lie and moral transgression. Our politicians keep proposing political solutions, but the fact of the matter is that the current economic climate is so much beyond our ability to control that it must be addressed for what it is: A crisis of moral and spiritual ennui.
In the early stages of industrialization, the detrimental effects of such overconsumption might have been difficult to see, but to deny the present and future realities that are destroying our planet and our people represents nothing but cognitive dissonance. It has been three years since the market collapse, due our current circumstances that have been the results of party politics represent any kind of significant progressive change?
As I sat in my car and watched droplets of acid rain cascade down my windshield and hit the pavement amidst the ascending exhaust fumes of a 10- mile long line of cars in so-called transit I couldn't help but think why it was necessary for me to be there at that moment. Why should I have to drive 40 miles one way in order to gamble on a job? Why should any of the people in the thousands of cars surrounding me be required to use such great amounts of essential energy just to get by day-to-day? And why are we so isolated and suspicious as we go about our business? As individuals, yes, we can make changes in our small worlds...but what we need is a recontextualization of what is at stake. The psychological and spiritual development of ourselves as humans has been stifled for much too long, being contained by a demonic system of "value creation", homogenization of culture, and distractionary media. What we need are sweeping changes on a very large scale. This will only come through a realization that the system needs repair and political solutions are now obsolete. It is necessary to re-intregrate the importance of pscyhological and spiritual development.
The traffic finally started moving, but the rain never let up. I watched by gas gauge get nearer to empty and I thought how beautiful the world would be if gas pumps were no longer necessary. Such is the change we can initiate. Now is the time to transform ourselves and the planet, or we can watch it sink into the flames of our own design. The time is now. The choice is ours.