My load is heavy...

I’m carrying all the news that’s fit to print, but isn’t printed. I’m carrying all the ideas that should be heard, but can’t find a broadcaster. I’m carrying all those same feelings that my neighbors and coworkers might share with me, but which we never find time to talk about together.

Let me tell you, this is a heavy load. There is so much that goes untold nowadays. The daily newspaper editor thinks an article is too critical of an advertiser accused of fraud, so he kills the article. The TV network exec doesn’t like the ratings of public-interest news, so she runs cute-animal stories instead of information on the toxic leak near my house. My neighbor cruises by every morning with car windows up, so I never say hi. I and my coworkers’ jobs are insecure, and we’re all insecure even about simply mentioning our insecurity!

How long can such a state go on? Till average people become so frustrated, alienated, and lonely, that they resort to violence, riot, or quiet self-destruction? Maybe. Still, I’m hopeful that we can turn things around, if you’ll help lighten my load!

And why do I find myself in this weighty predicament in the first place?

I think the reason is that our modern culture is largely just a set of habits which are determined by large corporations. We learn new slang words from Hollywood sitcoms rather than from each other. We email via costly computers, afraid to talk anymore. We jet to Australia, yet we’ve never been in our next-door-neighbor’s house. The bridal magazines urge us to overspend in the pursuit of lavish yet hollow “traditions” that we don’t even know or feel in our heart. We read and see daily news that has been filtered through the sensibilities of the wealthier class. Political success increasingly depends on campaign finance, rather than votes. Profit and consumption has replaced true culture.

It’s certainly no wonder that a few are getting richer and the rest are getting poorer. Widening economic poverty parallels the poverty of our culture, which is growing sterile rather than growing from the roots, like healthy culture should. We are becoming isolated individuals—individualistic yet with little personality or style. We react and buy rather than create. Our strip malls, gas stations, and chain stores become characterless and standard in the same way we are.

Real culture is made of social relations, not consumer transactions. Reviving our culture means we must be creative, and be engaged with our fellow humans, as well as with our planet. Lord knows we’ll have to be creative and engaged to solve such huge problems as global warming. We’ll have to find time to disuss all those unexpressed ideas and feelings that I’m carrying around, and that you are probably carrying around too.

So how about it? For starters, take from me this small, volunteer, non-commercial Washington Free Press newspaper and read it. That will lighten my load just a little at first. Hopefully, this newspaper can then give you ideas for how to help make the world a better place, and have a happier personal life at the same time. When this happens, my load and yours will truly be lightened!

Doug Collins