Ordinariness

Now, I don’t want this blog post to have a political agenda, but in a way it does. Mostly, because I have not met another inspirer, “celebrity” or person that has inspired as much hope, excitement, belief and awe then the man I will mention below. First, however, I want to comment on a belief that we all could benefit from, that evades us in the shadows humorously in our American lives while living day to day in the culture that is bred into our bones. News, Media, Hollywood, Radio, Sports, all of it, have us focus on celebrities, athletes, actors, writers, musicians, entrepreneurs, politicians and billionaires in a way that we become worshippers of a state of being that does not actually relate to who we are at our core as individuals. Even in our smaller social circles, we focus on the people that have recently held the perfect party, had a great performance or done something that we wish we could aspire to do. All of this leads to us focusing on such a grand picture of reality, so that we become annoyed with, obsessed with and oppressed by the daily tasks of cleaning our house, caring for our children or elderly, or working our simple jobs that we keep to stay above water. We then turn on the news, and develop crushes on our favorite journalist, or watch a movie and pretend we relate to the fake characters portrayed by our favorite celebrities.

We become confused, disappointed and we feel helpless. Especially those of us who are sick in some way. If you add up the 20 percent suffering from mental illness, the 8 percent struggling with cancer, the 10 percent of elderly, the 4 percent of the deaf and blind, the 5 percent of physically disabled, the 15 percent suffering with some other form of difficult acute illness, (these numbers are not exact and came from an internal guess from a general sense on my part) etc., you end up with many folks whose sole purpose is to just be and feel okay every day. Add in the difficult day to day experiences of the LGBTQ community, minority races, the homeless, addicts, and the general poor. You end up with a huge percent of the population that is virtually invisible on the magazine covers and in our daily sitcoms. You end up with a large percentage of our society that ends up only feeling smaller and more isolated because all they have to compare themselves to are millionaire athletes, actors and actresses, businessmen or other celebrities. We are the people. We are the people that the pharmaceutical companies and the “health and beauty” industry are profiting on. And these profits grow with our low self esteem and increased health problems. We are the people that the FDA is overlooking as they approve another harmful chemical to be put in what we think are safe products for our children to ingest. We are the people who just sink lower and lower into our holes at the benefit of the millionaires and billionaires in our country. We are also the majority and the backbone of our country and society. We just have not realized who we are, or that we are the “normal” majority, due to the fact we worship a social media and a Hollywood that makes us feel like invisible outsiders.

There is nothing wrong with being ordinary. We have to shut our eyes to the publicity that surrounds us everywhere and start looking at the people on the bus, those sitting next to you in the doctor’s or social welfare office, and in the grocery line, and actually ask questions of and care about these neighbors. This may result in us feeling more normal and acceptable in our ordinariness. Ordinariness is healing. It is realizing we are fine because we deserve to be. It is about loving ourselves in our ordinariness, and closing our eyes to all of the lies that filter in through our media. Bernie Sanders made me realize ‘we the people’ have a body and can fight for our rights. I believe he is the candidate of us ordinary people. I truly hope that those who doubt Bernie because of false propaganda or because he is a white male, will take off their social and racial blinders for a moment, let go of their reverse racism and sexism, and truly look at what he wants to do for the ordinary people, as well as what he has already done. He has raised awareness on the issues of the common man and woman, and brought them to the table, so that all candidates, the rich and famous included, have to consider these issues on their platform and in their campaigns. Bernie is the reason light has been shed on so many things. I truly believe he is “Our” candidate, the candidate of The People, and I hope you will consider making him your candidate as well.

Run Bernie Run!!