WTF is going on out there?!

Random thoughts....

It's a beautiful Sunday morning. I've been out for a 3 mile walk already today but something isn't sitting right with me. I'm feeling overwhelmed or something. Let's see what's on my mind today...

Seems like in the last month I've become more aware of people just out there treating each other badly. I listen. And maybe what I'm feeling is just making me feel like I have the weight of the world on my shoulders.

Both immediately around me and globally.

I've been reading Al Gore's new book The Assault on Reason. It's very good but troubling. And maybe I'm feeling like it's applying to so many things I come across these days.

Most immediately in my personal bubble, I'm stunned at the thoughtlessness that it seems my friends are dealing with in their lives.

Dating...

What is it with guys these days? There seems to be an epidemic of shady guys out there treating women like they're cable boxes, just flipping channels and being generally idiots to the women they come in contact with.

Women just don't trust men any more and it's no wonder. Women are understandably losing their minds because of it. They're being damaged.

But there are two sides to every coin. Women, if you keep hanging out and hooking up with shady guys, you're training them to continue this behavior. I know dangerous cool guys are attractive, but you pack your own parachute. Beautiful asshole = eventual unhappiness. Write it down and put it on your refrigerator if you have to.

So we end up with incredible cycles of dysfunction that perpetuate for as long as we all keep playing these games.

It's hard for me to keep listening to.

America in general...

Can we all stop feeding our minds the junkfood of Paris, Lindsay, Jenwhoever...

I mean I like escape as much as the next person, but eating nothing but french fries will kill you, and America, you're killing your ability to understand what's going on in the world around you.

The media will do just about anything for your eyeballs and like a 3 year old reaching for gummy bears, it's feeding junk to you and you're too hypnotized to realize that very powerful people want you to just shut up and eat your gummy bears in your child safety seat and enjoy the ride in the back of your monstrosity of an SUV.

Your ignorance is their bliss.

Keep it up and you won't recognize the country you live in. And FYI, it's already changed in the last six years in ways you wouldn't believe if you stopped obsessing about Paris behind bars and had an adult conversation.

Look, I don't want this to turn into a lecture (too late), but we're all lowering our standards. However, it's happening so slowly that most of us aren't noticing it. With our friends, our bedmates, what we choose to watch on TV and read in magazines, how we relate to the rest of the world, what we're doing to the environment, what we're willing to give up by not demanding that we need to drastically reduce our consumption of oil.

It really begins one foot from our faces in our personal space and radiates out to encompass the entire world.

I'm sad today thinking about all of this. I'm tired.

But there are some of us who do think. Who do give a damn about how we treat the person next to us in a bar, or how our government treats the rest of the world.

I'm one of them. One of the good guys who won't mess with your head to get you into bed. I care how our country is affecting your country. We're still out there. But sadly these days, you have to look really really hard to find us.

I took this image of Stella in a beautiful white dress on Friday. Sometimes I just have to retreat into my art to get away from all the noise.... and sadness of what we have become.