Always a Work

Winning elective office is not the be-all, end-all of citizenship and public service anymore. One no longer has to hold an office in order to have a voice in the development and evolution of any matter -- as long as one has a forum in which to express it.

There used to be a time when public office was the highest office, but it no longer is, and why Sarah Palin can say she is answering to a higher calling, and a higher office -- which is the right of any individual to speak for themselves, while not being the target for the abuse of speech by others, as many lately, have considered public office now to be.

Human power and influence (politics), evolve with the times and technology -- making the old ways simply obsolete. Some cultures are more tradition oriented than others -- or at least give lip service and go through the motions to seem so. However, when there is a clear advantage to doing things in a new way, eventually most of the people end up embracing that new way -- after a few pioneers and trail blazers have led the way that was not so clear to everyone from the start. But there are these rare few -- who will be ostracized and criticized greatly at first, because that is the way it is with true leaders, and not just followers who people call their leaders, because they are so predictable at being controlled and conform to the familiar old ways.

So finally, we get to the point that nobody believes that the political leaders are in fact leaders, but only followers -- of the money. Thus "winning" becomes losing in this greater sense -- of losing themselves, and their clarity of purpose, of what is really right and true -- and become only these skeptical and cynical people who pride themselves that they know how the game is played, and what it takes to win at that game.

And so rightfully, the people stop believing in such a system and organization -- and more and more people drop out and live on the beaches. They don't want to succeed in that kind of a society and system -- because winning doesn't mean anything, or much, except that one has been willing to sell out their fellow citizens for a few dollars more. And so the pictures and portraits of such leaders show that clearly in these hideous conflicted masks of faces pulled in a thousand different directions -- without any sense of integrity and wholesomeness.

These pictures are painful to look at, but they truly reflect the people as they really are, and not how they wish others to see them. Instead, they want to build enduring beautiful monuments to themselves to disguise the ugly masks of deception and brute power and force that keeps them in their place in the pecking order (seniority) -- as though that was all there was to life anymore.

Although they may talk of "change," that is the furthest thing they want. They want things to continue on -- except for themselves to have a higher position in the status quo.