Phil Rockstroh: The Cusp of Ecological Disaster

from Consortium News:


The Cusp of Ecological Disaster
March 22, 2013

In a world where all emotion is translated into a sales pitch and each thought becomes a talking point, the existential question is how to live a life that embraces real emotion and articulates original thinking, a dilemma that poet Phil Rockstroh addresses in this commentary on late-stage capitalism.

By Phil Rockstroh


As a general rule, musicians, artists, and writers, as well as those possessed of an ardor for self-awareness and a commitment to political activism have been advised to avoid a habitual retreat to comfort zones … to take note of the criteria that causes one’s pulse to quicken, brings flop sweat to the brow, causes sphincters to seize up, and delivers mortification to the mind.

In order to quicken imagination and avoid banality, it is imperative to explore the fears that cause one to awaken in the darkest of night to stare bug-eyed at the ceiling until dawn; to embrace discomfort; to shun crackpot complacency; to wander through the teeming polis of the psyche, and, in so doing, to not only stray and mingle among the outcasts, demimonde and mad, but proceed to the locked-down wards of the region’s lunatic asylum, and make an exhausting inquest into the nature of the hopeless cases that have been hidden from public view.

As of late, my darkest thoughts and angst-engendered imaginings have involved the following: The ecological debasement of the earth, the ongoing degradation of daily life within U.S. society, and the attenuated destiny of the individual under the yoke of late-stage, global capitalism.

My ruminations have been, in large measure, engendered and inflamed by the following: On Tuesday, Feb. 26, of this year, a son was born to my wife, Angela and myself. .................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://consortiumnews.com/2013/03/22/the-cusp-of-ecological-disaster/