State of Panic...Over 10 years later

 

The link below is to the original 2013 blog for State of Panic...

https://mywonderfulworldofwords.blogspot.com/2013/10/state-of-panic.html

written by Pamela Scholes

10/9/2013

Let us fast forward, however, to the new/same State of Panic...

Please, read on...

State of Panic…Over 10yrs later... 

I sit now with my computer in my lap and thoughts in my head. For a writer, a computer and thoughts in my head is an open door to conversation so why don’t we discuss what has and hasn’t happened over the course of the last 10+ years since I posted the original to this blog in 2013. I'm propped against my bed pillow, and I am thinking of the past week entirely and even this very day's events. Normally I let the day go at the end of the day so that it may lead to more positive promise for tomorrow but, there are those times, when distraught enough, that I can't let it go without putting it to paper. I am wondering what everyone else in the world is doing at this moment and what "breaking news" is next to come. For many folks' half of a new day is over or done while for others a new day is just beginning. Time is strange in how it shifts and moves with location. This era of time we are all engulfed in is strange as well and as I ponder back in time in my thoughts, it has been steadily rolling towards “strange” as if it were the only way to go. What began as a snowball, which was paid little attention too, has now become an avalanche rolling downhill and picking up speed as it goes. They say if we do not change it then most anything and everything will repeat itself and I swear, with all of my searching can I find much change about enough needed things…not much change that ended up as good change anyway. We can try to claim that those failed changes for the better began with good intentions, but did they? Our own IRS, healthcare, and too many various areas of the government have fallen under intense scrutiny… a thing I do not think has ever happened to this extent all at once! And too boot none of the above "higher up folks" seem much interested in the plight of us folks out here just trying to make it. It’s a disheartening thing to see endorsements that speak of unity in word and division in practice, hypocrisy is a vein that runs with cold blood. I keep thinking, hoping, and wishing it to be different but we have been forced into doing so much with so little for so long that we have almost become accustomed to the struggle. We all know that struggle…that “keeping my head just above water” struggle. All of the sudden the signs shout that the new normal is odd…I don’t think treading water to survive should be normal at all and it’s an odd fact that we have begun to see it as normal. 

I am not out to do finger pointing or to assign blame to any ONE person or any ONE branch of the "powers that be," or any ONE group of people for these failures are the result of a slew of way too many years of wrongful decisions. Trust me, it’s more than sad at how us folks have become pawns in a chess game we didn’t ask to play in. So many important decisions are made in haste, and nothing serious is given its due serious deliberation as everyone is in such hurry. Just sign it, stamp it, and let’s move on! Why? Why are we steady rushing ourselves into a world we will never be able to keep up with? Technology has both blessed us and cursed us...it has opened so many new doors and yet it has slammed far too many shut. People are desperate, I do not believe I have ever seen such acts of desperation from everyday working people who can't afford to make any ends meet. And then we have those acts of desperation from those who no longer care at all about anything or anyone for I have never imagined a time when people would shoot one another over who got to the gas pump first. People are standing on the edge, and no one is offering any help, any relief, or any logical intent of a turn around. These are desperate times, tough times and instead of banding together most have gone out on their own to survive however they can. People do not know who to turn to anymore and it seems that no one can be trusted, from the lowest rung of the ladder to the highest rung at the top. Our media has become such a different kind of a “leading source of information” as it will tend to sway towards the “best-selling” information it can present and then it's game on as to how well they can sell it. We get sold that same false bill of goods under the lemon law of "as is" all of the time and this little catch 22 has brought so many to a dead end. Stop judging people, stop downing people, and stop making brass assumptions about someone just by “the cover of the book” for times are hard all over and people are lost with no one to lead them. I can't understand how it cannot be apparently clear to the upper echelon that this world is still in a state of panic...

And so, it stands now in a very similar, too similar, of a situation of this state of panic. Oh yes, folks everywhere are in a panic spin all across the globe. Folks agree on less all of the time and complicate the same simple things even more than they did over 10yrs ago…and I am supposed to call this progress? I must shake my head on that one. I have never seen such chaos taking place each day, all day over the most insane things and there are too many loose ends floating around that I cannot see getting tied together. It seems, sadly, clear that we don’t address prevention in any way and yet stand ready to pony up a bunch of money to try to fix it after the fact! And that is just patchwork…the whole world is a sinkhole just waiting to cave in for all of us. Seems that by now we would get it that patchwork is always a temporary seam. These are serious times folks and when all is said and done, we are what we have. Take a look around you and whether it suits your fancy or not we are what we have. I suppose I could just keep going on, but I think y’all see the picture I’m painting here…what else can a place be called, that has barely inched forward at anything, other than a non-progressive mess?

We are fighting our way out of that same spider web we have been in for over a decade…when does it change, does it change at all, or will we get those same promised pacifications still yet again?! I think it’s a fair question given that this State of Panic has barely budged towards a remedy. How can a whole decade pass us by and the only things we have to show for it are more homeless, fierce desperation, jobless people who want to work and plenty of jobs for those who don’t want to work, EBT is a fight for families to get and that is on the verge of denying one food! Lord how the list adds up but, on these issues folks, the absolute proof is in the pudding! This may not be what we want to hear but if you will be honest with yourselves and acknowledge the standings on where we were and where we are now and that where we are probably going is not looking good then you can’t help but feel let down. I mean it gets under your skin that we have been paused at a stalemate for some time but if you do not at least entertain the down sloped side to things then you are unprepared for it all. So, take this as what you need to hear over what you would rather hear…for we still live in a swirled State of Panic…over 10 years later.

The revised version of our State of Panic... 

written by Pam Scholes

3/24/2024