Watched a documentary last night. Fierce Light. It was produced by Velcrow Ripper who also did Scared Sacred. He’s Canadian, born in Gibsons, BC. Good cinematographer. Last name is really ‘Ripper’. ‘Velcrow’, I am not so sure about.

Anyway, his doc was about the ‘Occupy’ movement before it was called the ‘Occupy’ movement. Seems the whole civil disobedience thing goes back a long ways (duh!). But, somehow, he managed to convey the difference between a Ghandi or MLK-led peaceful march and a real no-name-leader protest. I don’t think he saw his documentary as the beginning of the ‘OCCUPY’ movement but, from this perspective, it seems that way.

Seems (for him, anyway) it started in Oaxaca, Mexico. Seems the people got ‘mad as hell’ and ‘occupied’ the city centre for a few weeks. No real leaders. No real message. Just ‘we’re mad as hell!’

And that was 2006. Mind you, I seem to recall that the Bolivians did the same thing over water some years before that. It is hard to say when a local protest morphs into a provincial one and then again into a national and international one.

It is definitely media determined. But what is it that the media needs before they see the writing on the wall?

Interesting, don’t you think?

I watch this kind of stuff because I still have a few drops of activist in me. Not much. Just a bit. I’d rather write my protest than actually paint myself in fake blood and stand on a street yelling slogans and waving signs. That just ain’t my style. I’m not photogenic enough, anyway. But the sentiment is the same. Kinda.

I was ‘that way’ back in the 70’s. I got involved. Protested. A little. But I was always more inclined to protest for change from within the structure than from without. Seemed like a good way to get in on the inside. Start there. And so I did. I got to the epicentre of local politics and even provincial politics briefly but I burnt out. The work was intense, the politics unfathomably stupid and immoral and there was always daily proof that one person CAN’T make a difference. It got depressing after 12 years. And I got depressed.

So, I left and did other things.

But, ya know, if you’ve got a dissent gene, it will continue to show up. It’s in your make-up. And I can’t deny it, I’m a whiner. May as well face it and proceed to complain as I am so inclined. Plenty of material to work with. I’ve tried ‘going with the flow’. It ain’t easy. But I may have found a little trick, thanks to an 82 year old Vietnamese Buddhist monk with an unpronounceable name. He said (and, of course I am paraphrasing),

“Social work is too hard. Burns you out. I would have to meditate more and more just to get enough energy to go back into the battle. It was draining me. I had to find a better way. So, I did. Now I see the battle as having a rhythm all it’s own. It is a ‘being’ I have to get into harmony with. Like a dance partner. I have to be one with the problem. I have to love the problem and all that makes it a problem. Then I can work without getting exhausted. I am no longer resisting it, I am ‘loving it’, instead. I don’t fight it. I dance with it. And that makes it fun and easier to do. Big difference.”

“What the hell does that mean, Dave?”

I dunno. I am just easily influenced by documentaries, I guess. Maybe it’s another genetic trait.