"_____-ing for a Cause"

Self-awareness is alluded to so often, yet practiced so little.

As people get increasingly informed about all of the sociopolitical turmoil, emotional involvement at some level is almost inevitable. Each day, more and more people are choosing to act based on these great shifting tides, myself included, though one must be very mindful of where they truly stand in all of this.

We all seek to impose our own versions of the ideal world onto the world around us. Remember, your concept of the ideal world is constructed in large part because of the world that you've lived in (and hopefully with some creativity thrown in)... but how does this to apply to fighting for a cause?
Wait... fight?
I don't want to fight. Do you?
Whom do you want to fight? Why? How?

So many peers around me decry my own actions, claiming that I am no longer 'fighting for the cause'.
As saddened as I am to hear it, they're right. I am no longer fighting.
I am working for the cause.

Fighting necessarily entails an opponent. Occupiers around the world portray 'the rich' as their mortal enemies. By the same token, the owners of capital decry the protesters as whiny beggars.
The way I see it, both demographics are guilty of the same crime: ignorance.
They defend their own and seek only to maim the other without considering the idea that their true enemies may be among them.

The rallying call of the occupiers is the corruption of the government, but the rich haven't rallied together to fight the occupiers. Why?
Because they're not fighting; they're working.

By no means am I suggesting that ANY demographic has a disproportionate number of hard workers to lazy bums. In my experience, they are all rather evenly distributed throughout society.
I am suggesting that the rallying call be changed.

Just as I see weak-minded political servants being bought out because they'd rather life be easier than reject campaign funding from a given corporation, I also see occupiers spending their days accomplishing precisely as much as the aforementioned human placeholders: nothing.
Give a congressperson enough money to get re-elected, and s/he'll vote for whatever you like.
Give an occupier a social environment as angry as s/he is, and s/he'll chant whatever you like.

Want to make a difference? Work.
I don't mean 'get a job'. I mean work.
If you have the resources (food, shelter, a computer?) then you have the tools. Put them and yourself to use and WORK for it.

If you want to change the world, don't passively affirm those who affirm a few points of your goal.
Work for it, whatever your goal may be.
Impose your will onto the world and work to change it to your ideal, or it will be taken from you.

Those who do not actively create nor seek to create, yet persist nonetheless, only consume. These are the true parasites of society. They are not isolated to any demographic; they are everywhere. There are far too many of them. Do not become one of them.
The wealth of this world was and still is created by workers, and is now in the direct control of far too many parasites who only seek to consume, and have no desire to create. That is why Occupy has happened.
You certainly know some. They are among you. They are among everyone. Stop affirming them, at all levels. Each demographic guards their own members far too strongly to recognize the workers from the parasites.


The vast majority of citizens of the United States have a great number of resources that they seldom consider. Far too many computers, originally used as machines to perform incredible calculations and maximize human productivity had devolved into social networking tools, and now have fallen among mere toys.
Pharmaceutical drugs abused for the sake of recreation (which in far too many cases becomes addiction) were created to improve quality of life.
On YouTube, instructional videos or beautiful displays of creativity are seldom recognized and drowned in a deluge of over-produced music videos and commercialized 'internet memes'.

The workers exist too, though they're harder to find. Don't worry, plenty of them enjoy themselves just as much (if not better) than the parasites. They seek to accomplish and create. Find them. If the world is in trouble, they are the ones who will save it.

So... I've been reading Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged"...

The Most Important Profession in Society

Farmers.

It's no surprise that as a society progresses and urbanizes, its citizens naturally become more and more disconnected from needing to attend to the basic needs of life (like food, water, and survival) and gravitates to problems of lesser necessity... though I do wish this wouldn't entail the lionization of farmers as a demographic.

For all those who have forgotten, food doesn't magically appear at the supermarket; people worked hard to deliver those... though too often, the people sending food to urban centers are marginalized and criticized by those who barely have any concept of what farming entails.

Restrictions on farming practices pile on year after year. Agricultural progress seems to be an afterthought, despite having unequivocally fostered and developed concurrently with human civilization since its birth.

I've been told that cattle cannot naturally digest corn.
I've been told that Australia only has so many fertile wheat fields because of phosphorus-infused fertilizer (as the land is severely deficient in phosphorous and would grow NOTHING otherwise), which is not a renewable resource.
I've been told that global warming will improve the crop output of the U.S. by 20% by 2020.
I've been told that 'organically raised' and 'sustainably raised' are mutually exclusive.
I've been told that humans who reject all foods that are processed (or from animals) are healthier than those who do not.

I can give you my opinion on these matters if you like... but I've included no links here for a reason.

Go find out.
If you have any opinion on how civilization is fed, find out.
Don't listen to me. Don't just feed off of information from an article, commercial, ad, documentary, or self-proclaimed specialist. Search for answers.

If you don't care to find out the finer details of the single most important profession in existence yet still have a strong opinion about the practices it entails, then I strongly suggest you re-evaluate your position.

They feed everyone. They deserve better than this.