The lives of ordinary people

“Big history runs through the lives of ordinary people” (Shiyavash Shahabi, exile of Iran)

It’s why we find a way to keep resisting

Playing, with rocks, with words, insisting, keeping, or at least trying to keep each other free

The dog days aren’t over, it’s never been done, we can’t hide, so I suggest we not run

So some of us need to be absurd, some of us have to take the chance, to risk our lives by being foolish, we cannot run,

We’re ordinary people, living ordinary lives, extraordinarily

So let’s dance

It was an anthem of resistance, back in 2011, when we thought our only care was for the other fighting in the distance

To overcome a dictator or the several many, we thought so far away

We didn’t think the brink would choose us, bad ideas in the absence of better ones have a way of gaining sway.

I often wonder how the obvious is so difficult to see

I’m not speaking of the cruelty and corruption, only blindness and stupidity would choose to ignore it

No, it’s the reticence to mobilize and stand up to power, with our bodies, to force a change and not think that change can come with our desire to follow rules, to take a road that is dismantled and call it a high one, to be above the fray, rely on justice when justice is in such disarray, when the freedoms we hold self-evident no longer seem in play

I wonder why I need to hold that conversation? Why should I be the one with answers, be the one to make things happen? Be the one to not give up, to not give in, to accept the gross mistakes of judgement that seem so obvious to see? To let all those errors leading to our common misery play out in the vain hope that “we” will eventually learn from them?

And, I’m sorry this seems so plain to me, so uncomplicated; why I see that those who choose to fight, choose the least effective way? And those of us who see it clearly have to wait for time and experience for all the rest to catch up?

It’s far too late, far too many who have born the death and pain, far too few to catch on to what it is we need to do. We’ve really waited long enough.

And yet, there is no real choice. We can’t change the world without the world to be in on it. I can’t run away, even if you don’t wish to follow.

I can’t run away, it’s my dark side that can’t dissipate, I remain wishing, hoping.

Even in a losing battle, even when love seems to die. I can’t run away.

Except to let you find your way

It’s the way of ordinary people, living ordinary lives extraordinarily

The way of all of us who wished for something great

And in the end, all they wished for the pain, the hurt, the uncertainty to end