I move.
You do, too.
Oh wait, every single thing on this planet moves - including a piece of trash blowing in the wind. What's that you say? All matter and energy is moving throughout the universe? And that our very human bodies, these lungs and this heart, emulate a universally rhythmic pattern ~ that of expansion outwards & contraction back in towards the center? (Centripetal and centrifugal motion?)
As for a particular style, well, let's see: I walk upright, on two legs, with my two eyes roving the environment found around me. You do, too? Okay, well then, that makes us human together, or homo sapiens sapiens, if you'd prefer. I sleep in a plush bed, in a room by myself, in a big house with three others, on a wide, residential street where there is little noise and where relatively few neighbors are seen out and about.
I drive in a petroleum powered vehicle to purchase the processed food that I nourish my body with, from grocery stores and other convenience-type facilities. I visit numerous communities throughout the region - from schools to banks, from cafes to studios, and from stores to friends' homes. I spend money and resources that aren't mine. I make up part of a 5% of people who consume over 25% of the Earth's precious resources. I take what I need and I throw back my waste ~ from paper products to food scraps, from cheap plastic to aluminum and from feces to saliva. I am a middle class, American.
Growing up free from the sounds of bombs falling, from the thick plumes of toxic ash assaulting my senses, and from the noxious taste of violence and drama, I spent a leisurely childhood exploring rolling coastal desert hills and nonchalantly diving below tumbling, Pacific waves. Intuitively, the spirit of the land called to me. Twinkling northern hemisphere stars would dance their nightly shimmer while whispering mysteries to great too fathom into my girl ears. Nature always beckoned...
Soon, however, my heart grew heavy with the sights of large swaths of native habitat disappearing underneath the weight of industrial machines and the barrage of cookie-cutter suburban divisions that grew up where marsh and lagoon once sat stewing. Activism, passionate principles and believing in something bigger than myself, were seeded early on.
But, so was pop culture and the din of its sound was too potent to ignore - from the longing refrains of a damsel in distress awaiting her knight in shining armor as she coos from a castle window and into a radio mic every single minute to a greedy, fat king asserting his birth right to the blood, sweat, tears and toil of peasants; from the dripping flags of red, white and blue to the hypnosis of the greenback; from the privatization of basic human rights, such as equal access to land, air, water and food to the inequal ability to buy class, privilege, power and corporatization. "Once you learn to discern the voice of Parent Culture humming in the background, telling the same story over and over again to the people of your culture, you'll never stop being conscious of it. Where ever you go, for the rest of your life, you'll be tempted to say to the people, "How can you listen to this stuff and not recognize it for what it is?" And, if you do this, people will look at you oddly and will wonder what the devil you are talking about. In other words, if you take this educational journey with me, you're going to find yourself alienated from the people around you - parents, friends, family, past associates and so on." (Ishmael)
