An Analogy
I was at the photocopy center at Staples attempting to create liner notes for my 1st annual compilation CD, when I stumbled upon the ways in which the workings of our US government are akin to a tricky photocopying job.
So I wanted to copy an item of non-standard size, it needed to end up on 2 side in a certain orientation (this is very difficult to explain without diagrams). I figured that there must be a simple way to tell the copier what I was trying to do and then sit back and watch! But no! I finally broke down and asked the woman at the counter for help, figuring she was more intimate with the machinery. She seemed to assume it was simple as I had, but she repeatedly thought she had succeeded and showed me her handiwork, only to find one side was upside down, etc. Soon she was as confused as I. So she enlisted the help of a coworker and he showed the machine who was boss. He seemed to hold the same vision I did for how the project needed to turn out and with only a couple of glitches, he finally accomplished the mission and I went to have my way with the copies at the fancy paper cutter.
So why is this like the government? Well I think a lot of us have always thought that our country is all about freedom and power for the common man. However, in recent years, I feel, as many do, disillusioned. It is not as simple as casting your vote and doing what you want. There is this whole hidden working, changing anything seems pretty hopeless and the ideals on which the country was founded have been twisted beyond recognition. We feel we should just plug our wishes for goodness and truth into the system and sit back and watch it play out. But, like photocopying, if we are invested in the product, we have to be vigilantly involved in the process and hold fast to our vision of the outcome.
I am aware that I have, literally, a couple of devotees and to them I apologize a) for my long absence and b)that this is not my most inspired material. It was a thought that occurred to me and needed to be formed and sent into the world; mission accomplished.
So I wanted to copy an item of non-standard size, it needed to end up on 2 side in a certain orientation (this is very difficult to explain without diagrams). I figured that there must be a simple way to tell the copier what I was trying to do and then sit back and watch! But no! I finally broke down and asked the woman at the counter for help, figuring she was more intimate with the machinery. She seemed to assume it was simple as I had, but she repeatedly thought she had succeeded and showed me her handiwork, only to find one side was upside down, etc. Soon she was as confused as I. So she enlisted the help of a coworker and he showed the machine who was boss. He seemed to hold the same vision I did for how the project needed to turn out and with only a couple of glitches, he finally accomplished the mission and I went to have my way with the copies at the fancy paper cutter.
So why is this like the government? Well I think a lot of us have always thought that our country is all about freedom and power for the common man. However, in recent years, I feel, as many do, disillusioned. It is not as simple as casting your vote and doing what you want. There is this whole hidden working, changing anything seems pretty hopeless and the ideals on which the country was founded have been twisted beyond recognition. We feel we should just plug our wishes for goodness and truth into the system and sit back and watch it play out. But, like photocopying, if we are invested in the product, we have to be vigilantly involved in the process and hold fast to our vision of the outcome.
I am aware that I have, literally, a couple of devotees and to them I apologize a) for my long absence and b)that this is not my most inspired material. It was a thought that occurred to me and needed to be formed and sent into the world; mission accomplished.
posted by Eiren at 5:29 PM
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