Advancement

I think I'm beginning to discover the flow of this blog.  I've written them in the past, I've kept journals, notebooks and other things in between.  Shoot, for  that matter, I've burned entire notebooks...utilizing the idea of the Phoenix, when I find myself in a funk or stuck using the same type of lingo or hooks, I'll literally burn entire collections of my writing to free myself from them, rising anew, reborn with brand new ideas to spew forth.  But no matter the topic, those writings all discussed something, a belief, some story that I might have percolating inside my mind.  But here, I'm feeling like like this is the curtain pulled back, here you are getting to see the Great Oz when all the bells and whistles are removed.
In other words...here you get to understand that I've been sitting in the dark for five minutes in front of this computer screen thinking about what words are going to be strung together.  Instead of a story, here you are learning about how the story comes about.
Here, you get to read me think about Trayvon and how a life was lost.  But you also get to read me think that maybe he did start the fight, but you also get to follow these words and read me come back around to the fact that a life was lost and how do we as a society not hold someone accountable for that?  Jeez, Michael Vick spent two years in prison for killing dogs that could have very well attacked him, right?
You get to read me envision me here, sitting in the dark still, arms wrapped around myself, wondering what the next story is.  Trayvon will be done soon enough, because there is going to be something sexy, something gruesome, something international that is going to take the eye of the camera off of it.  The news works like music and radio nowadays.
Tangent: I remember being a kid; 1984, I was in the fourth grade, jamming to Michael and the Thriller album.  Yup, I was in my bedroom and between dunking on the Nerf hoop hanging on the back of my door, I was practicing those sweet Thriller moves and pretending to understand the true value of PYT and Billie Jean.  Then came 1985, I still heard the Thriller album on the radio, still moonwalking in my room.  One freaking year later and I was still on the same album and songs, loving them like they were brand new.  The news was the same.  Reagan was reelected, trickle-down economics was in full effect and the stories were all the same.  Times were slower, we absorbed what life put in front of us and we used that knowledge to learn and proceed.  It didn't always mean the news was good, but at least we could use it to move forward with purpose.
Now...we're lucky to get the same story from the 5pm news as we are on the 6pm news.  What can really hold our attention any more?
So, now, with Trayvon, who do we blame? Hurry up and make a decision before the story goes away...facts be damned.  Do we blame the shooter, the parents who didn't know to look for him in a morgue until three days later, a society that didn't bother to know their neighbors?  You or me for writing and reading about all of this, trying to get some juicy bit of info no one else knows about yet?
And now, instead of reading about a grand thought, you have come full circle with me and together we are wondering how did we get here as a society?  All the advancements, all the knowledge that we have at our fingertips...shit...the fact that anyone now can be a writer who can impact the world with a mesmerizing string of dialogue...but why are we not yet satisfied?  Why do we always have to be looking to something else to capture our attention?  Why not just settle in and dwell on something for a moment?  Maybe then, we won't always be looking for the next child who will be killed, instead we can focus on the one who already was and try to solve the issue of not letting it happen again to be the next 5 o'clock special.