Getting behind the Social Media curtain: Rick's Journal, for real!

Navigating social media is tricky. There aren't a lot of rules, but you can read lots of blogs or e-Newsletters with people who barely have been on FaceBook or Twitter for three weeks, giving out their professional opinions. And we have all heard of the college student who goes looking for a job but gets turned down when the boss Googles him or her and sees pics of drunken debauchery in the photo albums. Blah, blah, blah.

But what good is all of this Social Media crap if you can't be real? If you only get the slick, brochure version, the media massaged and scripted Rick? I mean, how do you get behind the facade?

I wouldn't call Hawk Circle all that bad of a facade, really, and it is pretty much from the heart and all that. But let's face it, it is still tailored to a larger audience, not wanting to offend anyone and perhaps turned down a notch or two, just to be, well, maybe a little more relaxed. (Not that there's anything wrong with that!)

But when people who run organizations, or businesses, or causes are on Social Media, how do you know when you are getting the real person, and not the "safe Rick"? When is it just a line from Madagascar, you know? "Cute and Cuddly, Boys, Cute and Cuddly!" (The penguins. For those of you who are living in a debris shelter, forget it.)

So, here is where it gets real. I don't need to misspell a bunch of words to let you know that I am real, either, and I am going off the script, and skipping telling you about my thoughts on American Idol, or how Javi and I like to look up at the night sky for the moon or shooting stars. We are going off road.

So.

I have been driving to a couple of schools in Delaware County, where I teach kids in an afterschool program twice a week. It is probably an hour and a half each way, so I have a lot of time to think, to drive, to scout for spears or arrow shafts, or fresh road kill, or any number of great wilderness resources that you can find along a country road side if you keep your eyes open. But mostly, I've just been listening.

Collapse, by Jared Diamond. Among other things. But mostly the audio version of his book.

People, friends, past students and campers, family, I've got to tell you: We've got some serious changing about to happen, and it is coming up very fast.

I know this isn't that ground breaking. I mean, anyone who has been paying the slightest bit of attention in the past six months to the financial collapse knows what I am talking about. If you watched an Inconvenient Truth, you know what I am talking about. If you have paid attention to the increasing rates of extinction, you know what I am talking about. If you think Monsanto is a bad idea, you know what I am talking about.

Do I need to go on?

But, what do we actually do? I mean, what can we do? When do we get up off the couch or table and begin to make changes? What changes should we make first? What is the best way to make the most impact? How should we do it?

If there is one thing I have seen a lot of in the past five years of teaching that is new and scary, is the 'deer in the headlights' syndrome, where students, when asked to do something that they might not be sure of how to do, will exhibit. They will freeze, and just wait until told what to do. They won't take initiative, and their fear of doing something the wrong way, or making a mistake, is so great that they will instead do nothing. They will wait and wait and wait.

Isn't that the same thing that is happening now? Aren't we waiting to see what someone else is going to do, to be inspired, or instructed or told so we can be sure to be on the same page and not make a mistake?

Why don't we trust our own inner voices, that are probably pretty hoarse from screaming at us, to get a move on, little doggy? Why can't we just make the jump and, if, five years, ten years from now, someone says, ha ha, wow, aren't we glad that the world didn't end yet, we can just smile and laugh along with them, while we pick our own beans, corn or apples? Heck, we can talk all the way to the root cellar, or the cider press, or whatever.

There is one thing that I got from reading his book that is particularly chilling: The concept called Creeping Normalcy, where the changes are happening but they happen so slowly, over so many years, that everyone sort of just goes along with the crowd and by the time they begin to fight against the current of society, it is too little, too late.

Maybe it is too late already. I will hold that that could very well be true. Seriously. There may be nothing that we can do to stop the events that are set in motion. In that case, all of the preparation in the world can't help you feed five hundred thousand hungry refugees and take care of your own family when the collapse happens.

I struggle to write this and put this out there to all of you, because for a long time I have not wanted to create fear in people. To have everyone think I am against society, or using fear to get people into programs or whatever. Because maybe, I just didn't want to admit that the inner voice I have is right, and that I am scared myself for the future.

I do know that the skills we offer can help, so I trust that. Skills are like a vaccine against fear.

But I am just sending this out there to say that it is time to start listening to your own inner voice, in whatever way you choose, and then, act.

You know. Do Something!

And then listen some more and act again.

I can't say it will save the world, but it just might. And I will add that in any case, it will feel good to listen to your own inner self and that is not a relief taken lightly. Listening and acting will bring you into alignment with your own personal vision, your purpose for being here, on this world, right now. It gets you on with why you are really here.

Okay, I guess I am done for now and my inner voice needs to go to sleep.

Good luck, to all of us. I think we are gonna need it!