Don’t Worry, Be Happy!

By Phil Polizatto,WWH – It’s been happening for centuries. But it seems that in the last 50 years there’s been an accelerated public consciousness and outcry against the economic, political, and social seismic activity caused by unregulated financial institutions and the subsequent economic inequality that has devasted the rest of us. Hippies caught on to the scams long ago and have been fighting ever since to bring about the harmony in the world for which we long.

Since the inauguration of George W, and especially since the midterms of 2010, I have felt the ocean of peace, love, and compassion; health and security; economic fairness and social justice, and respect for the earth, recede too quickly to be merely an extremely low tide. It has receded at such a fast pace that it has left many of us flopping like fish gasping for air and nourishment on the ocean floor. We watch the sea as it keeps retreating leaving behind the detritus of a greedy corporate world, a sick planet and a dying democracy. The few extremely wealthy citizens, through their corporations, observe from their guarded cabanas the plight of those being sucked dry. They watch without empathy those who are struggling; their only concern being to retain and secure their power. The rest of us know they should be watching in horror because eventually the ocean will return in a wall of water. The tsunami is coming!

Yet strangely a feeling of calm has come over me since the beginning of this New Year. Perhaps I am experiencing that catatonic peacefulness that comes with, as Mick Jagger so aptly put it, my 19th nervous breakdown. Or is it my 40th? Whichever it may be, for some inexplicable reason, the words of a spiritual master, of whom I was never a disciple, keep wandering through my mind. I refer to the Indian mystic, Meher Baba.

“There are very few things in the mind which eat up as much energy as worry. It is one of the most difficult things not to worry about anything. Worry is experienced when things go wrong, but in relation to past happenings it is idle merely to wish that they might have been otherwise. The frozen past is what it is, and no amount of worrying is going to make it other than what it has been. Worry is also experienced in relation to the future when this future is expected to be disagreeable in some way. In this case it seeks to justify itself as a necessary part of the attempt to prepare for coping with the anticipated situations. But, things can never be helped merely by worrying. Worry has never done anyone any good, and it is very much worse than mere dissipation of psychic energy, for it substantially curtails the joy and fullness of life. Be happy, don’t worry!” 
― Meher Baba

Be happy. Don’t worry. Have no fear. We, the people who are being dragged out to sea, have found refuge on innumerable islands across the country and around the world, steadily making our way to the higher ground of human kindness. There we rest and rejuvenate our activism and take solace in our solidarity. Winter is a time for reflection, reassessment, planning and organizing. It is a time to recuperate and regroup so that come the spring, we will make our voices heard louder than ever and our numbers will swell as never before. It is a time to coordinate worldwide expressions of outrage that any person on this earth must suffer because a tiny fraction of the population deems itself to be more important than those upon whose backs their lifestyles of comfortable opulence is made possible.

Have no fear. Those who take the moral high ground will be safe. And those who insist on staying where they are, maintaining the status quo to protect their self-interests will drown in their own oil slicks and the debris of their own hedge funds. They will refuse to leave the lounge chairs and cabanas nestled into the white sands of their private beaches. And from their low immoral ground, they will try to scare us into believing universal health care will bankrupt us, that affordable housing and education is an untenable goal; that Social Security and Medicare is an entitlement rather than a trust fund into which all of us have paid, and a host of other lies. They will use the force of the fascist laws they create to keep us in line. They will try to use the force of their money to buy the politicians they need to pass the laws that benefit them. They will try to use force, period.

Have no fear. We will watch from that moral high ground of peaceful protest the enormous tsunami of peace and love crash upon their inhumane tactics. The very system they have created will dissolve around them. Take refuge in the knowledge that laissez-faire capitalism is doomed. It is based on rampant consumerism and if you have no money with which to consume, the corporatocracy will not be able to prolong our suffering without suffering themselves. If they wish to survive at all, they will have to provide us the money with which to consume. Of that there is no doubt. Therefore ignore their scare tactics for their inequitable system will not allow that to happen without its total disintegration. If that should be the case, we will begin anew, this time with a level playing field; this time with the People at the helm and not multi-national corporations.

However we will not concede to merely a subsistence living. We will fight first and foremost to get corporate money out of our politics. We will work at every level… local, state, and federal… to elect progressive candidates who will enact legislation that will narrow the gap between rich and poor, provide for a large and healthy middle class, and return the liberties that have been stealthily denied. We will see the Conservative vote splintered by a third or even fourth party and the year 2012 holds in store events which no one can predict and which may surprise us all.

Regardless of who is elected as our next President, it is of no matter, for all the candidates wear the same tailored corporate suits. And I do not expect anyone to primary Obama or run as a progressive independent. But as this tsunami of peace, love, and justice surges inland to the most conservative and regressive parts of our world, water will behave as water does. It will fill every corrupt crevice of our political landscape. The 1% will not go unscathed unless they come to their senses and realize that we are all one and help bring to reality the true equality that was envisioned by the more enlightened of our founding fathers.

The ocean has receded as much as it is going to. Soon it will return in a series of many huge waves. They will seem to be traveling slowly, but their return is inevitable. When they finally sweep away everything in its path, those who have taken the moral high ground will be safe and secure. As one who has waited 40 years for the resurrection of hippie values on a grand scale, I tell you from experience that progress is often slow, but it is inexorable. Ironically, the very immoral and skewed system the oligarchy has created has predestined its own demise. It will take time. I do not wish to disappoint, but there will be no revolution. It will be an evolution based on extensive reforms which return us to a life of fairness and equality.

Am I happy? No, but I am working on it. Do I worry? Yes, but I am working on it. Though I may know the truth, I struggle living the truth. Living the truth is hard work… a life’s work. It is difficult to be happy and not worry when you are being pepper-sprayed, beaten, or shot with rubber bullets. I don’t think Meher Baba meant “Be happy, don’t worry!” as a dictate for all of us to turn into Afred E. Neuman with a constant smile of blissful ignorance on our faces. But I for one can no longer live with the constant angst that confronts us every day, full of dread for the state of the world and the human condition. It is unhealthy. We must learn to balance our external outrage and anger with inner fearlessness. Where there is no fear, there is no worry. We must trust that human kindness will prevail over animal greed. We must temper our outward worry with the inner happiness that comes from protesting, chanting, singing, and marching in solidarity with our brothers and sisters who realize we are all one. Be happy knowing that the majority of citizens on the planet await the same things: love and peace. They are on their way!

Namaste!

To contact Phil or find out more: check out his website and blog For a copy of HUNGA DUNGA
Phil Polizatto – Worldwide Hippies Bureau Chief – West Coast USA, is a graduate of The School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University. He was a feature writer for the overseas division of UPI, a copywriter for CBS, and an award-winning corporate film producer. Mr. Polizatto is a published poet and a regular contributor to Worldwide Hippies as well as a variety of other arts and literary journals. Hunga Dunga is his first published novel. He resides in the Pacific Northwest.

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