Sunday, October 20, 2013

Telling our stories for the next generation

... just read from one of our beloved Oxen, gone to the West Coast... that people had never heard of MOVE. Was there really a bomb? What evidence? It was ON TV!!! this got me thinking...
Think about it... Thousands, many thousands of people saw that on TV... and it becomes a forgotten event, but through oral memory, recounting, reminding. If not archived in some 'official' way... it ceases to exist. Like the Black Panther executions.

Think about this. What we have witnessed. In the Occupy encampments. In the attempt to stop feeding the homeless here in Philly, in so many confrontations. If we don't remember, record, tell the stories... no one will know. No one will believe such things happened. Maybe on Youtube... but for how long will that be accesable? Other than for old TV shows and pop songs? Can't let it all depend on the digital extention of our memories... we have to tell the stories, over and over and over, and give them form, so they can be remembered and repeated. Repetion matters. Neve ever say to an old person,.. oh, we've heard that from you before!... untill you can tell it too, tell it to someone else.... if it's something that matters.
Nothing lasts longer than oral memory.
Not TV
Not YouTube
Not Facebook
Not accademic mongraphs
Not print news
What we carry in our minds and imagination and memories--is everything, and most of what will matter, for future generations.... if and only if, we begin to take that task seriously. To tell our stories, and to shape them... to give them form that will hold them, like vessels of living fire, that will burn them in the souls of those who come after. Else... what have we done with our lives? Because the changes we long for, won't happen in our lifetimes.
This is a hard lesson, in a time when we are divided by generations. To understand, that not only what you believe and do, but how you tell it, how you give it a shape that will endure beyound you... this matters. Else it all come to nothing.

1 comment: