I was thinking about e.e. cummings all day today, and I really think the man had it right. There is no place in the natural universe for capitalization.
We are all the same. We are all equal.
Not just human beings or black or white or Polish or Irish or gay or straight or right or left or men or women. The universal "us" is everything in creation. We are all made out of the same stuff. We are all on the same plane.
All of us.
Modern science tells us that, because of the nature of The Big Bang, we are stardust, and we are the same as the trees and the sun. The same as the dirt and apples and cockroaches and meteors and stars and oceans. The same as horse shit and roses and mosquitoes and elephants and fish and grass and cotton and barley and wind. We are all the same stuff, nothing different at all.
That should give us a comfort, I would think, knowing that we are all the same.
No hierarchy.
No underlings.
No lords.
The natural universe holds us all in the same esteem. We are all lower case, which is not to say that we are all mundane or unremarkable.
Just the opposite is true; we are all amazing and plain at the same time. Individual and joined. Flawed and perfect. Eternal and finite. Unique and staggeringly indistinguishable from each other.
In fact, there is no "other". There just is.
Capitalization is a human creation that artificially raises certain things above others. It is an arrogance, a hubris, a form of ranking in which the ones who created the system come out on the top of the food chain.
It is a divider that segregates the "haves" from the "have nots".
It is a judgement.
It is also untrue and unrealistic.
There are no capital "i's" in the real world.There is only us.
All of us.
The complete ALL of us.
And now, I'm going to bed.
My head hurts.
This obsession we have lately with equality is one helluva excuse for the unsuccessful to be able to penalize or look down on the successful because they are TOO GOOD AT SOMETHING. Give me a freaking break. Why should I take my foot off the gas when I'm winning the race? And make no mistake, this life is a GD race. Not to see who gets the most stuff, but a race to retirement. A race to the magic number, whatever it might be for whoever you are. I know what it is for me. The number that pays for the kids college, and sets up me and my wife for our expected life span on a yearly salary that resembles what I make right now.
Capitalizing on our strengths, in particular the unique ones, is the RESPONSIBILITY of each and every person on this Earth. Instead, we have 99% of people just whining about their own weaknesses, complaining they don't have the strengths that others do.
I wasn't born with a great singing voice, so if I wanted to be a rock star I'd have to learn to play the guitar.
I don't run really fast, so if I wanted to be a sports hero it would need to be in a sport that moved pretty slow.
Capitalize on your strengths while trying to improve your weaknesses. Don't fall behind this 'we are all exactly the same and equal so no one should be above anyone else in any respect ever ever BS.'