I Stopped Protesting (Industrial)

"The state of awakening
Is when we become aware of our 'frenetic inertia'
The meaningless busyness that we find ourselves involved in every day
Once alerted to this we feel 'homeless'
Once awakened to the inauthenticity of our lives
We start to seek an authentic existence."

In these testing times
I stopped protesting

In these days of
Ephemeral petty e-petitions
Whose impact on reality is
Inversely proportional
To the sense of self-righteousness
And the acquired accomplishment
Of the stimulated simulated signatory
I stopped endorsing

In these insomniac nights of caps-locked rage
Capsized the next morn, worn out and torn
Forgotten flotsam and jetsam
On a left-behind cyber-shore
Only to resurface on 19ths and 21sts
Like a pirate ghost ship
In an ocean of oblivion

Next year on the same moonless night
In the Framer's Almanac
Writ by vested harvesters of sorrow
Selling and sailing, shooting and scooting
Leaving in their wake an ever increasing stock
Of spilt blood, split brains
The days and the dead
I stopped counting

In this age of stage-managed events
And astroturfing onslaughts
Trending trivialities of We The Tweeple
Carpet-bombing of walls
Synchronized across time-zones
While larger issues
Get discarded like used tissues
After a satisfactory bout of sniffling
I stopped recounting

In these pastimes of times past
And digging of old graves
Schadenfreude and demonization
When we are the only selves looking good
Seeking sadistic pleasure in sparring
Jerking off in knee-jerk stock responses
I stopped overreacting

In these archives
Of well-considered comments
Condemning and not condoning
Changing profile pictures now and then
Donning black once in a while
Image management and crocodile tears
Opening opinionated statements
With preambles and disclaimers
And widely hallowed hypocrisy
And eventual impotency
I stopped balancing

In this cacophonous noise of
The lunatic fringe
Howling in unison
Throwing grapples at the moon
The ol' faithful Pavlovian Dogs
Vanguards of the Wasteland
Salivating at the ring of a bell
Waiting to pounce on an opportunity
To push a political point
On a death or a death anniversary
I stopped hearing

In these epileptic episodes
Of whang sensations and inquisitions
Headlines receiving heavy-rotations
For wanting-to-know notional nations
I no longer feel compelled
To surf to those TV stations
To justify or to falsify the-
I stopping watching

In this era of emotional exploitation
I no longer go with the flow
Not that I am a compulsive contrarian
I want to move the world
With a lever long enough
And a vision to match
I stopped going through the motions
I stopped caving in

In this age of sham rage
Ranting and raving, before partying
Static frenzy and status quixotic inertia
Canned cries, deep fakes, and photoshopped horrors
And radical chic racket
I carve a course of my own
Not that I am different
I want to make a difference
So I absented myself
I stopped following

Finally
After these two decades of protesting
I stopped testing the old ideas
Overexposure burnout is a good thing
All enervating tearjerkers have been written
And now there is nothing left to say
That has not been said before
The dead walk among us
And all nightmares have come true
Stop lamenting now
Lest the world stops feeling for you
The business of building memorials of pain
Has diminishing returns
Ask the wannabe who went unnoticed
The froth raised by agitation
Eventually falls flat
When the bubbles burst
I stopped feeling alienated
And became interested in seeing
How things connect
I started joining

I stopped separating
I stopped shaking my head in disbelief
And started educating the unbelievers
I stopped complaining
And started correcting the willing
Correcting myself before others
I stopped delving in ruins
And started rebuilding
My home
I stopped
I stopped protesting

I just stopped protesting