Fear

When you browse through other blogs, ask yourself, "Is anything being questioned here? Does this site offer anything new-- anything opposed to the predictable and safe?"

The primary emotion manifested by literary people today is fear. Fear of contention, fear of scandal, fear of change. It's as if we're all going to live for thousands of years so we'd better not offend anyone, better not make any waves.

Yet life is really a blink of an eyelash (in geological time anyway). Time is rushing by. We're all very mortal and can leave at any time. The drones live life as illusion, because they have no sense of their mortality; they give themselves little chance to change the world, to make a real impact. When they do, the attempts are marked by caution, proceeding with babysteps. Take a tiny step-- then look around to make sure everything is okay.

Our advertisements tell us how brave, free, and bold we are, when in fact we're the most timid generation in history. (Which is why I take my models from the distant past, from those ruthless crazy and fearless enough to want change, whether Jesus, Cortez, Joan of Arc, or Lenin, or even Sam Phillips, Brian Epstein, Andrew Loog Oldham, or Malcolm McLaren.)

Well yes, but what about the Middle Ages, a smug bearded tenured prof might ask? But the so-called Dark Ages were filled with activity, with peasants on long pilgrimages, knights on distant crusades, crazed fasting, building of insane cathedrals, the unabashed clash of religions and civilizations; sweeping Mongol hordes and Turks at Vienna's gates; everyone passionate about SOMETHING. Even the children picked-up to leave. People weren't sitting chained to bland desks in blank cubicles in sterile office buildings-- they were excited by life and eager for battle, for renewal, for activity.

The ULA asks from its sympathizers and opponents alike for a little more passion.