Oh, the balance of life! What an elusive, fickle creature. It exists in every thing we see and do. It is omnipresent, yet non-existant at the same time. If you refuse to see it, your naivety will dominate and you certainly never will. Yet if you open your eyes and look, with only a basic knowledge of its existence, it will proudly expose itself like that creepy, moustached math teacher I had in middle school.
It's the age-old, overused concept of the Yin and the Yang. With every bit of "good" in the world, there is a counter balancing "bad" to accompany it. It's just how it is. Every adorable, cooing, potential-filled baby that is born is also one more mouth to exhaust our agricultural resources. It's one more potential rapist, murderer, litterer, jay walker and illegal file-sharing song downloader. Every vow exchanged in the presence of a benevolent god is one more potentially destructive, possessive, bitter, jealous relationship heading toward a life-destroying divorce, or worse yet, an adorable, cooing, potential filled baby. My point: Nothing is 100% good.
I wish old people would realize this. I wish they could look back at their personal days of yore in a realistic way and remember the shitty times and the corrupt government and the lies and the murders and the cults and the wars, not just the sunny days spent eating ice cream in Mayberry. Because when they fail to recognize that bad things happened back then, they think that all the bad things that are happening now are new.
But old people are funny like that. They like to focus on the yin of yore, and they yang of now, not realizing both exist at all times. They fail to see the good of today, the improvements made since their childhood, and the overall betterment of society, because their skewed version of the past leaves them with a rather unbalanced comparison.
But all that is okay. I'm all about old people getting their jollies off on fond memories of summer days on the farm and simple livin'. Days before corrupt governments and inflation and billboards and big government came along. But when their pessimistic mentality starts to wear off on the youth and drain the momentum of good people who respect their elders' opinions, I have a major problem. When an unrealistic version of human history contorts the path of humanity's future, I have an enormous problem.
The fact is, there are great things happening now just as there were great things happening fifty years ago, and there were horrible, violent, catastrophic, unfair things happening fifty years ago just as there are now. Society never improves or degrades. It just changes.
When I was first learning how to ride a motorcycle, my dad would always say, "look where you want to go, and the bike will follow." Well, right now the people of this country are staring into the ditch, and unless they stop comparing today to a fictional past and start embracing the awesomeness shadowed by tragedy, that's exactly where they are cruising.
2 comments:
Chris, your gaia theory inspired this one. Kind of a new twist on an old pet peeve of mine, but it makes a bit more sense this way. If I become a politician, that motorcycle quote will definitely be my campaign slogan.
LOOK WHERE YOU WANT TO GO, AND THE REST WILL FOLLOW!
Paid for by Bohnenkamp for President 2012
I think I might have just cried a fluffy cloud. Or maybe it was a rainbow. I can't be sure.
Well put. You got my vote.
Post a Comment