Is Life still a "many splendored thing"?

[Sunrise image by naldzgrapics.net]

By Dan Bodine                                                        

Today's tendency among many people to “blame and complain” about something on one hand while complacently refusing to get involved in any remedial effort to help solve or correct it on the other is probably as old as Adam.

It's accented in our modern state by the U. S.'s move toward setting up a permanent safety net, or welfare state. Independent entitlement payments weaken bonds of dependency upon each other.

“If it ain't my dog involved, what're you up here in my face about it for?!” is the common street buzz now.

It's a put-off answer as old, indeed, as there've been competitive, economic markets probably. The old saw, “depending on whose ox is being gored,” didn't arise from some Arabian magical lamp.

A big difference today, of course, is the larger scale--when needs go unanswered, or critical projects can't be completed—of failure. Since society in general bears the brunt of it, the imprint of it is larger.

Indeed, lack of help on a project, or contributions needed to finance its completion, is Society's silent thief in many ways.

People will never know individually, for instance, what they could've been or could've done by not getting involved, nor what their country could've become. They've sat back silently and exchanged a certain degree of comfort for mediocrity (regardless if the exchange is real, false, or imagined upon them).

But is the welfare state – coming hand-in-hand, as it has, with a technological revolution -- the chicken or the rotten egg? It appears we're either tragically cruel or arrogantly indifferent at times. One answer lies in the degree of differences you'll accept in a class society, has been my usual reply.

Indeed, some look at our situation today and see us “slouching toward Gomorrah.” But historians, too, will point out it's a re-occurring theme thru the history of our civilization. Like good rainfall on parched lands, threatened lakes will re-energize with some good rains.

Some fishing holes will come back; some are gone forever -- existing only as a vague, rose-colored memory of a once was to someone – as the Earth continues to spin seemingly indifferently on its axis thru the changes.

Along with this — in rhythm with it at times even -- the natural condition of human sloth breathes upon us in larger or smaller degrees. It's been around probably as long as sexual discretion. Or at least since the Garden eviction, for sure. It's been a he-said/she-said world since. Exponentially expanding and contracting, too!

This whole topic was raised by my ol' blogging friend Jim Myers in an earlier post on The Country Cogitator.

For maybe 25-30 years he's donated his time to youth sports. No doubt he's keenly aware, for instance, of the problem of having angry parents in your face on one hand, because of a personnel decision, i.e., versus their invisibility when finances or help for common projects are sought.

There're people who give, and people who take. Sometimes forever; sometimes depending upon the year, or the season. Life tends to move in patterns that track how they're used, or not used in life.

Indeed, it's probably the oldest con game around. What many don't fully realize though is exactly who is doing the conning, and who is being conned.

In exponentially higher situations—which, yes, covers much of our stressed-out modern era—often the conner and the connee are one and the same.

When truth comes to that person thru enlightenment or revelation (e.g., a burning bush or a wife's skillet on the back of the head!) … Ah, then action! It explains why progress in the world moves in pulls and jerks—Folks pulling along fine here; then a group suddenly jerking there, to break things up. For what? Progress?

This is scattershooting some, of course, for I've spent the past 25 years in poor border communities on the Rio Grande. But most differences Jim and I (or any two people, really) may have gathered in our lives, vary according to how we've perceived class situations locally.

Human nature is human nature – even though overriding it to a certain extent, still, is a deep belief in the basic goodness of men and women.

But a common response, yes, anyone will encounter today in asking for community help is, flatly, “No I don't want to get involved”; or “No I can't get involved.”

It means the cause against the causee isn't popular enough yet with some of my social or financial connections for me to risk breaking them, not without, in the sum aftermath, of getting hurt individually in some way for it.

In becoming a diversified society, it appears not only have our differences been magnified but also the differences separating us, the intensity of our feelings, have grown, too.

The question of where or when that critical breaking point of too much will occur still lingers, however. And if history is still an indicator, a relapse to pulling in peace will settle back into the country for awhile.

Thus if “Peyton Place” chronicled the interconnectedness of the 50's village, Miley Cyrus and her twerks now reflect our separateness in the early 21^st decades. But history hasn't written its next chapter yet, one can always argue.

Was social policy the chicken or the egg in all this? Or technology? The government's safety net, in effect, has made folks less dependent on each others' oxen, for instance. They have an additional source of revenue--government.

If a sacred cow gets gored, so what? But entitlements are iffy, flowing with political correctness. Technology has muddied (prolonged?) this cycle of change, essentially, by creating new opportunities.

The internet and YouTube et al, i.e.,  give you the freedom and opportunity to make another one! A connection. Another cow. And the beat goes on! We're still not holding hands together though.

If there's any relief for wearied old-timers – like Jim and I are rapidly becoming (in the face of this new-age thinking) -- it's in our awareness of history.

“This, too, shall pass” is a refrain we've lived thru sufficiently enough for it to be a true lesson.

The problem with growing old though is time. It shortens tolerance. And there's just not enough of it to listen to or to watch all this stuff! Meaning change our lifestyle cadence; to get in step with the times.

Hee, hee. That's why you see so many in the older generations spending so much time at domino tables somewhere. Or at home in their gardens.

They're elected to continue to keep up with what once was, rather than what now is. It's less disruptive. And it's still a free country.

Until another Big Jerk comes along. And forces them to do something out of their routine. For better or for worse.

Life. It's still a many splendored thing.

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