I spent part of last night talking with my good friend, Richard C. Hoagland. Like many of my friends, he is controversial. But this isn't about debating the pros and cons of my friends, but rather Richard said something, that added to something of which I had already been thinking.
If you are reading this blog, you may have surmised that I've spent a bit of time recently, reviewing my life. I think that is very normal for someone who's turned sixty years of age. I realize that there is no particular significance to the number assigned to a birthday, other than being one year older. But the numbers that end in zero are often given significance in our lives by presenting a handy marker in time, to ponder more deeply our past. While no zero year effected me to any large degree, sixty was different. Perhaps it is because it has taken so long to get here!
Well, as I write this, I am sixty one, and looking forward to being sixty two. I suppose that implies that this review has been a lengthy process. It really hasn't seemed that long, though. Then again, at age sixty, everything is a long story.
Well, false though it may be, I now feel I've come through that review process, and I feel very good with the results. Granted, I have countless ways I might change things if given the opportunity, but since that doesn't seem possible, I am content with the results of my past. I feel very fortunate to be able to say that.
But during this review, and in order to do it properly, you must measure it against today's reality. And I have some thoughts about that. Again, it is a long story to properly set the context, so that may take a few more pieces to be written. Suffice to say, that I actually have a positive attitude toward the future for mankind. However, it ain't gonna be an easy road. It never really has been, so perhaps struggle is the constant in life.
A wise shaman once told me of a prophecy. That from 1980 to the end of 2000 a.d. is called the awakening. From 2001 to August 19, 2012 was the quickening. And that last date ushered in the fifth world. So what does that mean?
It means society awakened to a more spiritual path. That we, as a whole, began to question more deeply the meaning of our lives. We had experienced two world wars, the birth of the atomic age and mutually assured destruction in the cold war, numerous political assassinations and race riots during the sixties, the materialism of the seventies, and during the eighties, much of our experience began to sink in. We were awakening to the false paradigm of Ozzie and Harriet.
No longer could a wife and mother stay out of the workforce, and raise and manage a home. Nor could a father. But a family now required two wage earners, unless one was particularly well paid. They say that absence makes the heart grow fonder. Well, as mommy and daddy moved away from the home, and into the realm of day care, and a home life with precious little free time, we began to realize how lucky we had been, and how much we wished we could raise our children like we were raised. Alas, it was never again to be the world of Ozzie and Harriet.
So we awakened to a new era of mankind. Never before had the family unit been so challenged, and actually gravely wounded. It was a new era for us all, parents and children alike. And it was a major culture shock for my own parents' generation. It was indeed an awakening.
And by the end of the year of 2000, we had evolved into something other than the great society of which we'd dreamed. Oh, our technology was growing like crazy. That wasn't the problem. The problem was the lack created by our loss of the family unit, as previously had always been the case. There was an element lacking in this new paradigm that is difficult to define, but easily felt.
And 2000 saw our election stolen. Our president had been appointed by the Supreme Court. There should have been a new election, but that would have cost money, and money was our new God. Then when 2001 arrived, the quickening had begun. It was brought in by the events of 9/11. And we've been at war in at least one place since. Our civil rights continue to be eroded. And the economy seems to ride rough seas these days. In effect, Joe Public seems to have very little to do with national decision making. And that has happened very rapidly indeed.
So where is the good news? Why am I positive? One very complex but simple thing, the internet. Historians a thousand years from now, will document the invention of the internet as one of the most significant time periods in human history, like the industrial revolution or the renaissance. For the first time, I can use a small hand held device to instantly talk to my friends halfway around the globe. And anyone can write something for the entire world to see. However, a word of caution here, our words live forever on the net, so say something you can live with. You can make a movie, record a song, or take the infamous selfie, and everyone who looks, knows. I don't think the importance of the internet can be overstated.
The net has allowed us to create social movements overnight. A prime example would be the Arab Spring. And it allows us to get almost any information we seek. Those are very powerful tools for the hands of the common man.
I will wane nostalgic for a moment, to illustrate the point. In my youth in the 1950s and in the Ozarks, it was quite a struggle to learn of the world. To write back and forth with someone in Europe could take weeks because all we had was what is now unkindly referred to as "snail mail." And to make a phone call from my grandparent's home, I had to go through an actual telephone operator. Every town had them. Maybe you've seen an old film clip of Lilly Tomlin doing her telephone operator skit. Hilarious.
I could go to most any restaurant and have a hamburger, fries and coke for a quarter. Gas was six cents a gallon. When I had my first real job, minimum wage was new, and was sixty five cents per hour. A new Chevy cost around a thousand dollars. NASA wasn't in commission until I was five years old or so, and I was in second grade when John Glenn orbited earth three whole times! I have read that the computers at NASA during the early missions had less processing speed than a low end smart phone.
So, it is a hugely different world we occupy now, sixty years later.
Perhaps you are wondering what Richard Hoagland had to say? Well, to tell you correctly would require a lesson in physics, which I am loathe to do here. Just suffice to say the physics support a very active year in 2015. And I've already seen examples. None that would matter here, but one perhaps. I got a call from someone close, just to say he liked my music. Now, my relatives hadn't said anything like that for three decades. So it was indeed special and rare. I am still glowing from that one!
And for the first time in a long time, I am writing music again. So that is pretty significant personally. I think there is a good chance the reader will experience significance, personally, in this coming year as well. It seems to be a time of very rapid change. In fact, almost like a whole new world, the fifth one.
No comments:
Post a Comment