It Ain't Dark Yet

                            It’s Ain't Dark Yet

 “It’s not dark yet, but it’s getting there,” a lyric that invokes varying images, but it caused me to think of where we are as a people, a country.

Just using the term people, magnifies for me, the differences as opposed to the similarities we share. When we agree with someone, or a groups ideology, we accept that generally we are similar in other things. Sometimes that is true, most times it is far more complicated than that. 

There are always going to be people and opinions that anger us. We find it difficult to accept the fact that others can’t see what we see, feel like we feel, it is so obvious, we have the answers, if only they would listen. All we want is to save them from themselves.

And we do know, we have the answers. We have the answers that suit us. We have the answers that make us comfortable. It is not the answers though that get us in trouble. It is the questions we are afraid to confront, answer if we have to, or side step if possible. Things that make us uncomfortable, also cause us to become oblivious to change, because change is uncomfortable.

Another of Dylan’s lyrics, “Get out of the way if you can’t lend a hand, for the times they are a changing.” That lyric means a lot to me, because I have lived a number of years, seen way too many Fourth of July parades, and I refuse not to remember, what it was like when I was young. 

We get beaten up by life. We all do. You see people with money and power, and you say, “Oh yah, I should have it so bad.” We assume that money and power are the ultimate pinnacles of success and therefore once you achieve that position, you have got it made. Life, as they say, is a bed or roses.

That is proven to not be true. All we have to do is turn to history that documents the monumental mistakes and the following trepidation that accompanies it. We comment on how much a president ages. Why do we suppose that is? They don’t have to worry about paying the utility bill, get the car repaired, find enough money to feed the family, and yet, what happened that they aged twenty years, in four. Responsibility, should we chose to accept it, weighs on us all.

Life is difficult for everyone, in different ways, but different all the same. I have some old friends who politically see the world in a different light than I do. What I attempt to do is see how they came to their outlook on policies that affect all of us. It’s difficult because most of their policies are based on what they object to. Which as you get older, is nearly everything.

Although we have the ability, because of technology and education to see beyond the past we emerged from, the present we reside in, and yet are not able to shake the old adage that infers there are those who are blind, because they refuse to see. Our focus is distracted by a sense that if a belief differs from our own, it is suspect. We also are programmed to look to the future through the lens of the past. No wonder it is so difficult to not drag it along with us into the future, a future we have created, for better or worse. We have lost the ability to debate, exchange ideas. It has been far easier to go to war over the principle, rather than examine it.

The problem is, we burden the next generation, and the one after that, with the weight of a past they have not participated in. Yes, I hear the shouts about experience, life’s teacher that provides a sense of logic, based on our interaction with it. The problem with that being a harbinger to predict a future, is that the experiences of those that come after us and dictate social policies, will be different. They have to be. People, conditions, environment, all have changed, and to expect those living only within the limits and expectations of today, will be ill equipped. 

Experience does help in directing ones choices, but experience is personal. To expect others to accept choices they have not made from their own experiences is asking for confusion and rebellion.

What I do find hypocritical about the preachers of a one-sided mission, is that they are so involved in attempting to convince others that they are wrong, they forget the tenants of their own beliefs, or choose to ignore them. The flag comes out of the closet, Christ comes down from the cross and sits on their side of the fence, and morality becomes interpreted for its significance.

If you do not believe in something, why is it necessary for me to believe in it for you, for you to be vindicated in your belief. I do not demand you believe in reproductive rights, which religion you must practice, discrimination, which sexual identity is preferable, diversity, but you have no problem demanding I adhere to your edicts, while dismissing mine.

We have been conditioned to accept the policy proposals suggested by a political party. We become so complacent in accepting the ideology we no longer question what is being promoted. The ideology of a party must be examined before we begin to promote it as the means to salvation.

We pull the, “Founding Fathers,” from the dark ages of our history, when it shores up our ideology. We argue over gun rights, who should vote, and how. We no longer argue over the concept of democracy because it has become ideologically inept at performing its mission of collective struggle. The struggle has been co-opted by money and power. We are left to argue and fight over two people, who because of power or wealth are assumed capable of leading us to a fictional promised land. A land that can only exist if we co-operate. Co-operation however demands assimilation of varying ideals, religious persuasions, but mostly the ability and willingness to understand that difference is essential if democracy as we understand it will continue. 

When we reach the state where God speaks only to us, it is time to, as the lyric suggests, get out of the way. Spend your remaining days with your grandkids, help the neighbor who can no longer drive get to the store, help someone learn to read. Admirable pursuits, that allow life to be the multifaceted exercise in learning, that it is. Leave the confessionals and podiums to the self-anointed righteous, just breathe, find a life, relax. But remember, "it ain’t dark yet, but it’s getting there."

Even though I enjoy the freedom to join any group or organization that, as Groucho Marx suggested, should not have me, I choose not to, as the idealism behind herd mentality suggests we roll the dice and see who the lucky ones are. I don’t remember anything in a, “Good Book,” that suggests my God, your God, played craps.