Random Ramblings

  The State of the Union is fraying and tarnished. It seems in every election year we say this. However, I don't think it is just that. There is today a lack of understanding among people that my trusting and naive nature fails to grasp.

  The people of this age seem to think that society can continue to function without any upkeep, without any new ideas, thoughts or plans. It has never been and will never be thus. A society is really a continual renewal, like an ancient city with layer and layer built up over centuries. Our job, as inhabitants of the present, is to make our contribution to our layer. In this sense, it is our interest and our obligation to have SOMETHING to contribute, some passion, some feeling, thought, or interjection that breaks the monotonous rhythmic patterns in order to create new patterns that move in the direction the human spirit needs to go at that particular point. When so many people stagnate, when they fail to strive, to think,, to be curious, to challenge and rise and dream and stand up for themselves, this has a cumulative negative effect over time and distance. It leads to stagnation. The stagnation in our souls translates into a stagnant society. A society is nothing without the spirit of humanity electrifying and animating its core. It becomes a congeries of seething fears, recriminations, paranoia, and petty interests. It settles into a conglomeration of menacing mediocrities glowering at one another across imaginary divides.

   I remember other times and other people. In the past I enjoyed having discussions with people much older than myself. They were freer and more spontaneous in their thoughts, broader and deeper in their knowledge, and didn't give a flying damn about what other people thought of those thoughts and ideas. They seemed bolder, more spontaneous, like a spark was continually igniting and illuminating parts of their mind that they wanted, NEEDED to share with you. And they didn't think this way of being at all unusual because it wasn't. I once, when I was younger, subscribed this behavior to their older age. This is the way "old people" act, talk, think, behave etc. Now, as I get older, I am not so certain of this. I think people have changed from the inside. There is a fear in people today of all ages; a circumspection, an enervating self-consciousness that continually asks for the permission, approval, and attention of others; any others, anywhere.

   We seem to have regressed as a species. I don't like this change. I admit I am conservative by nature and tend to venerate the past, perhaps a little too much. But I also remember. I remember everything. And I know, I am certain of the changes I speak of above and I just don't know the cause. It is an issue of disturbance to me. We are all and only human and beings. We live and love and hate and hope together. But we must never forget that all we do together is meaningless and empty if our individual souls have lost the bright, burning thoughts and passions that enlighten and envigorate an otherwise dark and barren world.

   We are brilliant and good created and creative beings with hearts and minds electrified and sparked by a soulful fire. That is the human in our being. That is the essence that will reinvigorate our humanity into the pillar of wisdom and strength that will reanimate and uplift ourselves and our society.

Writers on writing

The State and the Government

The Three Freedoms

Machiavelli

The vastly misunderstood Niccolo Machiavelli writing to Ricciardo Becchi: January 31, 1515

"Anyone who might see our letters. my dear friend,, and might note their diversity would be very amazed, for at one point he would think that we were very serious men, involved in weighty matters, and that we never entertained a thought which was not lofty and honest. But then, turning the page, he would discover that these same serious men were frivolous, inconstant, lustful, and occupied with trifles. This manner of ours, although to some it may be disgraceful, seems worthy of praise to me, because we imitate Nature, which herself is various, and anyone who imitates Nature cannot be criticized."

  The tragedy and necessity of the present age is that we must know much about one or a few things. Compartmentalization of knowledge is all around us, especially in social media. This has created a psychological condition that leads us to see other people as what they are in the moment. Everything we do is supposed to be a "representation of who we are" from our clothes to our looks to what we read, listen to, write....this leads to a lack of creativity, spontaneous thought, and innovation. All we do is now "seen" by someone and that creates an unavoidable self-consciousness in all our actions that is something new in it all-encompassing pervasiveness. When all we do and write and say and sing and think is SEEN constantly, we cannot help but internalize the gaze of others into a vice of self critique that can be stifling if we are not careful.

  Of course, we choose for all of it to be seen and heard as well. This is a choice born of the urgency and necessity of the present and is understandable and unavoidable. But a small place must still be saved, I think, for the fearless state of just pure, brilliant, joyous, uninhibited experimentation in thought that a too pervasive self awareness caused by the audiences we seek out might stifle. It is this freedom that belonged to people like Machiavelli who were free to experiment in thinking about a whole range of topics without fear of being placed into a category by his thought and musings in the moment. Now we are expected to be on one "side" or the other, one camp or the other. Those expectations can be the tragic death of innovative thought and the stifling of possibilities that might preclude solutions.