Tuesday, August 25, 2015

Trying to clean up the mess

I've been back two weeks now and I've been trying, in my own magical way, to clean up the mess I find all around me.  All the crazy thinking I mentioned in my last post.  It seems as if so many parts of our diverse society have become just characatures of themselves.  No one deals with any complexity, few people recognize the overlapping of truths.

But then it gets to be time to step back.  When I see that the same posturing and bullying goes on all over, whether it's about deflated footballs, nuclear war, immigration or the stock market, it all seems like a playground fight between eight year old boys. Certainly, the same level of reasoning.

Look around. Few people  seem to take it at all seriously, and those who do take it so seriously, and seem so obsessed, that they lose all credibility.

I guess it's still summer. Few people want to get all worked up. Most of this stuff will have disappeared before Thanksgiving, and the rest will probably be with us forever, in some form or other  

Today we took our four year old granddaughter on the bumper boats. She had fun sitting in a boat with my wife, trying to squirt me and making the boat go in circles.  She wanted to go on again, but someone pushed the button and the big plaster pirate fired his cannon and water sprayed over everyone.  Suddenly, she remembered she was freighted by the pirates she had seen in some Disney movie and wanted to go home.

On the way home she kept asking questions about pirates, who they were, what they did and how they got that way.  We tried to reassure her that pirates were long ago and far away, and certainly we were watching out, and keeping her safe.

At least the last part is true.

1 comment:

Forsythia said...

Our younger grandson is seven. He asked his mother why pirate ships fly the Jolly Roger. He said, "Why do they want to let everybody know they are bad guys by having a flag like that?" He has a point. Yes, I know what you mean about all the sound and fury on TV over this issue or that. However, I'd just like to point out that the talking heads who happen to think the way I think are not posturing loudmouths and bullies. :-)