Our "Today" and Our "Tomorrow"

We live in "today." Yes, we all do to some extent.

Futurists may say they are living in -- this by imagining -- tomorrow. But what they imagine is based on what they are seeing and experiencing and (as important) thinking today.

World changing events do occur, but a frank and honest look tells us they are rarely what we, even the most imaginative of us, had expected.

Understanding this is critical, not just to the world as it turns, but to each of us and our own lives. And forgetting or ignoring it is destructive.

You cannot prepare for today -- you'd have to have done that yesterday. And preparation for tomorrow is limited to a) preparing for a wide range of possibilities with the focus on likelihood, and b) being "lucky."

How many of us, for instance, prepared for the closing up of society and the economy brought on by the reaction to Covid 19?

And note that keyword: The REACTION to Covid 19. For much that happens isn't truly based on what is actually happening, but on the perception of the same. -And that perception is for most people greatly influenced by others.

Fish swimming in a school may think that they are free to move where they want, up, down, this way or that -- but the greater part of their movement is determined by the movement of the school itself.

What controls that?

"Currents." "Leaders." Forces unknown.

All around us are currents. Currents in thinking. Currents in feelings. Moving people not as individuals, but as a group.

All around us are supposed "leaders." Influencing. Directing. That as they who claim to be able to predict tomorrow are themselves as stuck in today as everybody else.

"Wear masks!" "Black lives matter!" "Your color gives you privilege!" Those are the currents of the day. Those are the words of supposed "leaders.'

But that is TODAY. Tomorrow all three will be gone. Totally and completely forgotten.

The 'fish' won't even notice. The current of tomorrow's today will be then moving them on to somewhere else. Supposedly new and better ideas. New imperatives. -Ideas and imperatives that most all the fish will follow.

We -- you and I -- are moved by and with these things too. We, like it or not, are in the school moved by that current. Yes,every one of us.

But knowing that is so can make a difference, for then we can live our lives as they actually are -- which means wisely -- in the day's currents. -Making the best of the choices that are actually open to us, not limited by what we are told is open or closed to us. Making the best that each today has to offer. Not fooled, as so many are, into living someone else's life in their today and their hoped for tomorrow.



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Should this be our goal? Really?

A friend of mine cross posted that to Facebook today -- this in the form of someone's "tweet."

My "goal," the original 'tweeter' seems to suggest, should be to get to know him. His history. His culture. His gifts.

Now this individual may have a lot to offer me. I do not know him, or anything about him -- his gifts or his accomplishments --  so I cannot say.  But what comes to my mind -- is this unusual? -- is something else...  It is that this person, or his ancestors, like my own, came to the Western World. -The world that gave us the pure sciences and understanding such as mankind never had known or  benefitted from before -this from medicine and microbiology through microchips and all the way up to space travel.

That I now had access, via these people, to a culture like no other. One that gave us such as the plays and sonnets of Shakespeare, and the music of Bach and Mozart and Brahms and Beethoven.

That from these people -- and now, via them, available to me -- are works of art in every medium. Paintings, for instance, that range all they way from Rubens and Rembrandt through Chagall and beyond. 

That THEY gave us -- all mankind -- Ideas and philosophies of  justice and law that moved the human experience from daily experienced barbarity to an entirely new plain -- and this not just for the few, but for the many.

These are all here -- part of a culture my family (and I expect his) in a sense has "joined.'  A culture and a history truly like none other. 

If I have some obligation -- what the tweeter says should be my "goal" -- that of being "educated"  -- of growing in my understanding as well as my appreciation -- well, does not he?

How's deep I wonder is his appreciation (and knowledge) of any of these things?

Of "history"?

Or of the beauty and goodness of the world that had laid the foundation for the one that he and I are now living in -- must live in! -- yes, along with millions and millions of other men and women.

I do, yes, have much yet to learn.  And respect for the dignity of every person certainly should (and does) play a part in this.

But when it comes to learning?   My "goal" should be to see and appreciate his beauty?  His history? His culture? Really? 

Why?

No, I think it quite the other way around.

That there is much learning to be done.  From those that came before us here.  That it is their treasures I am obligated to learn from and to more greatly  appreciate. Not his


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America's "Clarification" -- A Good Thing

The existing divide in America is being revealed and clarified. That's a painful thing for us as a nation to be experiencing.

"Let's pretend" as a way of thinking has appeal because it feels good.

"Let's pretend" that we as a nation are not being split apart. "Let's pretend" that none of what is happening is truly happening, or that if it is that it really doesn't matter.

But it does.

That is because we will not -- we cannot-- come together again as a nation -- we cannot truly again be America, the beacon of liberty and progress and hope -- until we recognize that we have come apart.

The US as founded was a "Christian" nation. That -- not meaning a religious dogma, but a plethora of deeply held and shared values about mankind's place and obligations -- is the nation's very basis. -The source of its once seen as "self evident" truths.

America cannot be itself -- it cannot be "America" -- if those values and truths are denied, or worse, trampled and ridiculed.

Pres. Trump -- the man he is today as our president -- is standing for the preservation of those values. Boldly. Courageously.

We can stand together with him. Or not.

There will always be some who remain apart. (And there always have been.) -People who live in America, but are not in the fullest sense, American. Who do not share a love for the nation's basic founding principles.  -Those of liberty mixed with personal responsibility.  Who see "the state" as something else. Something over us, not of us.

The question now is how many such there are. And how many of us there are -- Americans. -Those who love the America of the founding -- a free and just nation, based on the law as set forth in our founding documents.

It matters not when we or our families got here. Or where we or they were from.

What matters is where we stand today.

And yes, with how much energy and conviction.

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