We live in extraordinary times. We are living longer, we have amazing technologies at our fingertips, 98% of those in poverty have a roof over their head, heat and refrigeration, most have cars and cell phones, and yet we have all become a bunch of sad, pathetic whiners and wienies.
Perhaps this soft, privileged life of ours has made us this way. You’d think we’d be just the opposite, given that most of us grew up in an age where we rode bikes sans helmets, played with gasoline, hammers, matches and more unsupervised, regularly took walks in the woods and didn’t worry about being abducted, and survived bullying in school when there were no rules against it.
And yet, here we are, a bunch of wusses. A couple whack heads in Europe spray a concert hall and a couple of restaurants and we have a freak fest here in the U.S. We actually listen to nuts like Trump and begin to see a Muslim terrorist behind every burka as we go about our day.
Worse, we start thinking it would be best if we just got rid of everyone who is different to us.
Well, my friends, it’s a good thing my mom died last year. She would be calling me daily to open another can of whoop-ass, asking me what is wrong with my generation – the Boomers – the privileged babies of her generation.
She’d remind me what hard times were actually like. A time when Hitler walked this earth and almost pulled off world domination. She’d remind me about the sacrifice she endured during the war effort. She’d tell me about the food rationing, how you would save up for weeks to buy a pound of hamburger if it was even available, and how telegrams arrived daily in the neighborhood telling loved ones that yes, their fathers, husbands and sons would be home soon – in a box.
Then she’d remind me of the harder times: the Great Depression. A time when she had just one pair of shoes and how her family regularly went hungry at night because there was no money to be had. She’d tell me about the cardboard homes and the hobos down by the switching yards. And how she would trick or treat in her father’s “ghost costume” – complete with white hood.
And then she would have verbally slapped me around because we live in a time where things are really good and yet still we bitch and whine. We worry about things that have little chance of happening, and let them control us at every turn.
We might as well just grab the white hoods again. Oh sure, we hide behind the fact that we will do anything to protect our country, that we need to keep away the immigrants because they might be Muslim terrorists. There are those that want us to build walls along our borders, retreat into all-white, all Christian neighborhoods, and then tell everyone else that they are the godless ones because want to welcome those who are in need.
For these “patriots,” the door seems to swing both ways. Their religion doesn’t have room for anyone who is not of their ilk – in short, there’s no room at the inn for anyone from the Middle East. Yet, they turn on a dime and claim that they are good Christians, and demand prayer in our schools so we can pray to God, well, their god.
We are becoming a nation of judgmental, isolationist pansies. We are the antithesis of our parents, our grandparents, our ancestors and our forefathers. Rather than rise to the occasion at such a telling moment in history, we retreat in fear.
We can’t even survive a terrorist attack in an ally country. How in the hell do you think we would have handled World War II? Could we have had the mettle our parents did? Could we rise to the occasion and defeat the evils of Hitler and Stalin?
I doubt it. We’re too busy posting memes on Facebook. We lash out in anger when someone unfriends us. We honk our horns in a traffic jam. We freak out when the Internet goes down for a minute. We obsess about what others are doing, what they think of us, and whether someone likes us or not in social media.
We are spoon fed the “news” by “media” that is dubious at best. We’re too lazy to check the facts. We just repost the nonsense without vetting it and often without comment. We’re just too busy to care about such distracting things as the truth or reality. Geez, just look at Trump, Carson and Cruz and their crazy claims they try to pass off as the truth.
What would World War II been like if we had Facebook? Forget about government censorship for the moment. Just let Facebook take its course with a major war, whether it’s World War II or Viet Nam. We would take flight and not fight after Dunkirk or Pear Harbor. We would post our prayers for the Jews, but then immediately post a really cute cat meme because it’s far easier to post nonsense than face a harsh reality.
I worry for us. We post makeshift monuments on the roadside because someone died there. We memorialize everything around us, as if a particular event was the one to define the ages, rather than waiting until we gained perspective with the passage of time.
We are of the moment, not the ages. We are in it for ourselves, not for others. We can’t see beyond our own immediate needs, we feed our insatiable selfie-obsessed egos, separate ourselves from society, turn our back on those in need and wonder why life is so hard because our Facebook page is taking too long to load.
We need to toughen up. Life is not going to become any easier. It will continue to be hard, if for no other reason than we choose to make it harder by not meeting adversity head on with the indomitable spirit, resiliency, compassion and empathy we have been known for.
Don’t give into fear. Be courageous. Pull your head out of your smartphone and smile at the person across from you. Quit looking for what’s wrong with the world and focus on what is right. End the separation and fight for unity instead. We have the power to choose our own future – the one where fear conquers us or the one where we reach deep into ourselves and defeat it at every turn.
In the Emerald City, fighting the good fight, grateful that I live in such a wonderful country,
– Robb