Irony

It seems strange that the people who most should be vested in improving this country overall seem to miss out on what is going on.

And you can see this at many levels. I know I rant and rave how the Republicans and Democrats have failed this country. And yet there are hundreds of thousands if not millions of people over the years who have worked countless hours for both parties honestly trying to make things better. I forget that I do not want to lump these people in my rants, for it is the leadership they cling to year after year and uses them that is the source of my wrath. And I know I sound like I belittle them over and over again, yet I do not know how to separate them from what has happened within the parties.

I know many people who work for campaigns, ideals etc… but in the end after forty or fifty years why hasn’t the world improved for all their efforts. We work so hard to rely on systems and processes, but these very same processes are backfiring on all the good so many people have tried to implement or create.  And I am no better. Sometimes I spew some verbiage that probably upsets and irritates the very people I want to communicate my ideas and hope they see that their efforts are not the problem, it is the path they have been misled that is the problem. It is ironic that the people I want to help change the world for the better I probably spend excessive amount of time insulting in a backwards way.

And then it is ironic to me, that I have no idea how to wake people from this slumber of missed dreams and nightmare of the disaster this election year is foretelling. I can understand that if you have committed your life or your ideals to something you have been told is the right way to fight for what is right, one person is not going to automatically create a political epiphany.  So I rant on hoping to maybe hammer the nail enough times that it starts to stick. Probably not the most productive way to change minds.

Yet I also wonder after so many decades why more people aren’t questioning why this hasn’t worked.

For all the need to improve the middle class, shrink the wealth gap, bring back innovation and creativity in all aspects of our life, improve education at a much greater level than improving standardized test scores, everything that would combat and defeat so many of our problems facing us today, this very same middle class sits and stares at everything with inertia. The reality they need to be more involved with their community, their government and more than their peer group passes by them like a dream they have forgotten once they have woken up.

And I am as guilty as everyone else. It is we see one windmill and spend our time trying to defeat it, yet, there are so many we either ignore or run away from. When I was young I use to think I was better if I found someone that was a bigot or racist I would not associate with them. I thought I was being the better person by distancing myself from them. This was the worst path and I fear there are many like me. It is ironic I ran from one of the very problems that needed to be addressed head first. Instead of solving the problem I ignored it, maybe like many others. And so it continued to fester and today it is like we are back to square one of the 50’s and 60’s. And in some ways probably worse because other problems have grown such as poverty, education is bad for the middle class and much worse for the neighborhoods left behind even more so. The separation of which schools are the “good schools” is definitely following along social economic divides. This is exactly what we do not need or even more importantly what we should not want.

Everything we dream of, everything we value, we cherish, is still available to us, yet we are more consumed by consumerism than drive. The exact things that should be bringing us together such as community involvement, church, sports and entertainment, only bring us a brief respite. We go home and our ignorance or our hatred or are indifference continue to thrive. There are times when we do exhibit being great; when our country does show that this historically youthful concept of self-government is something to behold. And then we let the parts of us, our humanity, that we should strive every day to conquer be consumed with what is wrong with us. The small minority that live by the hate, that do not want others to succeed because they feel so insignificant that others’ success tear into their soul that they lash out and do harm to others. I am not talking about the one person who is suffering from mental illness etc, but the person who can be rescued, but has sunken so far away from humanity that he or she tries to drag everyone down around them. And in doing so finds the others they can manipulate, they can feed their anger, and send another person spiraling down into an ugly abyss.

It is these people we need to confront. We can say all the right words, but without the right action we are fighting an unnecessary uphill battle.

It is ironic that we spend so much time working to do what we are told is right, we miss the true battles. We do not see the real enemy and it is not us, yet us.  Tomorrow you and I will get up and go about our daily routines. We will see the same people we see most of the time. Some of us will interact with different races or cultures or religions regularly some not so regularly. We will smile and be polite. Some of us have friends that do not look like us, yet do we still notice. And quite frankly it is okay to notice if we notice for all the right reasons. Can you enjoy learning new things, trying new foods, listening to different viewpoints? Dropping these barriers are noticing the right way. It is when we notice for the wrong reasons, such as they are taking something from me, they are depriving me of something I think I have, they are ruining my advantage in life (and many times this is an imagined advantage) that we are failing ourselves.

Yes, without question there are people that have more than others. And quite frankly some people have a much better opportunity at the very moment of birth than others.  This is because of money, this is because of color, this is because of the exact spot and time they were born. Starting ahead though does not make you a better person. As said by many before you are a better person when you make others better. Someday I hope to be a better person until then I will continue to rant and rave and hopefully through my folly I can learn what it is to be better with you.

So it is ironic that we, the people of the United States, at times produce and create and become one of the greatest nations in the history of the world and simultaneously we strive to destroy our own dreams our own ambitions by ignoring ourselves, ignoring our own hopes and dreams by letting a minority of hate and self-loathing become the dominant player in our world. I hope tomorrow you find that moment each of us has each day to bring out what is best in you and in others. Somedays it may not be a pleasant moment, but we have one each day. You do not have to fight a war, just win the one moment.