“If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.” Carl Sagan

You know what’s missing in abundance? At this precise moment, you are probably wondering where the hell I am going this time? Absent everywhere is the voice of just one idealist. As for me, I am suffering from negativity nausea. I can’t find a single voice that speaks of possibility. 

I realize it is very naive to think the story of man will have a happy ending. I am not talking about our race, which is kind of hopeless. I am only thinking about my life and my experience, a domain within my control. Back in 1961, John F. Kennedy became President of the United States. I was a senior in high school when he took office and a sophomore in college when he was murdered.

I just now started crying big time. I don’t want to wait for it to stop before continuing. Yes, it is excruciatingly painful to find myself in today’s cesspool of vitriol. No, I am not about to launch into some treatise on the Sixties, a time as imperfect as any other. However, there were heroes, people carrying the flame of what is best in us all.

It was a time of optimism, a time of possibility, when hope came alive. The country felt young and fresh.The civil rights movement came to life in a big way. Dr. King’s eloquence and bravery was moving mountains, the internal ones. It must have been too good to be true, based on how that decade unfolded. Optimism officially died with the loss of JFK, MLK and finally RFK. Bobby Kennedy’s presidential campaign persona and his speeches were extraordinary. Check out what he had to say before he was silenced. 

“What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence or lawlessness; but love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or they be black.”

You see, that’s what I am talking about. I don’t know if anyone has the balls to speak like that or is it an absence of conviction? I am not sure what has happened since those times. Flower power wilted on the vine at the end of that decade. In a way, Woodstock closed out that period in grand style.

The 70’s were a time of unrest and upheaval. On April 10, 1970, Paul McCartney announced his “break with the Beatles”. The world woke up from the dreams of the 60’s into a nightmare of shocks. Please, I am not minimizing the horrors of that decade, but somehow hope was still alive. The killings at Kent State, put a bullet in the heart of freedom. Watergate and the resignation of Nixon and his blatantly illegal tactics were a dark time. The complete and utter failure of the Vietnam War crashed after the fall of Saigon in ’75. Elvis died a couple of years later.

Not to worry, you are not about to face an endless list of events, taking us right up to yesterday. However, the 80’s began with the murder of John Lennon, which was huge for someone like me. Shortly after was the inauguration of Ronald Reagan, infected by an epidemic blindness to the needs of those with little, a hallmark of today’s Make America Great Again movement. This is when God entered the White House, a wedding of power and righteousness. Finally, those God Fearing,  government haters had a spokesman, who fell asleep on the job, just like the Orange One, several decades later. The scourge of AIDS was the work of the devil, a ruthless killer of innocent  human beings, exiled for their sexuality. We are still punishing them today.

What struck me as the push to write this story was exactly what I referred to at the start. As a young kid, the assassination of those three guys in the 60’s was the beginning of where we are today. I remember seeing John F. Kennedy for this first time on TV, starting with his Nixon “sweaty upper lip” debate in 1960. I was mesmerized by this guy. For me, it was the beginning of believing in America’s mission in the world. Being naive was not necessarily a fault of mine at the time, because trust was still alive. That wonderful feeling actually died with him, but the gestation of the devastation took a while to sink in, punctuated by the loss of Dr. King and Bobby. A light went out back then, a flame held high by those three guys.

In the world of Zen, there is the beautiful water lily with its heavenly demeanor, coming to life in a mud filled pond. No, I am definitely not the lily, but sucking mud and feeling hopeless is certainly not the best in us and no way to live.

So, I was sitting here feeling that gaping hole, where idealism is supposed to reside. I didn’t hear a single voice, including my own silence. Is there even one person on this planet, who sincerely believes we are better than what has been the plight of good, decent people everywhere?

I fantasize about calling a time out, like you do with a kid, who is misbehaving. I wonder if we will ever be better than this, which is what got me going in the first place. What we need is what Bobby Kennedy was talking about, the beautiful idealism behind the American Dream, which is growing painfully distant with each headline. 

We can be better than this, but not without believing and trying. A guy can hope? Right?

LISTEN TO THE STORY HERE:

https://www.buzzsprout.com/admin/1292459/episodes/18199534-fractured-idealism-a-lament