Looking Ahead

As our eyes squint into the future, focusing hard upon December 2012 and the subsequent end of life as we know it, I can’t help but notice how life has diminished already.

I wish my grandparents were here. If so I’d ask them if when they turned the nightly news on, were they routinely shocked by how uprooted and tumultuous the world had become - because I am. In fact, I often don’t watch the news. I feel a bit clueless, but I’m also spared a great deal of sadness in the process.

I have to wonder if the upheaval we are witnessing was always present. It only seems new and startling to us because our eyes are more mature now. When I was young, playing on the floor in the corner of the living room with my Lite-Brite, I remember hearing the news in the background. I remember two headlines in particular, both involved foods that were found to cause cancer. I remember, while pushing the colored pegs through the black back-lit paper thinking how dangerous eating had become. Other than that however, and the fact that my brother and I were told to lock our doors while our parents drove through the streets of Detroit, things seemed mildly safe. But I had very young eyes at the time.

Now, as I sit and watch the news, with a mind old enough to comprehend all the vile and radical behavior that’s been caught on tape - I grow increasingly concerned. The other day, a man upset over a recent break-up, shot at passing cars in Hollywood, on a street I’ve driven down many times with my children. I could attempt to write off the incident as something that happens in an emotionally challenging city such as Hollywood, except a teen was also caught shooting out the window of his home in the rural city in which I live and take my daughter to dance class. It really doesn’t matter where one lives, lunacy abounds.

A great many people seem to be acting out due to some sort of inner turmoil, and from what I can tell our planet seems to be doing the same. I don’t feel there will be an end to life as we know it, come December 2012. But I do feel there will be a certain shift that happens, and has been happening. The best I can do is keep my own head on straight, keep my moral barometer strong and raise my children to not falter under the hefty weight of wide spread corruption and the general lack of basic decency. I’m not a church-goer, I have no religious affiliations, but my soul knows right from wrong. Moreso, intrinsic to my soul is the importance of kindness to all things: the planet, animals, myself and others. And daily, my soul impresses that which it knows upon my mind. This, and this alone, keeps me on a pretty decent path. 

But when I look around or, heaven help me, watch the news, I know that mankind travels down many diverse paths, some of which are quite harmful. But hasn’t that always been the case - I believe so. Advancements in technology make it possible to view these paths almost instantly upon them being walked. But since man was first able to collect his thoughts, there have been those that live to harm others and those that have been outraged and those who have sat quiet. I don’t believe there has ever been a peaceful period in the history of mankind. I could be wrong. My hope is that with all that we now know, and is constantly brought to our awareness, we cling not to our own personal preservation but to the preservation of benevolence and decency: to our planet, to ourselves and to all those around us.

Sane