This Is So Wrong (Revised)

The world is heating up far too much these days, and I don't mean the climate.

Long-time readers of this blog will remember that your Head Trucker often used to rant and rave in these posts about fools, frauds, and fanatics - but in recent years, he has simply tired of wasting his breath on the heedless, madding world that seems maniacally intent on tearing itself apart.  When the party degenerates into a knock-down, drag-out brawl, the only sensible thing to do is to get out of the way and not get sucked into the fight.

It has become more and more necessary, in the face of the utter madness that seems to be sweeping across the whole world, like a mass psychosis, to pay less and less attention to the news and try to keep one's inner self centered in thoughts of peace and goodwill, so far as possible.  Tempers are so dreadfully inflamed and minds are so thickly clouded with me-ism and us-ism and to-hell-with-them-ism that I do greatly fear we are living in the calm before the storm - as someone has prophesied:

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

It may be that cooler heads will somehow prevail; or it may be that a colossal storm will engulf what within living memory was known as the civilized world.  In either case, this old man knows he is powerless to influence the masses.  The best I can do is to try to remain sweet and sound of heart here in this little house, and to do the small things I can do, with as much love - simple and unselfish - as I can muster.  Beyond that, I must leave the world where it has always been, in the hands of God, and trust in His ultimate redemption of our wretched human natures, as my religion teaches me to do.


Revision, 8/15/19, 10:30 p.m.:

Last night after writing a long post here, I felt relieved.  But strangely, I awoke this morning feeling both soiled and exposed, somehow.  Dirty.  Unsettled.  I can't say why, exactly, but all that rant just felt very wrong.  Perhaps it is enough that I just express as best I can the goodness in my heart, and let the rest go.  (I have no pretensions to be a saint, by the way - merely a sinner with a conscience.)

Great evil is roaming the world today, but I no longer feel called to speak about it.  There is no dearth of voices in the world, all screeching and shouting across one another.  I have my opinions, to be sure - and they do not necessarily coincide with what is politically correct, or What Everybody Thinks, at any point on the political spectrum.  And I believe that we are in the middle of a great shift, a turning point of history - a worrisome thing, but of course all civilizations have had their turning points, crises, and conflicts - and through all the ups and downs of this mortal life, we obscure folks can only do our duty to those we love, and hope for the best.

And when we sparrows have lived our day and sung our song, there shall be rest.  Many a troubled soul who fretted and feared for the future has now been sleeping the long sleep for centuries in churchyard or cathedral.  And still the world goes round and round. The long, golden Indian summer of the postwar era is coming to a close - if it has not already ended - and exactly what rough beast is slouching towards Bethlehem remains to be seen. Nothing lasts forever in this mortal life, neither men nor the works of men.

Well, so be it.  My grandparents, born in the slow-paced Victorian era, grew up on the farm with little education and did not move to town until 1925.  By the time I was alive and becoming aware of the world's doings some forty years later, the world had changed beyond all recognition for them.  They read the daily papers and listened to the evening news, but most of what they read made no sense to them, hard workers and clean livers that they were.  I'm sure now that the frenzied world of the 1960's - the music, the movies, the clothes, the hair, the protests, and all that was so exciting to the younger generation - must have seemed to them bewildering, senseless, and ugly:  just as the parlous present seems to me now.

But instead of complaining and moaning, they simply went on with their quiet life together just as they always had, living by their own timetable, unruffled, unhurried, heedless of change, still getting up at the crack of dawn every day to begin their chores around the house and yard, and going to bed with the chickens - only there were no longer any chickens to tend, nor cows to milk.

Through all the furor of those times, they remained impassive and steadfast, and their humble little home was a rock of stability for all who needed a refuge or a rest.  Perhaps that is the best way to handle the unfathomable:  just go about your business, tend your garden, keep a steady head, and don't dwell on the madness of the world.  Certainly when I look about me now, I am amazed and alarmed, if not to say outraged, by the breakdown of all that seemed so necessary for the peace and happiness of the world and its peoples.  But what can I do about it?  I seem to be learning a valuable and unexpected lesson here.

As a professor of mine once said, the world is very wicked, and even more foolish than it is wicked.  It needs correction, badly, but I know I cannot reform it, or anyone in it. The fact is, I have enough to do keep myself held together and on track, in body, mind, and spirit.  So for now at least, I think I will leave it to others to denounce the crimes and follies of the times, and close with my only message to the world, an ancient message often repeated, that I am sure would serve to right all that is wrong among us - if only the world would listen for once, and take it to heart: