Fear and Insecurity-

The state of fear and the sense of insecurity are not unreasonable emotional conditions for a human. The world is dangerous, and the future is not assured. Oh, some of us have confidence of a place in Heaven once we have run this race, but while engaged in the business of life the future remains obscured.

The perpetual state of fear and insecurity is unreasonable, however. Absent any immediate threat or eminent disaster, such a state is dissipating. It wastes energy that can be otherwise spent. It places valuable resources in the wrong place. It is wasteful.

One tool of psychological warfare is to heighten that state in the corporate minds of the enemy. It is the tool we used to drive the Soviet Union to dissolution. They could not afford the investment in managing their fear and insecurity. We drove a perceived enemy and unquestionable rival in the world economy into an unstable state, and their state dissolved as a consequence.

We can argue that we won the cold war. I suppose that is a good thing. Now we can concentrate our resources on rebuilding our infrastructure and making our people corporately and individually strong. Oh, wait. A perceived enemy has made us feel insecure and fearful.

More than a perceived enemy. They attacked us, and on our own lands. Now we are pouring resources into huge pits that have no know bottoms. Costly secretive government agencies have proliferated like the weeds they are, and now I have not only some vague enemy to trouble me, but concern about those who don't see a problem in curtailing my freedom to "protect" me.

How can we feel individually secure in times that are not?

I am reminded of a story told me by a friend. He is an Englishman, who served in the British Navy during World War II. He participated in liberating the European continent from the Nazi occupation. In his small ship they sailed to France. They followed the earlier invasion. The role of his vessel was a supporting role.

When they arrived at the coast of France they took on supplies. Some of those supplies were fish caught by French fishermen. One of the British sailors said to one of the fishermen, "I bet you are glad to see us."  The French fisherman replied, "When the Germans were here, I sold them fish. Now you are here. I sell you fish."

The future is not assured. The world is a dangerous place. Even those whose purpose it is to protect you and me are not always what they seem. We could choose to be fearful, and feel insecure.

Or, we can be strong in our skills, in our selves, and know who we are. We can trust in ourselves, and for those of us who so believe we can trust in our God.

Live to the best of your ability, and sell your fish.

The 1960's-

The 1960's. A decade often referred to, especially by those of us who lived through them. Most particularly persons such as myself, whose formative years were the 1960's. It was a decade in which the "generation gap" was recognized, touted, over-worked and made-fun-of. It was a decade of change. It was a lot more than a decade ought to be required to be.

Mythical, that's what it was. Yet something real. I, being now an old person (at 57 venerable years of age,) can look back at that decade and see it as a demarcation line for a lot of stuff. My parents still live, and are doing pretty well. I still see them as different from "us."

"Us," of course, being "we" who were formed during the 1960's or those who came later. I just don't sense the difference between myself and my children that I sense between myself and my parents. Oh, we are not the same, my children's generation and mine. Perhaps the big difference is that I recognize that, and I think it is fine. We should be different.

I don't expect them to automatically adopt my values. Neither the corporate values (whatever they might be) of my generation or my personal values. With the people who were formed before the 1960's there seems to be that expectation, and shock (even after all of this time) when those values are not adopted and held in high esteem.

Perhaps that is the difference. I accept fluidity and flux in all aspects of life as the normal way things are. I don't really have an idea of "how things should be," so I am not shocked when they aren't that way. It is strange that the generation that survived the huge fluctuations surrounding the Great Depression and World War II aren't flux-oriented, but they aren't.

One commentator I read (and of course the name of whom I don't recall) noted that a significant part of that generation served in the military or some similarly regimented system adopted to meet the demands of a world-spanning war. It might be that. They had a war to fight, a war for survival that was really about survival.

We had Viet Nam. A dumb-ass war that had no real purpose, except for the anti-communist ideologists who tried to put communism in the same world-threatening basket as Hitler and Hirohito. Yeah, right. Not to denigrate the very real sacrifices of my brothers-in-arms who actually fought in Viet Nam. Those were real sacrifices, but sacrifices for what? I am still not clear on that matter.

True, I have had Vietnamese friends who benefited from the events there by eventually coming to America and participating in the American Dream. Still, the sacrifice was considerable and the gain negligible. But, this post isn't about Viet Nam, per se. Nor is it about the current lot of dumb-ass wars we are involved in.

It is about a very real difference in generations demarcated by the decade called the 1960's. The world began changing at an increasingly rapid pace in that generation. We grew up with change as the normal way of things. Many of us embraced change. Most learned to live with it and not be shocked by the fluidity and flux.

This shall be posted into the blogosphere via Blogger, and into the even more fluid place called Facebook. It will be read by (perhaps) a DOZEN people. Few of them will have been formed before the 1960's. There is some vague possibility that someone will make a comment. Even less likely, but still possibly, someone will be impacted by my prose and their lives will change.

What is my hope? I am not entirely sure, but I would love for some of my word-stones being cast into the flux and fluidity to cause the kind of ripple that makes someone think. It would be lovely if I changed a life for the better. It might be fun if it went viral, as well, but that isn't likely and isn't really important to me.

Mostly, I hope that should a reader have to deal with a dinosaur from the era before 1960 they will deal gently with them. The flux and fluidity is threatening to them, and they might be a bit afraid. Be gentle, and listen to the stories they will tell. Listen, as an act of kindness.

Change is...

Nostalgia-

Nostalgia must be informed with a bit of romance. The harsh reality of the past does not enhance the nostalgic experience.

Take, for example, the romantic view of primitive people. The Noble Native. It is not a bad romance. It has merit in that it allows us to venerate our ancestors, to whom we owe everything. It allows us to respect people of a culture far different from our own. However, few of us would wax nostalgic about such a way of life if we had to live it.

Anthony Bourdain of the Travel Channel recently did a show in which he visited (and dined with) bushmen in Africa. Bourdaine is eloquent in his descriptions, and somehow balances curmudgeonliness with a romantic view of the world. His experience with the bushmen seemed to have challenged him greatly. The video certainly puts the romance of the Noble Native in perspective.

My mother-in-law grew up during the Great Depression and World War II. Her nostalgia allows her to appreciate the good things in those times. Fortunately, the nostalgia is selective. The world was a dangerous and threatening place in those days. It often is. It was also a time of great good. There is nothing wrong with remembering that good.

Nostalgia is great medicine. It is not very good as history.