PERILOUS TIMES

Perilous times: we live in perilous times. Growing old, if you’ve been paying attention, nobody has to tell you the world is a dangerous place. Young people can figure it out easy enough but they tend to be preoccupied, trying to spend their youth without losing it. Nobody wants to be old but you certainly don’t want to die young either. So, I have arrived, happy to have made it, thankful for good health, good friends, some cool toys and a livable income. Obviously I must have done something right and I’ve avoided some perilous pit falls. Perilous times: every day, every moment is full of peril. You can go there by choice or fall prey to it simply by; the wrong time, the wrong place. 

Looking back on a life filled with calculated risk and unwitting gambles, I cannot discount the role of random, good fortune. I am simply lucky to be so old, with such a good life. When I was a kid the dangers were different but they were there. No seat belts, no air bags and we drove crazy; nothing could stop us. Still, some of us died in car crashes; bad luck or bad choice, who knows? We had our perverts and kids were abused but again, wrong place, wrong time. Most of us slid through without a scratch. I grew up during the heyday of White/Male/Christian privilege. I didn’t chose those demographics; I was born to it. Right place, right time. Born white, male and christian in Mogadishu or Riyadh today would offer none of the privilege I enjoyed. 

I think ‘Perilous Times’ is a catch phrase for people who feel a need to validate feelings about past or present. On the one end, the ‘Good Old Days’ is simply a nostalgic reflection on the blind exuberance of youth. It has noting to do with other times. On the other end, if you look for gloom and doom that’s what you will find. Now-times are dangerous. Times, disease and technology change but danger doesn’t. Danger exists in time and space, on when and where you are. It still takes both good judgement and a lot of luck to prevail. Study after study, year after year; schools are deemed the safest place a child can be. Yet there is wide spread fear of mass killings in schools. If you think these are the worst of times then it’s about you, not the times. 

There is a story about a man walking on a beach after a storm. Hundreds of star fish have washed up on the berm, too high for the tide to take them back out. Their fate is to die there. Then he sees a boy walking toward him, picking up star fish and throwing them back out into the surf. He tells the boy there are plenty of star fish in the sea and the ones that die will be eaten by crabs and birds. They are part of the food web and their fate just doesn’t matter. The boy keeps picking up star fish, throwing them back into the sea and says, “It matters to that one . . . and that one . . .” The story can be about the man and the boy or it can be about star fish. I think it’s about star fish. They live in perilous times but this time is a right time, and this beach is a right place.