UNDER A LEDGE

Most of the time I write with an audience in mind. But sometimes it’s just me, chewing on stuff that won’t go away and this is one of those times. It is 2:30 in the morning. I woke up from a dream or maybe just restlessness, unable to sleep. I usually post my journal work in a blog that anybody can access but I don’t know about this one. 

I am at odds with my own kind. At the root of that dilemma is a marginal, manageable case of misanthropy. I don’t hate people, I just find over and again that humanity or society, whichever you like,  falls terribly short of my expectations; so much that I don’t want to identify with them. People may  be alright on a one to one but let them get together in a bunch and they bring out the worst in each other. Here in America they call it competition and it's supposed to be a good thing but if that’s the human condition, I’m not comfortable with it. Buried deep in the human psyche is the principle of the Golden Rule. “Do Unto Others” is not only altruistic but also self serving. Without reciprocity, the GR doesn’t work. Being treated well doesn’t have to come back from a particular source but it has to show up in the mix. People want to think otherwise but the less one’s good works come back around, the easier it is to look the other way. When good will comes easy we feel self righteous and when it’s difficult, we make excuses. Hypocrisy and integrity are opposite sides of the same coin and we spend both sides with a clear conscience. Human nature; that’s what we do. 

  I feel alien in my native culture. I do believe in the axiom, “Power corrupts” and my country has been the most powerful nation on earth for several generations. I don’t know how to unbelieve something so self evident. Patriotism has descended into unconditional narcissism, an all embracing addiction to nation and the military. Anything less borders on treason. I do love my country but it’s the same kind of ‘tough love’ we apply to self absorbed, bullish children. To that extent I feel like an Old Testament prophet, calling out my neighbors for their both their sins and their denial. As with the old prophets, nobody is listening. As a people, we want to be loved, admired, respected, feared and catered to, all in the same breath. In 1946 at the Nuremberg War Trials, Hitler’s second in command, Herman Goring was asked, “How did you get good people to go along?” His answer was timeless. “All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.” 

If I were truly brave enough to push back, the FBI would have an agent assigned to me and I’d be on the No-Fly list. So I do cognitive therapy, self help exercises to ease my mind. I am human, I’m an American, too old, too poor to start over somewhere else. Wouldn’t it be grand if people used mirrors to view the world we’ve looked away from instead of tunnel vision on one’s own painted face. If we can't do that it would be great to leave a legacy like MLK Jr or Woody Guthrie. But I’ve always been a dreamer and life has me on another path. My legacy would be one of sitting under a ledge, waiting for the storm to pass.