I read a phrase recently which used the terms seeds and deeds, drawing a strong connection between them. The seeds are words, those seemingly harmless words that emerge from the mouths of leaders, of ambitious people, from good people and from plain ordinary everyday people.
The nursery rhyme which states that "words can never harm me" is the worst ever. It leads one to erroneously feel that mouthing off, allowing words of hate, of incitement, to flow forth actually has no consequences in the world of the real. They seemingly exist in a vacuum, so dangerous thoughts emerging in words seem to have a get out of jail free card - that is until we draw that connection to the deeds that follow.
Words are the seeds. They are the seeds of greatness and the seeds of evil and disaster. They are the architects of the deeds to follow, the delineators of what will be. In times of stress and pressure, when the world seems to be imploding, with ourselves right in the epicenter of that implosion, words that emerge from a could be, wannabe, leader and head architect, are of great import.
The people make the choice as to what to believe. Do we believe the person who focuses our hate, our despair, our fault finding on a particular group, seemingly offering a quick and neat solution- get rid of that group - or do we focus and believe the person who promises only hard work ahead, dangerous roads to travel, and a long time until society is fixed, or at least on the road to being mended?
Unfortunately, the speaker of hate often seems the one who provides the better answer. That leader provides a supposed strong hand to guide us through the dangerous choices ahead, providing hope that an end can be seen. He appears to be stronger than the other dude or dudette who speaks in terms of demand, of slogging through swamps and traps, who promises nothing but a path of turmoil and toil with a possible good ending. No guarantees, no make nice words, just the truth, harsh as it is, hard as it will be.
If those words of hate become the mantras of that society, then there will be new or revived traits of society not very healthy for segments of it. It will become divided, worthiness and valuations assigned, demerits assigned, and harmful traits develop, becoming societal determinants, definitely not good for large groups of people.
These traits, these word developed traits, elevate a segment of society that has felt isolated, harmed, despised, denied, powerless, even as they begin to feel a lighter load, a growing appreciation of themselves in that society, and a huge desire to take out all their pent up venom on someone, anyone, anybody. They have reached a seemingly high, elite role in the new society, thus joyfully partaking of it and their just rewards long denied, and we are lost! So lost. We now have an uphill battle to combat those words which led to these deeds, the seeds that led to the growth of a dangerous and oppressive society.
Yesterday I wrote of the need to evaluate and fix what needs fixin' at and in all levels of government, from top to bottom. We have long known of the corruption, the filth, the festering miasmas of society under the growing rule - and yes, I purposely use that word, rule - of Trump. Over and over we now come across warnings of his deviation from the path of democracy, from the guidance of the Constitution, from the hope that a fair and just society can give. He veers from fixing that which needs it, to messing up that which is good, stops progress dead in its tracks and then regresses, denying all safety rules in place, retracting any and all respect from and for the government, preferring fear and uncertainty, hoping to engender the feeling of a necessity to cling to a supposed strong leader.
Words of insult, of hate, of vitriolic, acidic hatred, meant to destroy all that we hold dear, pour forth and we are sliding on that slippery slope, that false slope that leads not upwards, to progress, but rather to hopelessness and danger.
It is easy to give in to the moment, to give vent to anger, to call people names, to insult and threaten, to do so on semi anonymous social media. The words fly out through the air, over the wires, and momentary nastiness becomes ever more permanent. So Trump sits there, the couch potato rotting from within, and giggles away as he types and resends the words of hatred not only from his mouth, but also from the mouths of others.
So, too, do we have a similar situation right here in the Village. We have a man who boasts of his techie skills, now fading in the distance, who holds the Village in a vacuum of leadership. He does not lead, though he poses as one who does. He send out words of insult, of defamation, seemingly genuine, but as false as the stereotypical Ponzi scheme. He stalls the mending we need to do, far more than simple darning of a a patch of cement or a broken pipe. We need to fix the problems, not just the signs of them.
We need leadership on all levels, including federal, state and right here in CV. I will not send out words of physical insult, a sign of a failing mind, a mind ever more isolated from the niceties of society, from the gentle touches and connections to and with others. It is the consequences of one isolating himself more and more from others, from good people, and turning to the sycophants who polish his ego and ruin our lives.
We need action. We need to force words and seeds of truth to be heard. We need to use all paths to get back, to lead us to the correct road, hard and rocky as it might be. We, the people, are the ones who must bring the seeds of good societal traits back to life. We must breathe new breath into honor, truth, justice, universal rights, slice prejudice and hatred to bits, and work together to fix the world, large and small. Tikkun Olam, fixing of the world, as Judaism calls it, demands it.
We need to Be Well and Stay Safe, yes, but we must also insure that our world and the world of our kids remain so as well. We need the seeds of goodness, of hope, of justice and enable the deeds that reflect those seeds.
Be Well and Stay Safe.
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