Sometimes, especially in the middle of the night, as the world is in darkness and the eyes and minds of people are closed for a time, I lay there, staring into the darkness, brain wired up and firing away, and I think, maybe, it is better to be able to turn it off rather than have it on nonstop at the wrong times! So I try, but it is an effort doomed to failure, especially if I pick up a book in the hopes of dozing off, for the midnight books often lead to more thoughts and off to the races we go!
Of late, what with the discussions going on as to which group gets the vaccines first, I have been thinking. Surely the health care providers in hospitals, the COVID wards, the orderlies, the EMT, the Urgent Care providers all deserve that shot. Front lines must be protected. But has anyone wondered what would happen or will happen should all get it at the same time? All down with the same side effects, the same fevers, the same fatigue?! Not good, to say the least. So has anybody taken that into account?
And the next group? Will everyone suddenly have heart conditions or COPD or diabetes, or whatever qualifying condition they can find, thus cutting into the line? Does the government have any plans as to how to prioritize, fairly, responsibly? Doubt that. No, make that highly doubt that.
In the present world, where all our chickens of the past apparently have come home to roost, much of the nighttime thinking runs along the lines of reevaluating the past and making connections between life lived and life being lived. One evaluates the worthiness of the life lived and wants to make sure there remains a relevancy to the present and future. Being a women of a certain age, shall we say, living in a community of similar people, does not make us brain dead or irrelevant, and thus, the thoughts.
In fact, I believe that we waste so much of the ideas and the experiences of our seniors. I look around at the former teachers, medical personnel, insurance specialists, law enforcement personnel, crafts people, artisans, shopkeepers, etc. and I wonder why retirement means write offs of valuable resources. Why is it that we think the past is that - the past - and there is no further use of it or of and for partakers of that past.
Contrary to that way of thinking, of writing off and discounting the past, here are three lines from a novel just finished. "The past shadows us. The past defines us. In the end, the past claims us all." Think of the truth and the wisdom found in those simple three sentences. We cannot ignore nor outrun the past. It is who we were and who we are and quite realistically speaking, who we will be. Yes, people can change their lines of thoughts, can reevaluate, can atone, or turn wrong, go down the wrong path, but there is always a connection, always a line running through one's lifetime and one's thinking.
Lately, it appears that people are trying to negate this common sense realization. To them, there is no past, only a constant now, and there is no connection, at least logically speaking, truthfully speaking, honestly speaking, between one present and the next present. Thus, we have all that newspeak language wherein on Monday at 9 AM one sentence is uttered and on Tuesday at 10 PM a contradictory statement is made and no reference to the first one is made at all; in fact, it is as if it were never made in the first place. The same with actions or inaction. There is thus no responsibility, no accountability, and apparently, no consequences coming due, at least in the damaged minds of these thinkers, if I dare use that word in this context.
So Barr corrupts the complete Justice Department with false claims of fraud and desperately needed investigations, and then he says the opposite. A bit more moral spine, perhaps, but too little too late. However, the present is always the present in their minds and there is no past. People refuse to connect the lines, refuse to see the anger their behavior has stoked, and the consequences coming due as the bills are marked past due. Red striped envelopes, third time warning. Last chance.
The same goes for all those who bought into the deranged statements and theories, the outrageousness of Trumpian statements and who now are upset that they are being castigated by that very same hero and role model. Now they say they are innocent of fraud, have done their jobs right but the taint of the past/present is always there. One wonders how trust can ever be trusted again as it turned from a stout principle of ethical life into an ephemeral wisp wafting through the air of the past/present. Of the future? Forget that!
Whether the one at fault is on the federal level or state or local, of Village, they are all guilty of this deluded thinking, of taking along other souls with them, of deluding and mesmerizing the mobs, and of refusing to step down when finally recognized for what and who they are. Trump threatens he will return in 2024. Who cares at this point. How many more of us will be dead by then, by one means or another? How will the world have changed by then, and how will the man have changed? How bad will his dementia be by that time? Can he ever outrun his past, his horrific uncaring and damaging actions towards all? I doubt that.
In my mind I wonder if we can ever undo the damage of the past few years, on whatever level. Nationally, we are truly teetering and tottering. The workload is enormous, the country divided, the extremes of the right leading to extremes of the left - action and reaction - and no one is talking to anyone else. The dead wood remain in their seats of power, such as it is, refusing to read the writing on the walls and scram! Eventually, one way or another, by Nature or Man, they will be out but the damage done in the interim, well, just look around, be it at the nation or at our own Village here, the work neglected and the work needing to be done.
So who is at fault for all this, for the downfalls and the downturns, for the impossibly stupid and dangerous thoughts and actions? Well, the author, Connelly, states that there is a law of innocence. That law states that one has to find the guilty party in order to prove innocence of blame, not just a not guilty verdict. I wonder, though, can that be done here? Does it really matter?
Yes, for there are those among us who are more inclined to take the low road, to disregard the needs of others, the right ways, the ethical ways, but there are those of us who simply looked away, wanting not to be bothered, or worse, agreed with those amoral and immoral people. Who is to blame and who is innocent? We all are and no one is. Put that in our pipes and let us smoke that and finally come up with better thinking, better understanding of past, present and future, of the importance of using all sources, of the critical need for truth, honor honesty and morality in our governments. And the realization that our pasts affect the present and go well into the future.
We are who we are. We are who we make ourselves out to be. We are who we let others force us or convince us to be. The choice is ours, difficult or not.
And that is what happens when one cannot sleep at night.
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