GROWING WISER?

      Somewhere along the day yesterday, for some unknown reason, I began to reminisce, to ponder and muse. Why? Not a clue, but there it was. Staring me in the face and then, suddenly, Alexa, who has a will of her own at times, began to play the oldie, "Those Were the Days, My Friend". Listening to the words, I asked for a replay, after which I asked for several others, same category, and sang and thought along.

This song maintains that we never grow wiser, remaining the same foolish idealists of our days of youth. Apparently, we never lose those dreams, merely sublimate and bury them under life's demands. So I thought. What were the dreams of my yesteryears and compared them to those of today. Okay, putting aside wishes for a painless back and for recall as to where I left the phone this time, what were they and what are they today.

Digging deeper into the moment and the mood, I played some protest songs, some noisy and defiant, with demanding voices, and others plaintive, wishful, hopeful - yet, underneath that hope, not so much. Songs rife with outrage and bitterness. Songs reminding the older generation as to exactly who put us in this mess. And songs of wistfulness. "Where Have all the Flowers Gone" sang of the futility of a circle of life far and away so not the Disney version of circles of life. In the version of Peter, Paul and Mary there is simply no break. The errors repeat themselves ad infinitum.

Yet in another song, one which became an anthem of the Civil Rights Movement, "We Shall Overcome", one hears the wistfulness pleading and for what? Nothing revolutionary, or was it? To believe that hatred, unfairness, the evil points of mankind could be overcome. To believe. To have the right to believe that society can improve, that the dogs and batons and hoses of Selma and elsewhere can be made to disappear. To feel, hope, wish, that one day, soon, we could all live in peace.

Those of us who remember, those of us who never grew wiser in this area, those of us who remember history, the genocides, the massacres, the signs rejecting one group after another, we cry enough! We wonder why not only have we not yet overcome this baseless hatred, but have watched, stunned or apathetic or a combination of both, as new waves of hatred, imbued with violence grow apace in a world and country gone rogue.

And over it all, the haunting tones of Marion Anderson, singing of her love of America. The echoes through time of the cries of Jews as they were gassed, shot, buried alive. The voices through time of the Irish, the Italian, the Chinese, the Japanese, the Armenians, the Tutsi, the Rohingya, the Uighurs - so many voices of pain, here and around the world.

I thought. Do I still believe? Yes and no. I believe that humanity can shake itself, reform, but I also believe, at this point, that it will be a long time coming, if it ever does. Too many of us seem to revel in the miasma of hatred and violence. Too many of us are so quick to follow false prophets. And too slow to accept the truth.

Or maybe I retain at least some remnants of those dreams and hopes for humanity. Maybe, deep in my heart and soul, I do believe. So I continue the struggle in my own way and pray that somewhere, somehow, sometime, we will overcome.