Monday Musings...
You can't help but look around at the changing colors of fall and not appreciate all the beauty...you just can't.
And, I DID feel great after I performed my good deed for the week.
Seems at the ATM, the LAST person there left THEIR CARD in it, so after we made our transaction, I waltzed into the bank and told the manager there about it, giving him the card.
He thanked me and appreciated it...no big deal.
It's WHAT I DO.
I hope Ms Mirona appreciates it, because she happened upon someone that yes, still gives a damn about people...and life.
And maybe that's why I was feeling a bit more melancholy than usual this weekend.
That's an interesting word...MELANCHOLY.
It's more Victorian than modern in usage, and today's definition differs from it's original meaning.
There are other words to describe it, such as WISTFUL, LUGUBRIOUS, MOROSE, and SATURNINE.
Melancholy comes from the Greek (μελαγχολία) and lugubrious from Latin (lugere - to mourn), but no matter which way it shakes out, it still pretty much means the same. It's NOT depression per se, but rather a lot more complex than that.
Today, it only seems to mean depression or despondency, and that's the CLINICAL aspect alone. Amazing how we "change" our lexicon.
Used to be where melancholy could manifest itself whenever a person's name was mentioned to another, much like a lost love or relative.
One might equate it to a sadness over one's loss.
Classical composers suffered from such things, and their music displays this wonderfully.
And, of course, melancholy rears it head whenever people wax nostalgic.
Yeah, now that's MY kind of melancholy!
I suppose it was because I was watching the Tony Curtis movie fest on TCM yesterday (and shame on you if YOU missed it). I remember with fondness when those movies were in THEATERS, and people paid cash coin-of-the-realm to watch them.
Later, I was listening to a local radio station that tends to play a LOT of 70s and 80s music, and I have to say they were wonderful times (for me, anyway).
I told the missus that I can recall with marvelous clarity what those songs meant to me, and I have to admit to a strange fixation on those times.
Listening to those songs back THEN, and then wondering where I would be (or even IF I would be) several decades later, I would have never imagined myself living in some blighted area of Indiana's second-largest city, watching my neighborhood go down the crapper a little bit further every single day. A shame, too, because a dozen or so years ago, this area was a far cry from what it is today. IT changed around US.
Yes, the human MEMORY can be a marvelous thing.
And, it can be a curse sometimes.
You recall when a person's word was their bond...
You remember that neighborhoods had a lot FEWER problems, and that law-enforcement was given a lot more RESPECT along the way.
You think back to times when you could walk almost anywhere to get anything, and not worry about being robbed, raped, or otherwise accosted.
It was all that, and so much more.
Today...not so much.
There are some that say it's wrong to dwell upon or think about the past.
To them, I say they don't know "Jack", then.
Your PAST determines your FUTURE, because it sets the tone for the PRESENT. If your (personal) past sucked-on-ice, and you have done NOTHING to change it (or yourself) in the here and now, then don't expect that manna to fall from heaven, or Publisher's Clearing House to come a knockin' on YOUR door anytime soon in the future.
Ain't gonna happen!
That's what I see living around us these days...scores of people that have changed NOTHING about themselves (for the better), because their past shows through in the manner in which they conduct themselves in the present.
This also says that their future looks about as bleak as bleak can get.
That's something else that has changed drastically from decades past...people DOING something...anything that allows them to become something more than what they were, or what their parents were.
Back in the day, almost everyone was GOING somewhere in life...they were pretty much all moving FORWARD...to SOME objective.
And I suppose that old axiom still applies...YOU CAN'T LEAD FROM THE REAR.
Few were those content (if you could call it contentment) enough to just sit by, and watch the world stroll past.
Didn't happen back then.
Sure happens a LOT today, however.
Now, I don't know WHEN (exactly) this new age of DE-evolution occurred, or WHY we're seeing it in such abundance, but here it is.
Somehow, many of the people of this nation have allowed themselves to be "bought and sold by the system".
If whatever we do today is NOT rooted in SOME form of entertainment, we get bored and look elsewhere for that next "fix" of diversionary appeasement.
Now, it's perfectly fine to WANT to shut out that nasty old world from time to time, but it should NEVER become our sole purpose in life...
Life is WAY too short and has WAY too many wonders in it to believe otherwise.
Life will give us much, take away from us just as much, and can often demand much from us.
That's just the nature of the beast.
But, we STILL get to CHOOSE the path we will follow, no one does that for us...or ever should, lest we hand over our liberties to be coddled at the teat of some government overlord.
Life can often be a lot like accounting, in that many times, what we get OUT of it, is determined upon that which we put INTO it.
I like to think of it like a bank account of sorts.
The money we put in is there to use at a later date, and we even get some "interest" along the way...nothing wrong with that.
But to never put hardly anything IN, and yet all but demand as much as your heart desires OUT of it makes absolutely no sense.
Yet, we see this occur every day...at least I see it around me in the ghettohood.
Yes indeed...it's NOT like in times past.
People are rewarded NOT for their accomplishments, talents, integrity or job skills, but are rewarded based on how LOUD they can cry foul, or how many children they can produce into a disadvantaged lifestyle.
That just doesn't track with me all that well.
And that is also why the feeling of melancholy.
You wonder what has become of America, that her people could become so entrenched in entitlements, and lack real substance as individuals.
It's perfectly fine to stop along your journey in life to smell a few roses, but when you stop completely, and decide that the world owes you a living for no other reason aside than the fact that you can BS others into believing that YOUR life is due to everyone else's mismanagement, instead of your OWN inability to push yourself and want to make yourself a USEFUL member of society, you're cheating a lot more people than JUST yourself.
I know that it gets very weary dealing with all the mooks living around us, but I refuse to let the "bad guys" win....
(I must have watched the Lone ranger too much growing up)
But I also feel that everyone has to be held to SOME standard in life.
To NOT do so, turns us down a path this nation really doesn't want to go, and we're already seeing evidence of this, and have been for awhile now.
I get tired of hearing about affirmative action, when all that's needed is for everyone to LEARN to be AS qualified as the next person.
I get tired of hearing about dumbing DOWN our kids, so they're more "equal" in their scholastic pursuits.
I get tired of giving people a free pass because "they don't know any better".
And I get REAL tired of people gaming the system JUST so they can get what others work their asses off to have.
Yeah...weary...that's how I feel sometimes.
Melancholy...sounds about right.
So, if I hear a song, or watch a movie, and remember how nice a lot more of this world USED to be, and I even get a tad misty-eyed along the way, it's because we used to be SO much better as a nation...
Thing is..we still CAN be once again.
But there has to be a LOT more of us willing to do so.
And if that means forcing people to do more FOR THEMSELVES (by parking that gravy-train), instead of having everything done FOR THEM...so be it.
Ben Franklin said it best:
"I am for doing good to the poor, but...I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it.
I observed...that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer."
And therein lies the lesson.
May we not only learn from it, but practice it.
Be well, make a difference to someone, and...
Stay safe out there, America.