There's Now & There's Then, But What Happens to Us Now?

            This could be another day like any other.  I wake up, make a wholesome breakfast; later, work at Ubering and Lyft.  I do what millions of others do.  Get up, earn money, refrain from the noticeable bad habits that afflict a select group of unfortunate [1]people here in the United States.  However, we do not overlook those more fortunate than us, the ones who don’t seem to have to do much to get a few thousand each workday in the town I live or go on the train, show up and earn it in the LOOP area of Chicago. The problem is that we feel jealousy or feel that we are a failure, because we have to struggle so much more than those people.  Human nature seduces us to look and ponder at those who have it seemingly easier than us. 

            Why was this morning different for me than the others? I had a dream where my situation was worse than it is now.  I was suddenly friends again with a pretty woman from my old neighborhood in Ithaca. She came up to me and said that she heard that I didn’t like her anymore, and that was why I had been away from Ithaca.  I was about to explain all the things that had gone wrong in my life, and that the reason for me to be elsewhere had nothing to do with anything she may had done wrong.  However, I woke from the dream, because………..it simply was time to get up and face the new day.

            The point is that in this blog, which started 14 years ago, I have already documented the adversity that I suffered.  They include having prostate cancer and taking a hiatus from my career as a paralegal.  Then when I was recovered and was hired back after having cancer, the legal environment for paralegals seemed to be very different than when I left.  Yet, there are so many other things that have happened to me that I have discussed more at length that I need not list them again. 

            When I grew up, I had a very strong contempt of Country Western music.  I woke up early in the morning at 5 am and, after breakfast, milked cows.  Either my father or my older brother subjected me to listen to that hick music while I would get hit by cows tails as they tried to fend off flies.  The DJ certainly did not help as they would attempt humor and fall woefully short.  That is why I disliked Country Western music.  It stood for a milieu that I despised.

            However, that occurred well over 40 years ago.  I don’t look at Country Western music the same way.  As my PBS station played Ken Burns TV series Country Music, I looked forward to hearing a new episode each night since Sunday.  Monday, I was unable to hear Episode 2, because I was working a night shift at the hospital.  However, when I went to the PBS website, I was easily able to listen/see the episode on my computer.

The music played was more hick than the music I heard 40 years ago; what changed?  I did.  I left the farm 32 years ago. When I hear Country Western on Ken Burns TV series, I’m not working next to a cow.  In fact, I’m miles away from any cow. I no longer feel the hot contempt I did back then.

These episodes graphically showed the tough, hardscrabble lives these musicians lived before they became famous.  Then they showed how some of them struggled in life even after they became stars.  How people like Jimmy Webb died young of TB, and how Hank Williams died even younger of alcoholism-induced complications.  Both were legendary pioneers of this music.

Clearly, there’s a frustration in seeing someone with great talent having it all cut short due to their own shortcomings.

We face many challenges.  There are so many ways we could make costly mistakes and not many ways we can do things right and succeed.  That is why they call the desired course of life “the straight and narrow.”

What many of us find particularly difficult and what has confounded millions of us in the times we live in are changes that have occurred in the last 20, 30 years.  There are more changes than there were 30 years ago.  Sadly, the changes afflict many of us quicker and more unrelenting than someone who lived a generation before us.  Global warming, the upheaval in the workplace (those who work at this same place for 15, 20 years are in the minority), the value of the work done by the middle-class being less than before and the disgusting "gigue economy" are all examples of these dizzying changes.  

One of my favorite authors is Hermann Hesse.  He wrote Steppenwolf in the 1920s.  I always marveled, in this book, at how he predicted World War II more than a decade prior to its beginning (80 years ago to the month)! Clearly, as you read Steppenwolf, the world changed as a result of World War I which occurred a few years prior. Early in the story, a man the main character lived with discussed how difficult it would be to live in the Middle Ages.  The main character, Harry Haller, replied,

"A man of the Middle Ages would detest the whole mode of our present day life as something far more than horrible, far more than barbarous.  Every age, every culture, every custom and tradition has its own character, its own weakness and its own strength, its beauties and ugliness; accepts certain sufferings as matters of course, puts up patiently with certain evils. 
Human life is reduced to real suffering, to hell, only when two ages, two cultures...overlap.  A man of the Classical Age who had to live in medieval times would suffocate miserably just as a savage does in the midst of our civilization.  Now, there are times when a whole generation is caught in this way between two ages, two modes of life, with the consequence that it loses all power to understand itself and has no standard, no security, no simple acquiescence." Hermann Hesse, Steppenwolf , 1929

Clearly, there have been so many changes, that it has become hard to keep up.  Yet, keep up we must.  We have to realize that the way in which we succeeded in 1990 will not succeed in 2019.  Think of how much the political landscape has changed between now and 1990.  I have discussed these changes in this blog previously, so there's no reason to discuss them now. 

As we struggle onwards, there are some who are worried about how they will find their next meal. Many others are worried about how they will pay their mortgage. Still, others wonder how they can clearly pass on the ethics and outlook that helped them succeed through a majority of adulthood to their offspring and a younger generation. 

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[1] When I think of bad habits tragically plaguing people's lives I only have to look at my own community.  I look out my 3rd floor balcony of my condo and see a neighbor next to me who let alcohol and foolishness cause him to go to jail and blight a life where his potential could have led him to accomplish more.  There's another man who has such a crippling gambling habit that he spends too much of his life homeless.  His condition has reduced this man who is 5'9" to a weight of about 140 pounds.