Memory can be a blessing and a curse. In this instance, maybe both…
For the last few years, my work was ending up more on Facebook than it was here. There were a number of reasons for that, such as ease of use on that platform, not a lot of time for cross-posting in the middle of things, hadn’t been able to give this site the update it needed before now. There were a number of things that got in the way of putting material here that contributed to my laziness my situation.
One of the things about Facebook that you can either love or hate is its “Memories” function, which allows you to see what you were doing on this date in the past. Have pictures taken of you of that party where you hooked up with someone you had to do the walk of shame from afterwards? Yep, there. Said something about a person or piece of work that didn’t age well? Uh-huh, here you go. Pictures with people you loved who are no longer in your life? Sadly, those too.
Thankfully, I don’t have many of those. There’s very little that I posted that I’d die of embarrassment of if it came back up. I’d still get maudlin if pics of those I miss came up, but presumably most people would.
One thing that surprised me, though, was a few opinion pieces I shared on this date, both of which for whatever reason are still relevant issues, even with all that’s gone on before then. Some matters never die, and are so continually active that something from a century ago can still qualify as a hot take.
For example, this statement about “cancel culture” from 2021, which managed to tie in with education practices today…
So, there’s a lot of talk about “cancel culture,” stating the horror that things are being taken away from folks.
Forget the idea that maybe some of these things being taken away have gone well beyond their shelf life, like that container of leftovers in the back of your fridge that you probably should have thrown out months ago; let’s assume that these “cancelled” items still have a place, beyond just being a “good bad idea.”
Notice who some of the folks are who seem especially anxious to claim that it’s an attack on what they believe is their heritage, a heritage they have supported through their champions at the top of the ticket every four years.
Champions such as the last one they had, who put into office a Secretary of Education who removed the protections of students the Obama Administration had implemented, while at the same time backing off on prosecuting fly-by-night “schools” that took student’s money yet left them uneducated.
Champions like George W. Bush, who during his administration championed the No Child Left Behind Act, which tied funding to schools that measured their performance based on basic skills tests, tests that were so important that most schools cut from the curricula everything but test prep.
Champions like Ronald Reagan, who wanted to eliminate the Department of Education and instead focused on such critical education issues as whether prayer was allowed in the classroom.
After about forty years of these “champions” having had a hand in American education policy, we were likely to end up where we are today, with a generation that could not bring nuance to an observation, capable only of binary reaction, such reactions serving the “cancelled” badly as their time on stage counts down to the end.
An outcome that some might appreciate more, had the education policies above not prevented them from learning about the law of unintended consequences…
Or, this piece from 2020, which discussed everyone being scarred of COVID-19, but still works about how we relate to it today, along with other things to be terrified of…
I wasn’t going to go into this, but the way things are going, it’s probably better to share:
Everyone is freaking out about our state of emergency right now. There’s been a lot of stress, a lot of panic, people losing their f’n’ minds over this. It’s making people go to a dark place that makes them say and even do things that would not have happened had there not been this stress. You’ve probably seen this the last time you went to the store, so examples would be superfluous.
I can fully relate. Years ago, as the Cold War entered into its last stages, I was making that trip down the dark spiral myself. If you don’t remember it, it was not a lot of fun: There were too many strategic weapons held on both sides, both of whose leaders were not anyone you’d put at the top of the list to trust with these toys. I kept abreast with the latest information, thinking that at least knowing what was driving me on would be better than being entirely in the dark. To this day, I can still give you throw weights for the SS-20 and Minuteman if asked.
(And keep in mind, this was trying to learn everything that was knowable at the time. If you get a chance, look up “Abel Archer 83” and ask, how comfortable would you be if at the time you’d known more about this…)
One of the side effects of dealing with this sense of dread, unfortunately, was that fear was being supplanted by depression. What was the point, I thought, of a life that either out of stupidity or carelessness would have ended in no more than 90 minutes? And if somehow I wasn’t a casualty of the first strike, what would be the point of fighting with the roaches for food? When Khrushchev’s quote about how in such a time the living would envy the dead kept playing in the background, it didn’t make me good company at what few parties would still invite me to attend.
It took years to get out of that. Well, that and the end of the Cold War itself; had we still had this going on, who knows if I would ever get out. But as I climbed out, I started to regret not having as many good associations with that time of my life as I should have. It took more time after that to make up for it, in terms of getting to a place where I felt I had actually lived.
The point of all this rambling is, yes, these times are scary, and keeping ahead of this by staying informed is recommended. But please, save a little piece of yourself. If too much of your attention and awareness gets overwhelmed, the damage can be crippling, long lasting, and take far too long to correct. Take some time to do something that allows you to relax; a good book, a decent album, a favorite game you can play (even a solo game, maybe especially one such considering the times), anything you can do to avoid burnout and being overwhelmed.
We should all watch for the immediate danger so as to keep ourselves safe, but what’s the damn point if we have nothing left to save afterwards…?
Maybe Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr had it right all along, which is a double-edged sword. We never really get out of or away from these troubles, though with enough exposure we could build up an immunity.
I’m not a big fan of the idea of history being able to repeat itself, but I do agree with whoever came up with it* that it can rhyme, or at least have the same beat. Maybe with that in mind, we can work on our dance to make it easier to do…
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* Don’t start giving me notes about how it was Mark Twain who said that. Apparently he didn’t, despite what others have said.
Besides, I’d rather go with an attributable source that may have been a bit more hopeful as they used the term…
James Ryan 