“The Sunshine Room”

“The Sunshine Room”

     On consistently cloudy days outside, on dreary wintry days, on ‘bad news’ days, it would be nice to have a ‘sunshine room’. In our rapidly expanding digital and technological world, there is likely already a relatively simple mechanism of sorts that will illuminate a room, maybe an entire house, as though the sun was present … maybe a ceiling fixture, a wall addition, a window covering, et al. If not clear by now, I’m a sun worshiper. That’s one of the reasons I live at this latitude on the Sea of Cortez. There is sunshine every single day. Some clouds may drift in but sooner of later the sunshine is there in a beautiful blue sky.

     Sunshine is important to me because of my make-up. The older I get, the more I see in our growing world, there is this tendency to become gilded in my thinking. Those folks who lean toward the liberal side might not like me too much for my views. That’s okay because there are times when I don’t like them too much. However, I do respect my liberal friends and sometimes think I’m missing something in their political and social comments. In fact, in my younger years I was more inclined to hold liberal views. Somehow, I had a change of mind along the way. Perhaps my perceptions are too simple, just too bound in historical clashes and events to think in any other way. I think about the fall of the Roman Empire, its laxity on the social issues. I think about how one man could master a large segment of the human race and murder over six million people. I think about Stalin, Russia, the purges, and the slaughters of millions. I think, in some ways, I’m seeing history repeat itself. Not so much for me, an old dog not able or willing to learn new tricks, but for my kids, grandkids, and great-grandkids.

     Look, I’m no scholar who can spout off the words of the US Constitution, its Amendments, or the Declaration of Independence, but those important papers brought us to a grand place in the history of mankind. The idea that people can have liberty, are free to go out into the world and be all that they can be, based on their honest efforts and their brain power. I don’t have to be a scholar to know that most of the people in the world would like that scenario. Yes, we’re all created equal at birth but it doesn’t stay that way. Some of us don’t learn as fast as others. Some of us are ambitious. Some are lazy and try to figure easy ways to live off others’ toil. Some are handicapped, need and should get help from a caring nation… ‘Equality’ means different things to different people. How can a diverse nation (or, world) live up to the word, ‘equality,’ when the word was meant to convey our right at birth. Where is the fairness for someone who has an idea, grows that idea into a major business where he hires people, gives them work for their daily bread, only to be regulated by a government with a long list of do and don’t. Should it not be simple enough for a vigorous person with a business idea to pursue that idea without fear of what his government is going to take from him? Should not a tax code be simple enough for everyone to understand without having thousands of pages of regulations? Should not a person expect to die and leave his legacy to family without having the government take a large chunk of his estate? Should not ‘entitlements’ be the exception and not the rule? Was the government meant to be so intrusive in our lives? Did not those beautiful documents from our forefathers postulate what the essential roles of our government branches should be? It seems to this wary and weary old dog that, through the years, we have cleverly rearranged with our fancy legalized posturing the true meaning of those documents.

     So, many can justifiably counter my simple remarks here, but they are honest thoughts. There are at work in this nation and this world forces that are focused on undermining our religious and social freedoms. These forces are evil, treacherous, and they are here in large numbers. These ramblings of an old man will have no effect on this evil. These words are but a Sunday morning sermon on our times.

     In any event, I’ve clearly exposed myself. That’s okay! Most of you who have read some of my posts clearly know that I’m an anachronism, a conservative, a traditionalist, whatever the convenient word. Well, that’s all I can be! My DNA lines up that way. I’m a helpless, hopeless, wanderer in this land of ‘machines’ and madness. I’m not much of a debater, so those who lean the other way can punch all the holes you wish into my little dissertation here.

     Hopefully, I can sell people on the idea that I do try to adapt, to learn new tricks and new ways to please the newer order. There is clearly a newer order! Having lived this long, I see our new ‘machines of progress’ and I see new problems to go along with the old problems. In my vision it is natural for me to see old mistakes from my generation being repeated — you know, that ‘history repeating itself’ thing. It is natural for old fools like me to see new free-thinking people wanting a world community at any expense, at the expense perhaps of the freedom and liberty some forty old timers like George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, William Blount, and others all in harmony felt would connect a country’s people. That ‘Constitution’ these great people of history signed was to be the blueprint for not just our country but for any country who held dear the ideals that went into that document. Amendments were added, and the road was perilous then as it is now … But, wow! what a great blueprint for a country to have!

     The world changes. Knowledge explodes into rich new innovations and inventions. So, why can’t we all be on the same page in history? We know the answer, of course. The old fools collide with the new fools! It becomes more and more difficult to find consensus on this or on that. Different times? Different political persuasions? Different World views? Do any of us know who is who and what is what anymore? So much to absorb and so many machines!

     I no doubt spend too much time in the ruminating room — those ‘good old days’ cannot be retrieved or altered. At least, some of us think they were good old days. So, this old fool just might as well watch the world do its thing and make an idle comment here and there…

     While I’m at it, here are a few more of those idle comments:

     1) The music of today ‘sucks’ (to use the vernacular) — too damned loud and the lyrics are lost in the cacophonous screeching of brass, drums, strings, et al.

     2) We’re repeating some of the same mistakes today that brought much trouble in our history.

     3) Technology has created too many horrific gang and war games to fill kids minds — too much laxity of control on the part of parents; our kids today are not necessarily playing ‘Cowboys and Indians,’ tag, and hide and seek.

     4) We are an ‘over reaction’ nation: we have some beautiful children killed and we suddenly want to amend and/or make new laws; maybe we need to modify some of our gun laws; we have to care.,,

     5) Each side of the political spectrum uses tragedy for their agendas when we all must know we can never stop all the evil that lurks in our world.

     6) We should be sane and sensible, change things that can make a difference, and understand that there are some things that cannot be changed; ‘We’ and ‘sane’ and ‘sensible’ are the operative words.

     7) Guns do not kill people — people kill people and those who are evil will find ways to carry out their evil intents …

     There are many other idle comments and they are negative. People want positive, reassuring, words of promise. They want answers and problem solving. Our scientific and technological knowledge is exploding, doubling, tripling, in relatively short intervals. There is so much to absorb, of which to be aware, that we ordinary citizens stumble over it all. We are bewildered, confused, but, then, Google will help us find an answer. We go on with our lives because that is what we are to do.

     Sound political? Not intended. Just looking at serious minutia roaming around in my head… back in my day, we had a sniper killing off students at the University of Texas in Austin; we had the Kent State riots; we had Charlie Manson and his ‘helter-skelter’ crew; we had a socially prominent and politically active Ted Bundy killing pretty young women all around the country; there was the Los Angeles ‘Hillside Strangler’ and there was the Oregon ‘Green River’ serial killer… History from the dawn of time is dotted with evil acts — there in William Shakespeare’s time you will find evil. On and on I could go with the evil incidents of our lives… We react to these horrible events, particularly those that kill our children, because we can’t understand how such evil can exist. It staggers us, takes nips at our hearts and souls, and leaves us in a stupefied state of mind until — until we can go to our ‘sunshine room’ and start feeling better. The best invention in the world would be a machine that can determine without question the evil among us…then we could dump all the evil people on an isolated island far from civil land and let them find ways to annihilate each other.

     But, then, what the hell do I know? I’ll let the grandkids and great-grandkids handle the problems. I’m too old and too tired to be trying to figure it all out … Hey, how about a real humdinger of a pep pill, a smart pill? Oh, well, a highball might do it!

     I’m going to the ‘Sunshine Room.’ Guess I’ve given enough ‘pleasure’ and ‘displeasure’ for one day.

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