OK, I'm back but I don't know for how long.

Just some thoughts today. They’re all part of a whole, although where it ended up I never suspected to be the destination. So just move along with me as I make decisions and find consequences.

Actions and consequences

Actions and consequences. One follows the other as night the day. Good, bad, or indifferent consequences, they come. We may try to ignore them, to forget them, but eventually we must acknowledge those consequences and take responsibility for them.

As individuals we make decisions, and as nations we do the same. We are prone to look at the larger decisions, to argue about the decisions made by our leaders. But it is our own small decisions that influence our personal world more and which, over time, influence THE world more as well.

Each and every decision we make, every day, directs our future. We have free will, we can make our own choices, but under what circumstances do we really understand what this means? And what is our responsibility in making that future? Do we think where they lead? Can these decisions be made willy-nilly and not end in disaster?

I watched the first half of LOTR:ROTK this morning. Hopefully I won't offend the fans of this trilogy if I say I find it slow, ponderous and pretentious. Of course, I found the books the same way some 40 years ago, so I guess there is faithful representation in the movie(s). It's just not a representation I find favorable to my own interests.

And as Pippin looks into the eye and sees what he shouldn't, his future (along with others) is changed. He's separated from his friend, his old life, and swept into events far beyond his abilities to understand. And that's what happens to all of us, every day. Some small decision that we make seems to have such momentous consequences, consequences unforeseen when making the decision.

How many times have I said “It’s the only choice I had” or “What else can I do?” Yet there’s never a lack of choices. When we don’t see them it’s because we don’t want to make those choices. The only restriction comes not from the world but from our own mind.

It seems sometimes that the world sweeps us along and we have little control over it. But that isn't really true. Because that tide of history moving along is created by all our individual decisions. Chaos Theory says that a small change in one part of a system will ripple throughout the whole system, sometimes bringing about changes elsewhere that are much larger, much more important, much more disastrous.

Just remember that every decision you make has consequences, ones that may affect your and other people’s lives in momentous ways. Take responsibility for those consequences, for you’re the only one who really can.


Lies and deceptions

And Frodo labors up the mountain, led on by the lies being whispered in his ear by whatever that creature is that’s guiding him (sorry, I'm just not so into the movie to have memorized all the weird names and species). Isn't he much as we are, being led on by whatever is whispered in our ears? By advertisers, politicians, the media, our friends?

There was a time, many years ago, when the news meant that, a recounting of what had occurred new in the world that day. It was carefully separated from commentary, editorials, interpretations, etc. That distinction has blurred over the years. Gradually truth and fact has been replaced by opinions. And, just as truth is generally a product of facts, deception is a product of opinion. As is exaggeration. As are outright lies.

I've seen it happen. We've gone from a nation which listens to Edward R. Murrow to one which reads (and believes) the National Inquirer and its ilk. We are overloaded with information, have so many more avenues to knowledge than did people in the past. But we have no greater capacity of discernment, no better way of separating wheat from chaff.

So, as I heard a commentator on NPR say, “We have to interpret the news for the American public, else they won’t know what it MEANS.” I added the emphasis. Because they don’t think that we have the capacity to understand the complexities of the world, it is necessary for other people, with far better understanding, to interpret the news, run it through all their biases and prejudices, to give us its true MEANING.

That’s not comforting to me, it’s alarming. It doesn’t make me feel that someone is helpful, is watching out for me, but that they’re attempting to manipulate me. I feel no different than when listening to a commercial, as if I’m being sold something which is not quite as stated, not by truth, but by deception.


Me, myself and I

So, Aragorn must leave this woman (not sure who she was, love-interest?) to get more troops. It makes neither of them happy, but it is a decision which he feels he must make. This was the same as in the movie “The Butterfly Effect.” Sometimes we must make decisions which we perceive as not the best for us in order that others’ lives will be better.

But it is seldom that we make such choices. Life is not like a movie where those who are noble are always noble and those who are evil are always evil. Most of our decisions are selfish ones, ones which we sometimes rationalize to be more altruistic than they really are.

And when we scan the great sea of information presented to us, we filter what we read through our selfishness. We seek out those people and places on the net which agree with us. We ignore the hypocrisy and deceptions we find there. We let others form our opinions. And we let them help make our decisions. And it’s easy and it makes us feel good.

For right or wrong, this is mankind’s way. It has been from the beginning. BUT, it is possible to stop and think, to evaluate, to understand. It takes an effort, a great effort, for our society has taught us that we can’t understand without the pundits, the commentators, the all-seers. First you have to get through this prearranged fog which shrouds our vision.


Means to one end

As I’ve gotten older it’s become harder and harder for me to keep up with current euphemisms. They seem to change so fast. I’ve watched as the meaning of words changed until they have no true meaning any more.

You may think, by the rhetoric we hear nowadays, that some people are currently trying to change the meaning of the word marriage. But, in truth, it changed long ago. It changed when people became convinced that the structure of marriage could not continue as it had for thousands of years. Gay marriage is simply a further nail in the coffin of traditional marriage.

Marriage, as it was structured, was deemed inconsistent with modern circumstances, modern freedoms. Women were judged (although not necessarily by themselves), as vassals, virtual slaves to their husbands. Most of them happily raised their children, insulated from the vulgarities of the world, and could not understand the hubbub raised in their names. Nor the ridicule that soon followed if they chose to continue their servitude.

And enough words were expended, enough rationalization was given, to assure the children of those women that they could never be happy except by grabbing the brass ring of worldly employment. Oh, that such a ring existed. Ask the man who had no choice, whose only way to survive was the fray that is the world of work, ask him about the existence of that brass ring.

So they traded their servitude of family to the servitude of employment. Gave up their allegiance to their husband and gave it to their boss. More families broke up, divorce was rampant, consequences for actions occurred. What caused it? Many decisions made by many people.

And these single mothers, working two jobs, are they happier than if they’d stayed at home, stayed with their husbands, stayed with their children? I don’t know. I can’t say. I’m not in their place. Everyone’s story is different.

And the pity is, they can’t say either. Because the decision was done this way, not the other. Was the grass greener? They don’t know where the marriage was going to go and they don’t know where this life is going. Unfortunately our decisions are always made in less than perfect foresight.

I’ve seen the generation of my parents, I’ve seen my generation, I’ve seen my children’s generation and now my grandchildren’s. And I’ve seen a gradual erosion of happiness, contentment, family unity. More and more people are alone, separated from those they love and who love them or who might have loved them given enough time.

Is this change because of the changing attitude toward marriage, the neglect of the group welfare over the individual ones? I can’t say. It’s a complicated world. But, in my opinion, the preference in today’s society to look to individual freedoms as the end-all and be-all, is largely responsible.

We say it, “It’s the children who suffer most when families break up.” And we mean it, but we scarcely understand it. I’ve seen the majority of children go from happy and healthy to morose and burdened to panicked and suicidal. If we can’t look at our children and grandchildren and see where our decisions are leading the future, where can we look?

And if we can’t take responsibility for the consequences of those, our, decisions, how will it ever change for the better?


P.S.

I don't want to leave the impression that I blame the single mom wholly for her circumstance. I know that it takes two to tango, so to speak. And I know that society exerts its own pressure upon each of us. So, there's plenty of responsibility to go around.

What I was trying to say was that we listen so much to the "experts," those we think are watching out for our welfare, that our selfishness becomes aroused, and we feel we have to make decisions (or that we have no choice) to save ourselves. And that may not be the truth in the matter. It may not be the only choice we have, it may not be the best choice for us, and even if it is the best choice for us, it may not be best for our family.

Who should we listen to? Whose welfare is most important? Think about your decisions carefully, because they create your and other people's future.