Tag: flower children

Peace in Purpose Meets Peace Love and Rock and Roll

“Humans need something to do, someone to love and something to hope for…” recipe for happiness.

I had the most amazing dream the other night. I dreamed everyone was nice to one another. People were having conversations without an anger. I saw smiling and waves as I walked the streets and a part of me said, this is a dream, I’m sure of it.

Then I remembered that in another time and place it was real. There was talk and no yelling. Peace love and rock and roll. Flowers and rainbows. Conversation and no arguing, disagreements in a pleasant manner and people being okay with someone that disagreed with them.

Upon awakening I realized it hadn’t been so much a dream as a memory.

A time when life was quiet and comfortable. I needed to understand why.

So I thought long and hard about what might have happened to change people.

To turn friend against friend, family against family and humans into uncompromising and angry beings.

It took some time, but not all that much once I realized a universal truth.

Happy people don’t lash out.

Being fulfilled creates a peaceful spirit and feeling safe allows for acceptance.

Yet there is so much anger, volatility, resentment and negativity it has literally drown out all the good emotions.

I know Baby Boomers are often accused of sugar coating the past. The back-in-my-day rhetoric is a source of amusement for those unable to relate.

I understand that if one has never experienced an emotion or experience it’s impossible to comprehend.

So I can’t help but have sympathy for generations that can’t remember a time when kindness was the law of the land. When respect for yourself and others ruled the day, and good works and personal achievement were noble goals.

What can be done to return the human race to its former state as human beings?

I’ve given this a great deal of thought. Not because I was elected to office to do so, but because I want to leave my grandchildren a better world.

Politicians are the last people on earth to want to make the world better. Watch their campaign ads and it’s obvious hatred is good for business and they lean into it with all their might.

Politics has become a terminal illness for which there is no cure. The need to blame and vilify has been raised to an art form and people are the victims of this sick and corrupt mentality.

If anyone is offended by my feelings toward politicians, good.

But they are only one part of the problem. There are other reasons for this sudden inability to show anyone grace any longer.

Sadly I must resort to a trite and over simplified cliché, “hurt people hurt people.”

Yes I know, but actually let’s face it, they are overused for a reason, they fit.

Back in prehistoric times when I was growing up, there was a certain vibe in the air. Not loud, but quiet and hovering, like a fluffy white cloud on a perfect summer day.

It was that feeling of acceptance. A certain knowledge that allowed for contentment.

The formula for happiness has never changed. It’s simple and despite the changing times remains a constant.

Humans need something to do, someone to love and something to hope for.

There is peace in purpose. Knowing what is expected of us and others creates a timeline to follow and a path to walk. Life isn’t as fraught with danger when we simply have to put one foot in front of the other and move forward. Belief in the future, despite our inability to actually foresee destiny, dispels uncertainty.

Do our plans always turn out as we envision? Of course not, but usually better things than we’ve planned crop up in their stead. Thus the whole go-with-the-flow mentality is positive and healing.

People with a purpose aren’t bored or unsettled. Okay, to be trite once more, idle hands are the devil’s workshop.

Baby Boomers had a sense of destiny. We grew up in times when hostilities had ended and new life was beginning. Professions and businesses were in their infancy and everyone had a role to play in this new vision for America.

The war had changed everyone and it was now a chance to rebuild the world through hard work and big dreams.

Sure I sound pollyannaish. I get that, but it was calm and safe. There wasn’t constant fear or unrest, but a sameness about each day that was comforting and tranquil. The unrest came later.

There was love and respect for our parents, teachers and one another.  We knew right from wrong and understood the meaning of accountability for straying.

I get that it may sound like we were Stepford children, but it was the opposite. Our teachers gave us the facts we needed to think for ourselves and make our own decisions. I imagine that’s what lead to the peace movement in the sixties.

Baby Boomers had all the ingredients necessary to be happy. Purpose, love and hope for a future we could build.

Still, nothing is perfect. There were glitches along the way for sure.  We were in many ways pampered, spoiled and our parents wanted us to have great lives. Maybe at times there was an over-abundance of all this love. It did however give us a sense of social compassion for those who needed more than what we were so lucky to have had.

The sixties were turbulent times for our generation. War, civil rights, and assassination. As Bob Dylan wrote, The Times They Are A-Changin’.

We felt unsettled, uncertain and unhappy. Too many succumbed, many overcame.  We ultimately plowed through the winds of change with new strength and respect for what we could achieve.

So what went wrong with us and when?

It’s obvious when you hear new generations crying out against work, confused about love, because they are lacking it for themselves, and deriding any hope for the future, unhappiness is inevitable.

All the ingredients necessary to forge a contented human have been cast out in favor of anger and hatred.

Replacing love and purpose with rage and futility is not a formula for a positive outcome.

So what can be done to cure this illness of anger permeating our society?

Could it be so simple as a return to the basics, love purpose and hope? I say yes.

Children must be taught there is nobility in work, there is love in each of us and there is a future if we build it together. It’s the easiest math I’ve ever done. Three simple parts added to create a happy and healthy whole.

Good and evil are movable concepts. They spread and encompass areas dropping specks of emotions on all nearby. No one can deny a bad aura can cover up a good one in no time. Simplistic? Perhaps, or maybe not.

What must we do to begin anew? It’s up to those who remember to pass along those good vibrations to anyone who will listen. And most importantly actually live that peace, love and rock and roll. Then rinse and repeat until we wash away the bad.

When Will They Ever Learn? And Why Didn’t We?

“Where Have all the Young Men Gone, long time passing… where have all the soldiers gone, long time ago…When will they ever learn when will they ever learn?” Where Have all the Flowers Gone? by Pete Seeger and Joe Hickerson.

I used to think being crazy was a bad thing. Now I thank God every day I am. I seriously doubt at this moment in time anyone who is perfectly normal can find a way to cope with the insanity around us.

So how crazy do you have to be to exist in a world that has become so totally insane it is impossible to envision a corner of the planet where calm and peace any longer exist? 

A place where flowers grow and deer prance around in green lush woods. Where children play happily on white sandy beaches.

Oh sure I forgot the Garden of Eden which supposedly exists somewhere in the middle east or Africa. Forgive me if I find that scenario to be in any way believable or realistic.

So let’s get back to this whole being crazy thing.

When I was young, back in prehistoric times we had an expression “peace, love and rock n roll.”

Now that has turned to “chaos, murder and hatred.”

What happened to the flower children who lived on communes and painted Volkswagen busses while espousing love for everyone and peace on earth?

Hmmm, well I wonder that perhaps it wasn’t us peaceniks that are responsible for what has become of that dream.

The Baby Boomer generation was entrusted with a sacred task, to spread peace and love across the world in a time when it had been littered with death and hatred.

We did it well, but perhaps too well.

Were we naïve about man’s capacity to truly love one another, to accept other’s flaws, opinions and lifestyles. Even when they conflicted with our own?

Did we assume that our message despite the war in Viet Nam was being taken seriously by the powers that be and that the military industrial complex would ultimately simply expunge their weapons and “the lion would lie down with the lamb?”

There is an argument to be made that we were cavalier about those dreams we created for a better world. That while we got busy living our lives, accumulating our fortunes and raising our children we lost sight of a responsibility that needed tending.

Did we believe that peace would come without sacrifice? That love would simply spread like a virus throughout the world?

That rock n roll was a solution to the problems of a species that was only a few decades out of the caves and could at any moment revert to their uncivilized behavior?

We never saw it coming.

While we were driving our BMWs, shopping in giant new malls and seeking bigger and better neighborhoods and schools for our offspring we assumed someone was on the wall and watching the gate.

But they weren’t. No one was.

The cold war turned hot, new wars arose and countries with no regard for human life sprung up like weeds to populate what we believed was a green and lush topography. China flourished with our help to become a rabid dog intent on destroying the hand that fed him.

So are we at fault for dropping the ball?

When we marched at our colleges for peace how did we never envision future generations that would march to excuse evil?

Are we at fault for universities that encourage hatred, violence and dare I say it, sheer stupidity? Should we blame those who blindly donated to their alma maters without first investigating their policies and attitudes? Perhaps that is a big part of our current problems.

Or was there ever really a ball to be dropped.

Were we simply too high on weed to come down to earth long enough to understand our folly?

To realize after World War II evil not only still existed in our world, but in just a few generations this would become a truly evil world.

A place where good gets shouted down and cowers under the loud voice of the wicked. Where the moral compass of the world would go mahoola and twist and turn into unreadable directions.

That man would more than ever be a lost soul wandering about in a malicious society.

That the red flags were waving and we never noticed. We lost sight of our goals and assumed our message would continue to resonate with others down through time.

We were foolish.

When I say we I also mean me.

I forgot that “good will ultimately triumph over evil” is the grand design, yet before evil is defeated it takes many good people down.

That evil will never be satiated without first tasting the blood of the innocent and that leaders who are fools are no match for those who are malevolent. That evil never sleeps and good naps constantly.

Now I look at what we have allowed the world to become and I feel guilt and sorrow for the mess our children and grandchildren must attempt to clean.

There are no flowers, kumbaya or peace love and rock n roll on the horizon for them.

Only a world filled with the ashes of peace, brotherhood and goodness.

I have always been intrigued by the tale of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and found it difficult to believe that only four could determine man’s fate.

Yet now I have come to realize a group of madmen with homemade bombs can harness that power and engage a world into a battle for the soul of humanity.

It doesn’t take a genius to understand that it is in many ways simple math. The world population has exploded and with it has come more good people but many many more evil ones.

Society has found a way to condone crime in its cities, destroy law and order and create a chaotic existence for all people good and bad.

Was this the dream? Was this our goal as we sang kumbaya and just assumed all mankind was in agreement with our philosophy?

How could we have been so naïve as to think evil wouldn’t take advantage of our foolishness and plunge the world into darkness?

Now the war is here and it has come down to basics. Good versus evil once more. We have been here before, but the question now is, how many innocents will die before evil is defeated once again?

As the Peter Paul and Mary song asked, “When will they ever learn?” I may be crazy, but I know an inciteful song lyric when I hear one. Sadly, I just don’t know the answer.