ARE WE CREATING THE FUTURE WE DESIRE?
Here in the most technically advanced country in the world,
we exist in witness of our failure to maintain the shining example of the societal
model. We reside in such close proximity
to our decline that alternative, enlightened practices get lost in the
assumption that life is just the way it is. The speed and blur of the pace of
our living blinds us to the exit ramps of positive change that we are
missing. We are a multi-layered society
that is bogged down with parochial vested interest, the remedies for which
remain elusive in a deepening quagmire of numbness to our circumstances.
The morality bar barely has light beneath it and the ground.
The slow media and entertainment seduction continues un-noticed and unabated.
“Normal” TV has co-opted our potential for beneficial options competing with
cable for the outrageousness of decadence disguised as art, inclusiveness, political
correctness, and the democratic principles of a free and open society. It’s a
No Holds Barred, Nothing Is Sacred, Everything’s in Play society we are
crafting.
Lost in the mania for glitter and gold, parents, too many
single, scramble for lifestyles that are unaffordable, while their children
become proficient at self-governance and little respect for parents or
authority that have abdicated the throne of leadership responsibility. Would be
couples are increasingly lost in the vertigo of what is Normal in relationship;
genetic predisposition has been usurped by social prerogative, which has
transformed “alternative lifestyles” into the natural order. With the
increasing ubiquity of Ron and Shaun, Betty and Bobbie, the expectation that
affairs must be a part of the conjugal reality is shattering the potential for
lasting, committed relationships that were pre-doomed to demise, absent the
establishment of meaningful connections and compatibilities before launching
into commitment, the justification for which is blurred by premature physical
intimacy. The relationship airplane takes off before couples know who’s on
board.
Our voyeuristic predilections, cultivated from living lives
in which there is always something missing, leave us anxiously awaiting the
next seductive episode of “Empire,” “Scandal” or the outrageousness of Reality
TV, Naked and Afraid and Naked Dating. The Tube alternative is the ubiquitous
Breaking News programing replete with talking head experts unable to ascertain
what exactly the problems in the international arena are and, to a lesser
extent, what are the solutions to creating a world less threatened by cults of
personality living out their own Rosebuds in the global milieu. Sadly, our latest societal fad, being pursued
by lost souls who no one had, or took, the time to notice, is the absorption
with glorification of mass murderers, copy-cat slayers obsessed with breaking
the slaughter records of previous assassins. That our innocent babies are the tragic
victims only seems to up the game points earned by the sick souls doing the
slaughtering. In all the cases of these
mass murderers, there were signs, clues and behavioral evidence of isolation in
private worlds of mounting madness camouflaged in the neglect of parents and
friends, blurred by the crossover into the unreality of violent movies and
video games, the new billion dollar businesses in America and the world.
It’s our world. What will we do to make it
better? What empowering difference will we make in our children’s lives? Where
will we place the morality bar in our lives? What standards for living our
lives will make relationships/marriages stronger, more meaningful and lasting.
If we are unwilling to step outside the blur of living to examine our lives,
and who we are being in them, we have NO FUTURE, only the Past repeated in the
Future. In this short sprint we call our life, what difference will our having
passed this way have made in anyone’s life?
We do have a say in the matter but will we muster the vision and courage
to stand for Possibility?The author is a retired airline pilot, Vietnam veteran combat pilot, Mercer University Adjunct Instructor and author of Smoke for Breakfast: A Vietnam Combat Pilot's Story. Personally signed copies available at: www.CaptBrianSettles.com
