By Mark Harvey
So, here we are: post-Fourth of July! Did everyone enjoy themselves? Bands and parades and speeches and fried chicken and fireworks and…
Well, OK, not everyone likes fried chicken and quite a few of us could live without more-than-a-few speeches, and people with pets hate fireworks, but … still, it is an important day, and nobody needs me to explain that.
I also suspect that quite a few of us (particularly those of us who are old enough to remember a lot of Fourths) can’t help but reflect upon what seems to be happening in the good ol’ US of A: incredible, endless division and divisiveness everywhere! Nobody agrees with anybody about anything, unless “you” are part of what “I” consider to be “us.”
Constant, vitriolic attacks. Accusations. Labeling and marginalizing. Hatred, fear, lies, even violence! What has become of us? Is this the beginning of the end?
Well, if you’re perched on the edge of your seat, waiting for me to deliver the grand answer to that, you can relax because I don’t have it — but you can bet I’m going to talk about what does occur to me.
I imagine that the life of a nation parallels the life of a person; after all, nations are created by “people,” right? And most of us Elders are given to looking back on our lives — trying to understand how we got “here” from “there.” It’s our job: struggling to understand who we are, given who we were, and what might be the point of it all.
We do it a lot, whether we admit it or not.
We look back and remember all the choices we made or ignored (which were, of course, choices just the same); all the forks in all the roads. Remembering that we couldn’t do nothing; we had to do something! And so we did.
And remembering, with embarrassing clarity, how smart we used to be. We knew it all! All anyone else had to do was ask. (And, often, even that little nicety wasn’t absolutely necessary, because we were glad to enlighten you.) We were wise beyond our years, and we knew it. We had all the answers.
But we weren’t. And we didn’t. But we thought we did.
And, often, these forays into yesteryears (way more than reminiscences, more like examinations) can be more than a bit embarrassing: “Did I really do that?” “Did I really say that?” “What on earth was I using for brains?”
And it isn’t far from embarrassment to shame, but that’s a subject for another day.
On our best days, these examinations can actually result in a few “aha!” moments: That’s not what I want to do, and that’s not what I want to say, and I can be smarter than that, and that’s not who I want to be anymore!
I can be better than that.
And on our very best days, we’ll say: I will be better than that.
Now, certainly, we remember the good parts, too — the times when we did and said good things, made good choices, made the world (or our little slice of it) better. The times when we were the best we could be, and we are very grateful for those.
But those are easy to forget, so we tend to remember (and perseverate upon) those bad things. And, if we’re not careful and we do it too much, we can begin to think everything was bad. That it was all dark and evil. That we were (and are) miserable excuses for human beings that have no right to exist.
I think that’s as destructive and delusional as thinking everything has been perfect! Isn’t the point of being here to learn? To become more? To decide to be the best we can be, then work toward that?
And to keep trying?
I’m inclined to think it is. I’m inclined to think that’s exactly the point: to learn, to grow, to use the past as a way of seeing what can be. And accepting that maybe it was the only way to get here from there.
And I’m inclined to think it’s the same with nations: That’s who we were, this is who we are; now, who do we want to be?
How can we do better? Be better? The next step, the next phase: better, kinder, more.
Yesterday got us to today, but it won’t get us to tomorrow. We have to decide.
And I think that makes the Fourth of July a very important day.
Mark Harvey is the director of information and assistance for the Olympic Area Agency on Aging. He can be reached by email at harvemb@dshs.wa.gov; by phone at 360-532-0520 in Aberdeen, 360-942-2177 in Raymond, or 360-642-3634; or through Facebook at Olympic Area Agency on Aging-Information & Assistance.
