Thoughts for Youth in a Troubling Time

A few days back, on the 23rd, I was remembering an incident recounted by a friend. She was replying to someone else's comments on Facebook. Misha, a friend in mundane life as well as in this electronic realm, related the behavior of a teenaged group she meets on a street. The youths disregard prevailing thoughts about the necessity for social distancing, and show in their actions a disrespect for their elders.

This occurs in a political environment in which some people, even some who call themselves "lawmakers," express a willingness to threaten and dispense with the older members of society, in order to let the economy function. An economy that functions on the death of the knowledgeable and experienced is an economy to let founder and die, to my mind. But I suppose that those who profess this willingness are Morlocks, who have no taste for the old, and would rather have the young at hand.

Misha perceived in these youths' actions and attitudes their resentment toward her being older, which makes her symbolically the source of all that is troubling their young minds.

On the 23rd, sitting in a rocking chair even older than I am, I found myself penciling thoughts that I might say to these youth. So I place them here. For who knows? One or two, out of any group of twenty or so resentful youths, might listen. So:

Thoughts for Youth in a Troubling Time

If you listen to your peers, weigh carefully what they say.

Sometimes if you follow the group lead, and then go into error or worse, it feels less bad a thing than when you make a mistake through your own thought, trusting to your own instincts as to what is right to do, or good to do. Yet however soothed you may feel in being able to say that it was someone else's fault that you acted the fool, you feel this way because you have a callous over a callous. For you have wounded yourself doubly.

If you act against what is right and good, that is one self-inflicted wound. If you do so to follow someone's exhortation, or due to group pressure, then you are listening to them, and not to your own inner voice. And that wound — of ignoring yourself — is the most grievous of wounds. People go scarred and lamed through all their lives because of it, and never know. They think that the smile they see in the mirror is a true one. Since no one has hurt them but themselves, they think themselves unhurt.

If you say to us who are older that you deserve your folly, because you are only young once and must have your day, then give an ear to what those who are older can tell you. Youth is the making of mistakes. We find our way through life by wrong turns. If we recognize them as such, we go on to be older in years, and perhaps wiser. Otherwise we go on to be older in years, but with our committed foolishness compounded with illusion.

Most of us mix the two approaches.

Besides this, I say that you need not fret yourself over being young only once. If you heed your inner voice, and view life as a process of continually making yourself anew, you will find yourself able to make mistake after mistake after mistake, no matter your years, few or many. For you never cease finding your way. And if you live in this manner to your dying day then your "being young only once" has lasted all your life.

We are young forever, so long as we make only our own mistakes, and steer clear of the mistakes that others would have us make. Though not easy — nothing about youth is easy — this is what life offers to you. It offers it to you, as an individual, alone.

Cheers . . .

Masks for All in General

Science-fiction readers among you may have had a scene from a novel coming to your mind, lately. It has been to mine.

It must have been more than two decades ago that I read the Lisa Goldstein novel having this closing scene:

The tyrant who has persecuted mask-wearers finds one of their masks in his hands.

He tries it on.

Whether he then sees the world clearly, at last, or sees himself clearly — or whether Goldstein makes either aspect plain — memory fails to tell me.

The memory, though, does help bring to the fore this thought: that in fomenting rebellion against those state governments which have adopted lock-down methods to mitigate contagion's impact, our unmasked president is, indeed, persecuting mask-wearers.

Cheers . . .

Major Tom To Face Trump

Dissociated Press, U.K. — Major Tom, famous for his courtyard perambulations in support of the British NHS, has accepted the nomination for the BOAST (British Organization Against Stupid Trumpists) party, which has gained admittance to the U.S. presidential race thanks to an epidemic-caused rules relaxation.

Observers have noted that Major Tom would run circles around the U.S. incumbent — being only physically impaired, not mentally. While his candidacy would shame the Grammatically Offensive Party, or GOP, his clarity and eloquence would set a bar for American candidates that most could best only by going under, not above, in a sort of political "Limbo."

His example of placing human compassion and personal effort above self-inflation and personal gain, however, would so dwarf the GOP that the American public would need to take care — to avoid stepping by accident on its members.

When asked for his opinion as to his chances, Major Tom quipped, "Not only do I know how to finish a race, I know how to finish a sentence. Correctly, in both cases."

Notes on the Travesty

I voted yesterday in the Wisconsin primary and wanted not to. The event was a sham forced on the state by sham politicians disguised as justices. I wanted to stay away from the polls, though, for the sake of the volunteers there. This travesty of an event imposed unduly on their elderly constitutions.

Yet I went to vote in hopes that some youths might have stepped in, to help. Youths might catch something but presumably survive.

The case proved otherwise. One regular volunteer was present, pursuing her duty. Her two usual companions were absent, I was happy to see. The village trio have been dedicated workers, election after election, without, as it happens, growing any younger.

The voting process seemed slightly streamlined in response to the conditions. Unfortunately, the one person who replaced the two missing ones was another woman whom I might have guessed — well, not younger.

Statistically it would seem highly unlikely that yesterday's primary should not result in more illness. Though adequate measures were taken, the fact that health-care workers are falling ill during this epidemic makes a strong case for adequacy being inadequate.

And who holds the blame, if anyone falls ill in Wisconsin as a result of the primary? Or if anyone dies?

The party in Wisconsin that holds the state Senate, House, and Supreme Court, and that pushed through this primary, wields the power that it does thanks to outside forces. A pair of brothers with money-bag eyes were two of the highest angels, so to speak.

Which I mention in the context of guilt. It sits not entirely within this state's borders, even if all of guilt's puppets do.

If the state's Republican party members do not vote their politicians out of office, as soon as possible, then they, too, will be accepting whatever guilt there is to be passed around. Or at least accepting their responsibility for heartless stupidity.

For heartless stupidity might explain yesterday's travesty.

Heartless stupidity, naturally, stands not even a safe six feet away from cruelty.

And if anyone falls ill, or just falls over, due to this travesty, how can we not call the travesty's imposition cruel?

We know that it was unnecessary.

All Today's Observances Banned

Dissociated Press, Washington, April First: The President announced early today the banning of all April Fools observances, as inappropriate in a time of crisis.

"This is no joke," he told reporters, which he confirmed by turning red in the face and farting from his ears, the trademark gesture that made him the darling of red-in-the-face states.

In a related move, administration forces, by the U.S. Senate fondly called the Russian Trolls, shut down the website of presidential hopeful Bunsen Bernie on the grounds that it was a joke.

The candidate responded with a new website that stated, "In looking at our country's leadership now I finally understand what Ralph Waldo Emerson meant when he said, 'The world of men show like a comedy without laughter.'"

The president said, "That's not funny," and was unable to shut down the new website as a consequence.

— By Ezra Pines, DP's reporter on the Fool on the Hill.