Friday, January 05, 2018

Year's Beginning: 2018

If you talk of 2017 now, you have to tell it like a ghost story. That year is dead, though I'm not sure it's buried. 2018 is fresh and vigorous, still feeling its sap rising. But life is like a gothic novel. The roots of the new grow out of the sins of the past. Nothing that "is" can escape the chains of what "was." And the older you get, the more "was" there is to deal with. The challenge, I guess, is to let the old inform the new without warping it.

I'm old enough now to have seen quite a few children grow up. I've seen them come into the world much like the new year, vigorous, curious, innocent. The innocence always goes. But some maintain their vigor and curiosity long after others have lost theirs. I wonder, were their childhoods less warping than those others? Did their roots start in a field free of sin, or relatively so, at least? Or do they have some inner strength, biologically given perhaps, that those others do not?

On a quiet day at work, with little to distract my thoughts, this is the kind of thing my mind turns to. Although my innocence is gone and my vigor diminished, it would seem that my curiosity has survive--although it has taken a morbid turn. 


12 comments:

Alex J. Cavanaugh said...

Let the old inform the new without warping it - I like that.
Some people do start out in a rough place. Maybe that is why they grow up and lose that innocence so quickly.

Charles Gramlich said...

Alex, I was lucky. I was able to maintain my innocence for quite awhile. But when it went, it went quickly.

pattinase (abbott) said...

I wish the evolutionary process could work quickly enough to prepare this new generation for the degraded world they are inhabiting but I think not. We have much to hang our heads about.

Charles Gramlich said...

Patti, unfortunately, too true

sage said...

This borders on the theological realm, Charles! I think 2017 lost its innocence before it ever began. Let's just hope 2018 doesn't end prematurely with some madman with a finger on a button.

Cloudia said...

As we last, we are intimate wth more and more that is passing - or passed. This can make one morbid. Or one can remain interested as you say. Fine, personal post that resonates, Charles. wishing you and Lana a fine year.

Charles Gramlich said...

Sage, that's certainly scary

Cloudia, I hope it is a good one, and for you too

Angie said...

I've always thought of "innocence" as just a pretty synonym for "ignorance." Although maybe that just indicates that I lost mine too early? [wry smile]

Regardless, I'd rather know what's what than believe sweet lies. At least that way, you have half a chance of solving or avoiding the problems.

Angie

the walking man said...

In general I take a different spin about the future, although unproven it is coming anew everyday. That said I must agree much of it grows not out of the immediate but the past--I know shit though mixed with other matter makes for good fertilizer. It's that other matter that draws my eye--we are test matter in an evolving chemical experiment in the environment, economy, and, quality of society.

The current politic, especially in the central government does NOT seem to be grown from the past politic, but rather a continuing fight between the ideologies of Ayn Rand v FDR, JFK, and some LBJ mixed in with old, very old, and emerging economic corporate policies. The nation has seen all of this before and survived only when there was a leader who emerged as committed to the well being of the people over the black numbers on the bottom line.

I personally have 2 grandchildren, 3 children, and 4 siblings, my parents generation are all dead. My children are distant enough to make me feel like an empty church waiting for a high holy day when they call in (or not depending on which one), my siblings I no longer know--not them or their children or their children's children. It is a situation I do not moan about and fully recognize the shit that mixed in the soil of those relationships. even as a child my innocence was gone early. I preferred solitude. Even more so in my mid 60's.

There is nothing anymore that consumes my thoughts, the past has given me more than I ever thought possible, the present by comparison is mediocre but age and disability appropriate, the future near or far means nothing; like my innocence I got out of the future casting business early.

What I do know though is that them coming up now, them who are seeking power, wealth, fame need to make their decisions now, in the present how they will present those attributes to the world, to save or destroy the planet and the societies upon it has been ceded to them by warriors and protestor generation.

To quote perhaps the most famous man ever to live:"Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof."

Be Well Charles.

Charles Gramlich said...

Angie, I guess I tend to think of innocence as the willingness to accept the things that people say at face value, that if they tell you something good you can believe them. The loss of that, I think, may seriously damage some later relationships that could have been good, but mistrust wouldn't let them be.

Mark, the rise of the demagogue has certainly been seen before. Changes in technology tend to change the old ways of doing things. My son is newly married, looking to have a child. My fears for them are paramount on my mind. Hostages to fortune and all that. I will try to worry less about the future, though, and work on what I can do in the present.

Rhapsody Phoenix said...

Blessings and happy new year.
2017 will always be embedded in your landscape of knowledges and experience. Gone but not forgotten at least not the lessons.

^.^ said...

Wishing U and Urs a very happy New Year, friend Graem ... Baby it's cold outside ... I visited with ma kids in Fort Lauderdale, Florida for xmas and it was marvellously warm ... in fact the ocean was warmer than the hotel pool ... different story now ... but I left to go north in order to some more snow and kids are in AZ right now ... smart kids ... smart kids ... smiles ... anyway ... Happy Winter, friend ... Love always. cat. travel blog address is: http://ckpeacmaker.wordpress.com/