grieving for the past.

 If you were to look at choices as if they were a linear display--the timeline would look like a reverse fractal.  The huge selection of choices available to most of us would keep being halved by each big choice we made. 

The child that is told his/her whole childhood that "you can be anything you want", knows soon enough that isn't actually true.  By seven, I knew I could never be the King of Siam---for so sooooo many reasons.

We want our children to feel confident, to feel capable, to aim for the stars and never doubt themselves.  But by puberty most of us have figured out, due to where we are, who our parents are, and our own physical/mental proclivities, that there are things we can never be.  Our parents do not always recognize those limitations though I suspect that their failure to be realistic is a part of their own grieving for their own lost choices.

At 16, after 10 years of dance lessons that my mother scrimped to pay for, I told her I was done.  She was angry, disappointed, and horrified that she had wasted all that time and money on those lessons.  She reminded me repeatedly of how much she had wanted that opportunity and how ungrateful I was.  

I had never asked for dance lessons but liked them well enough. Except for the recitals, the family reunion performances, the school talent shows--i.e., dancing was fun, but not my dream.  Add puberty, to a person that was short but built like a fireplug not a fairy. I was not a fat kid, but desperately needed a bra by 11 and had hips, not fat, but wide hips and my leg muscles were hard as a rock but not lithe---i looked more like a weight lifter than a ballerina.  Simone Biles is well muscled, but this was the early 70's.  In the early seventies, the world still thought Barbie was anatomically correct.  Twiggy was NOT gone, just reinvented as an anorexic giantess.  

A choice from my "be anything" had ended.  

Other choices ended earlier:  I had heard that a girl that looked like her father was lucky.  I suspect that was to appease the little girls that would never win beauty contests but at least I did not have a full mustache like dad.  By 9, I had accepted that Miss America was off the table, just as I knew I would never be a cowboy in the old west, royalty with my own country, or the first woman to fly across the ocean alone (already done).  

By puberty, I knew that running was not on the list---apparently huge breasts are genetic---hand model was out, I had the hands of a 10 year old boy, and they were usually just as dirty because I had to be doing stuff and stuff did not include manicuring my nails while avoiding dirt, paint, auto grease, or rockhunting.  

Those were choices.

By high school, standardized tests had convinced my school that I was no dummy and they encouraged college.  As in,  "you should go to college, not secretarial school.  Do you want to be a teacher or a nurse".  An older friend was going to be a nurse, so I chose that. (knew in the 3rd year of school--first year of actual nursing classes that I was not loving what I chose.  I would have been better served by a art major with history minor, or archeology---nursing school was hard, exacting, made to be both hard and exacting, but not because I would use most of the information in my work.  Physicians would not allow that.  I look back and realize that the nursing instructors were nurses that wanted the profession to be accepted as more than just a just  assistants to physicians.  They have made some headway in the last 50 years.  But I should never have made that choice.

Other decisions, to marry or not, to have kids or not, to move to another state or not---that last one still a possibility, but how many mothers choose to move away from their grown children and grandchildren.  

By retirement, many choices have disappeared---but not all, definitely not all.  Do I continue to smoke?  do I exercise or sit down in a recliner.  Do I eat healthy or gourmand out.  Do I travel?  Do I start a new hobby?  Do I end an old hobby?  

Periodically, I miss dance class.  I sometimes pull out the music books and play piano--badly, flood humidity then a move to a new home is hard on the tune-up so no matter how well or badly I play, it's off-key.  Do I paint?  Do I write?  Do I polish rocks, make jewelry, make furniture, build a greenhouse and garden. 

Choices I still have.

I'm still a little upset about losing the choice of being a cowboy in the old west.

Sometimes

 Sometimes, people will talk and talk, and talk and talk until you can actually understanding what they are saying.

What they are saying---the words--have little to do with anything, they are quoting popular books or discussing movies or telling you all about how wonderful their life is and how amazing their grown childrens' lives are, but you start hearing behind it.

The themes, the focus, it tells you so much more than the words.

Sometimes, the theme of competition and success, of material gain and professional position, of the importance of parents pushing and sacrificing for the future of their offspring is really just about feeling inadequate, as if their own lifestart failed to provide them with the building blocks of greatness.  

Greatness.

The question is, if every child was given the same chances, if every child's parents provided every possible opportunity, if the stars aligned and lady luck was with them, with all of them---would they all be great? 

Is Bill Gates great???

Is the guy driving the machine that is cleaning up the debris after a disaster NOT great?

Are parents that don't devote every moment, and every dime to the successful launching of their child, terrible parents?  Can you possibly devote enough of everything to more than one child?

If you are great?  Should you have children, since obviously you can not be great and also devote everything to a child!

This focus, this constant obsession, both with self-improvement, physical, mental, diet, exercise, sleep hygiene, books that are written about "great" people, only high quality documentaries, constantly sharing how to be the best at everything you do, what is it?

Well, annoying, but beyond that.

Where do we get the message that life is a giant competition in which only "great" people win.

Why do we look at a person that is rich or powerful and see "great".

Why do we look at a person that has had no opportunities and see "loser".

Can you be a loser if you aren't in the game?

Is life a game?

Then you realize, the person talking learned that they were not enough and started to obsess on being great.  They didn't want to blame their parents for not providing them the same opportunities that some of those rich and powerful people have had and knew it was foolish to blame their family for not giving them a Y chromosome therefore, starting them behind the 8-ball, or not giving them whatever it was that causes savants/geniuses like einstein, mozart, etc, etc, etc.  

And obsessive people need control,; the feeling of not having control is what causes that perfectionistic, obsessive behavior.  If there is luck, which is not some miraculous thing but more of a "right place, right time" thing, then we can't really control that.  Yes, we can miss obvious opportunities. but reality is, very few people are considered great even if they do good things.  We want superstars.  If everyone is a superstar, is anyone?

So, the talk, all the talk,talk,talk,talk, is just about a need to show everyone else how great they are, and how willing they are to make their own children great, and how we should all be like them as parents and make all our children great---which basically means rich, and powerful, or winners.

Because......

(hardstop)

I'm sticking with cooperation.  I'd rather we were all good. 

Good is good enough. (and no one ever needs to be a loser)

The end of the experiment!

 George Washington called this country "a great experiment".    

Experiment.

Like the founding fathers did not know if the US constitution would be the basis of a lasting nation or not.

Like the constitution was not meant to be carved in stone, but rather to be tweaked and improved.

We, the people, have failed to keep us at the head of the curve.

Most nations, stable nations, nations that decided against monarch's, against, dictators, against supreme leaders that are treated like gods, have surpassed us in their respect for human rights, the pursuit of happiness, and the acceptance of people that are not living in the middle of the bell curve.

We traded our soul for money.

We traded our desire for equality, justice, and freedom for a desire of sameness:  make everyone do everything the way "we" want.  But which "we".  Who are these "we" deciding what is good for us all.

Sadly, the whole thing seems to be a push to keep most of us focused on trivia so the rich and powerful can stop the experiment completely.  They like leaders that clearly favor Oligarchs.  They like it if most of us are viewed as replaceable widgets in the corporate machine.  And a bunch of folks thinking that a return to the 1830's would stop the inclusion of women, nonwhite people, and nonchristians would mean that they are once again powerful.

Don't tell those white men that even in 1830, the average white man was almost as powerless as an enslaved person, as powerless as an indigenous person, as powerless as a woman----they don't want to hear it----even though, if they would use their brains, look around themselves, open their eyes, they would notice that the powerlessness they feel now is not from brown people, not from immigrants, not from women or LGBTQ but from the rich and powerful men that have never, ever, ever treated the average white man like part of the rich and powerful crowd.

The prince of Saudi Arabia is part of the rich and powerful, as is Kim Jong Un in North Korea.  Netanyahu is rich and powerful.  The dictator of  China, the head of Apple, Facebook, multiple petroleum corporations, the heads of the corporations that make up the military industrial complex as well as the generals are rich and powerful.  

But the average US citizen, male, female, heterosexual or not, white or not, natural born or not, christian or not, has only their vote, a job that may or not allow them to save toward retirement, purchase health insurance, and take a little time for themselves without losing anything.  That is not power.  

The experiment should not be over.  It can be improved.  Finland, Iceland, Denmark, and countless other countries that were still living in feudal conditions when our experiment started, have figured out that healthcare is a human right not a luxury. Shelter, nutritious food, potable water, clean air are human rights not luxuries.  And a life, not just work, not just NOT killing people at work, not just giving people time off for death or illness but for life, children, family, is a right because life--LIFE--is what we all have and the condition we all share.  

Come on, America---we can do this. (i'm betting those countries that have pulled ahead will even let us use their methods.)  Next stop, respecting all life, not just the humans.