Friday, February 14, 2003
all hail pinky!!!!!! If you haven't read her blog today-READ IT
It helped me overcome the hypocritical apathy that was seizing my innards on my trip in this morning. I have this one chance right now to be some how a part of this strange new history that is unfolding before us.
In my inner debate part of me is remembering learning about Vietnam when I could finally comprehend some small part of history-asking my dad if he went (bad knee injury, plus he was in college, married and later with a baby), asking my mom what is was like (all the friends were desperately trying to stay in school, many got married-it lessened your chance of getting drafted), I remember my folks telling me about their friends in the Student democratic movement (is that right?) and that they were somehow radical and antiwar but also sold drugs. My stepdad had a draft lottery number which was dangerously close to the cut off (he also had the most concrete plans of any of the adults in my life to actually go to Woodstock). None of these tenuous attachments to the actual time was quite enough to make me understand the feeling of that time-the closest is my grandfather's staunch refusal to discuss his several tours of duty in Vietnam and his early retirement from the military in 1969 on the verge of a possible promotion to general.
Now it is happening around us and this backward looking causes me to then look forward-Where was I? What did I do? Do we ever understand the turning points, the major benchmarks of history when they are happening? The before/after corners that are so clear in retrospect? In the case of a major catastrophic event like Sept 11th, of course. But that kind of clear and decisive turn is rare. More often the worst transformations happen by degrees til eventually you look back and mutter "how did we come to this?"
If you place a lobster in lukewarm water and slowly raise the temperature they say it will not realize that it is boiling to death-of course if you toss it straight into a pot of boiling water it will thrash and fight and struggle-
It may be a cheap and ineloquent analogy but pay attention! It is getting hot.
It helped me overcome the hypocritical apathy that was seizing my innards on my trip in this morning. I have this one chance right now to be some how a part of this strange new history that is unfolding before us.
In my inner debate part of me is remembering learning about Vietnam when I could finally comprehend some small part of history-asking my dad if he went (bad knee injury, plus he was in college, married and later with a baby), asking my mom what is was like (all the friends were desperately trying to stay in school, many got married-it lessened your chance of getting drafted), I remember my folks telling me about their friends in the Student democratic movement (is that right?) and that they were somehow radical and antiwar but also sold drugs. My stepdad had a draft lottery number which was dangerously close to the cut off (he also had the most concrete plans of any of the adults in my life to actually go to Woodstock). None of these tenuous attachments to the actual time was quite enough to make me understand the feeling of that time-the closest is my grandfather's staunch refusal to discuss his several tours of duty in Vietnam and his early retirement from the military in 1969 on the verge of a possible promotion to general.
Now it is happening around us and this backward looking causes me to then look forward-Where was I? What did I do? Do we ever understand the turning points, the major benchmarks of history when they are happening? The before/after corners that are so clear in retrospect? In the case of a major catastrophic event like Sept 11th, of course. But that kind of clear and decisive turn is rare. More often the worst transformations happen by degrees til eventually you look back and mutter "how did we come to this?"
If you place a lobster in lukewarm water and slowly raise the temperature they say it will not realize that it is boiling to death-of course if you toss it straight into a pot of boiling water it will thrash and fight and struggle-
It may be a cheap and ineloquent analogy but pay attention! It is getting hot.
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