Meanderings

Many topics in the news, in personal happenings and long term philosophical internal debates. Each different from the other. All important in logic base that supports so many other thoughts. Accumulation of experience, loss and gain, effort and reward. Inching forward we know about ‘things’ and allow ourselves the luxury of thinking about them. Idle thoughts mostly, we are called to consider some topics more seriously from time to time.

One though is friend lost through the decades. We spent six years as neighbors. Similar in age we shared many of the same maturing events. Awareness coming to near adult life from that of a kid’s experience. Still not mature, but all the same, shared and discussed earnestly in private moments. He went on to university in the east, I attended college in the Midwest. We corresponded maybe monthly, then quarterly, then silence. We visited each other a few times. Even explored some of the cultural gems of New York City: food, concerts, Broadway musicals and such; even explored major museums and just plain walking the streets of the nation’s largest city. Heady stuff in those days. Still in college. Brief summer vacation days snatched for such happenings. Well, needless to say, we lost touch never to connect in the future. Today, 60 years later, I wonder whatever happened to him. Online searches do not produce results. Not even his parents or brothers. Searched them all with no results. Whatever happened to this family. And does it really matter that these thoughts arise from time to time?

Same with thinking of past colleagues and classmates at various levels of academic pursuit. What did they do with their lives? What accomplishments mattered to them? How many kids did they have? What community life did they experience. How much of their life experience is similar to mine? And do any differences truly matter?

Sitting by my window, I observe the world: railroad lines, city hall, main street traffic, scurrying neighbors in our midrise condo building. What is happening and how do the individual happenings interact and connect to one another? It matters, even if it doesn’t seem to on the surface, right? We live in a complex world and social order. Some nations similar while others are quite different. Even some of the American states are similar but quite different. How do these differences come about? Why did they and more importantly, do they matter in some real way today?

Current events reported in the media and by online modalities, so many ideas and differences of opinion. How much of those differences are rooted in individual life experiences? How much can be changed with more information? Is education with facts capable of changing minds? It doesn’t seem so, given public opinion polls and voting results of elections. So much turmoil and yet, so little change. What does change, seems so slow to occur.

Meandering thinking. Pondering. Fitting things together, and many don't. An enjoyable pastime often, the realities of social unrest are frustrating and upsetting. So many problems that should be fixed, repaired. Most of the time they are left unchanged. And why? Is it really because we don’t have good answers? No; it appears opinion rules much thinking and conclusions. Ideology emerges as a factor. Value structures. Creeds, even. Patterns of thought and conclusions – even short-lived ones – seem to stymie solutions to common problems.

Ours is a society of achievement and invention. Collective genius or individual, talents and assets are available to improve many things. For some reason we don’t allow the fix to happen. We endow some topics with mysterious powers of significance. The all or nothing decision paralyzes action. We call this the political factor. It is a real thing. Just such a waste of time and resources.

Surely there are better solutions?

February 5, 2024

 

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