Out of nowhere things pop into my head. I watched a TED talk not long ago about finding and harnessing your elusive creative genius. The link is here and its definitely worth a watch. I love the Tom Waits story (starts at about 12:28 (text below).
And for me, the best contemporary example that I have of how to do that is the musician Tom Waits, who I got to interview several years ago on a magazine assignment. And we were talking about this, and you know, Tom, for most of his life, he was pretty much the embodiment of the tormented contemporary modern artist, trying to control and manage and dominate these sort of uncontrollable creative impulsesthat were totally internalized.
12:52But then he got older, he got calmer, and one day he was driving down the freeway in Los Angeles, and this is when it all changed for him. And he's speeding along, and all of a sudden he hears this little fragment of melody, that comes into his head as inspiration often comes, elusive and tantalizing, and he wants it, it's gorgeous, and he longs for it, but he has no way to get it. He doesn't have a piece of paper, or a pencil, or a tape recorder.
13:16So he starts to feel all of that old anxiety start to rise in him like, "I'm going to lose this thing, and I'll be be haunted by this song forever. I'm not good enough, and I can't do it." And instead of panicking, he just stopped. He just stopped that whole mental process and he did something completely novel. He just looked up at the sky, and he said, "Excuse me, can you not see that I'm driving?"
Technology helps. Thanks to Google, iPad, iPhone, and my laptop, I can, and do, text and message myself ideas. a lot. I use pretty much every internet device I have for most of my posts. They are consistent works in progress. And I like that I always have access and can add and revise stuff all the time.
The idea that shot through my brain this morning was Acts 17:30. I’m not really what you would call religious, anymore. I was. I still know enough to refer to the books as Second Corinthians and not Two Corinthians (unless of course two Corinthians were walking into a bar…) I was raised in a remarkably conservative church. We had legit Sunday school with memory verses and everything. I was taught what was in the bible and while I’m not going to discuss theology here I do remember the words, and regardless of personal religious views, good social critiques are always fun…
The verse comes from Paul's sermon on Mars Hill . Not that Mars Hill, the real one in Greece. The one that didn’t swindle people and destroy lives across the Great Northwest. At this Mars Hill Pal is talking to the Greeks about all their gods and how they’ve got it all wrong. Verses 29-31 of chapter 17 reads, (from the King James because old language is awesome!!!)
Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device. 30And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent: 31Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead.
You can have all the rabbit hole fun about guilt, and original sin, and absolution on your own time but I want to reference this idea to our current socio-political climate. We are living in the world set up for us. So, forget the theology, (remember that's not what this is about). And don’t pay too much attention to God winking at you (the image is cool tho right?), and pay attention to his argument. The message here is that up until now, ignorance has been an understandable defense, but it can’t be anymore.
We didn’t make the decisions and shouldn’t be answerable to the “sins of our fathers”. However, as Paul remarked to the Greeks, “once you know better, do better.”
We have obvious power to change and alter a lot of things, decisions made and practices, traditions, policies, and ideas that formed and were implemented before our time, we didn’t have control over. But we do know now what we know now. And that’s important. We all got to see President Clinton step in it last week, and step in it again, trying to defend and walk back his defense of his Sec. Clinton's words and Pres. Clinton's legacy. I won’t digress on his statements too much but you can read a remarkable analysis of what he said and why it was so wrong here and here.
Here’s the thing, for all we hope and wish of our leaders, and for all of our thoughts and likes and dislikes, they are most likely doing the best they know how to do. I don’t doubt for a moment any candidates love of their country and desire to make things good, it's just how and whether or not they are capable that disagreements abound. When Bill Clinton signed the Crime Bill in the 90s it radically accelerated the prison industrial complex. It created a remarkably efficient pipeline to ruin the lives of millions over issues, and with policies we now realize were trivial at best, and downright racist at worst. We. know. That. now. (see vs 30). Regardless of how right we thought we were, we can’t expect that wink when the evidence is obvious.
From a cultural standpoint it would be soooo much easier if we were to create a cultural reset button. We can’t. And bad ideas have the same power as good ides, if believed in. Many of those flawed, racist, evil, and wrong views are still in belief and practice today. We have to fight against that. We don’t get to say “that’s not my fight.” Whether it's education policies we KNOW hurt kids, practices we know do not produce results, or if its institutions and social norms that we know disenfranchise and harm whole communities for no other reason than being different. We have to be brave enough to confront racism and bigotry. Sometimes that means calling it what it is, and making things uncomfortable for ourselves and others. When you think of the discomfort so many others have felt for centuries, it should put your "sacrifice" in context...
We have to be better than that and I know we are, we just have to start acting like it. We have to call a spade a spade, ESA's are not savings accounts, they are vouchers (we did good on that one). School choice does exist, its just not the parents or students choice, it’s the private institutions… (we are doing good on that one).
The issue isn’t oil prices, its revenue generation (we are doing good on that one too). Slowly but surely we are removing the opportunities to allow the feigning of ignorance. I’ve said so often when discussing issues of privilege, supremacy, oppression, and bigotry it is very difficult to convince many people, but once a person sees it, it cannot be unseen. And we are doing a good job of it. Stories like this show we are collectively waking up and getting to work. We have to keep it up. And we have to be willing to continue to learn, adjust, and grow.
We have to also demand more of our leaders. We have to have the courage to know how right we are (when we are right, and we are right on this one). We have to make their ignorance disappear. Can we make them smart? Probably not, but we can make it obvious their ignorance is willful.
If those decisions ended with those generations, we wouldn’t have the issues we do now. If it were that simple our lives would be a lot easier, its not, so lets get to work...
