Life’s a Traveling Circus
Life’s a Traveling Circus
Sept 12, 2019
“When a day passes it is no longer there. What remains of it? Nothing more than a story. If stories weren’t told or books weren’t written, man would live like the beasts, only for the day. The whole world, all human life is one long story.”
(Isaac Bashevis Singer)
When did stories become so dangerous that they can no longer be allowed to be told? Why is your story of vital importance, while mine should never be allowed to be spoken or, heaven forbid, written?
Why have the stories of our collective past now become weapons of war, used to silence any voice that dares to express a different opinion or belief? We have, indeed, as Mr. Singer says, become like beasts, living only for the day. “Nature red, in tooth and claw” pretty well describes the world we live in today. Unchecked violence, sanctioned by political agendas, wars, poverty, homeless abandoned by societies that claim “compassion”, human trafficking, evil abounding and preying on the most helpless among us.
How do we go forward as a civilization, a country, or a people, when our history is being sacrificed on the altar of political correctness? Where will solutions to all the ills of modern society come from if they can’t be brought into the light because they will cause someone’s feelings to be hurt, someone else to be scared? Why do we not make any effort to solve issues because some people will choose to be offended? So what?
Life is offensive to all of us, at one time or another. What is our future if we all retire to our safe spaces and cry? Where is the little boy who was clear-eyed and honest enough to laugh and point at the ridiculous emperor parading around without any clothes? (Which fable is a totally perfect analogy of our current political and cultural zeitgeist.)
These problems are not political issues, although they have become that by default. They won’t be solved by political agendas. These are moral problems and they can only be remedied with moral solutions, and morality is definitely not a province belonging to governments.
It’s been Satan’s aim, throughout millennia, to remove God from the story of the world. He is succeeding very, very well as the current systematic destruction of our collective history shows. Who are you, as an individual, once you lose your past? What defines your character, your personality, when your stories are erased? It’s not possible for human intelligence to live only for the day. We need the guidance of our past to create the hope for our future. If we don’t have that, we truly are most unfortunate creatures.
An incredibly great number of the issues we face today can be solved by simply listening to those individuals who move in and out of our lives, those who enrich us as well as those who greatly differ from our beliefs and convictions. How insecure are we that we can’t accord others the respect we demand they give to us? Can we not bring back the old golden rule “love others as you love yourself”? There will be no answer to this ugliness other than the answer that comes from each honest heart: “yes, I will listen to you and give you the respect you are owed as a fellow human being, and I expect the same from you.”