You know, most of human history is littered with cruelty, both truly vile and much more commonly petty. In 1950 blacks were still banned from many places even in the North, and gays risked being beaten to death, and the certainty of social exclusion if discovered. Sexual harassment and child abuse in many forms were more or less tolerated.
Life was harder back then, objectively. Hunger–real hunger–was vastly more common. And even guys with good Union jobs in big cities scarcely lived better than our present urban poor, seen objectively. It was a big deal to have a car and TV.
But what they did have is a much more social nature, music intended to lift them up, and habituation from childhood on that life WAS hard, and that there is no use complaining about it. Resentment and the sense of innate privilege was not bred into them from earliest childhood, as it is now.
I find for myself most of my “difficulties” really amount to self pity. Yes, my first rule is the rejection of self pity, but I created the rule because I tend to wallow in it, sometimes with some justification–I do have some epically awful weeks sometimes, as I think most people in our soft America would see it–but most of the time, objectively, I’m fine.
And there is a dialectic here. People who just accept injustice as part of life are never going to change it. But people who find themselves CREATING “injustices” to justify a resentment which preceded the searching expedition WILL NEVER BE HAPPY. Not going to happen. Ever.
It is a flaw of our time that as we have become more and more prosperous our greed and resentment have pulled ahead, so that no matter how much people have, it is still not enough.
And no matter how objectively easy people’s lives are–it was not possible to be as fat as many of our poor are now in recent history and survive–they still complain.
I’m rambling a bit. What sparked this was listening to this wonderful music, and contemplating that this music gives energy to the tired, and hope to those suffering. It helps me, in any event.
Sidney Bechet, 1952: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REYLNs0rh-g
No doubt when he visited Memphis he had to stay in the Lorraine Hotel, as did all the other black folks visiting.
Did that hurt him emotionally? No doubt. This music, though–his music–is a rebellion against injustice, and a celebration of life.
I complain a lot. Complaining has some value. The squeaky wheel gets the grease, and the person unwilling to be rolled over rarely is.
But it unquestionably also true that sometimes you have to just look at the world as it is, and see what is good and needs no fixing, no attention.
It is the same with personal growth. Self acceptance cannot be predicated on perfection, or no person will ever even set foot on the path.
I have recently been thinking of it as climbing a mountain. When you look up, you see the whole mountain, but the beginning is a trail or path, and in climbing you have to focus on each step. Often, in switchbacks, you can’t see much. But periodically you will emerge on a new vista, and better view.
This is the RECOGNITION of a quantum shift which has been happening silently, and which is the result of patient daily effort over a period of time. Often we cannot see how we have changed until some familiar situation occurs, and we realize that we are responding in new and better ways.
Anyway, my two cents for today.