THE FOURTH OF JULY 2022 – POV

HEY!!!  It is the fourth of July!  In the USA.  It is the fourth of July in France, but it is not the same  And change is in the air. I just feel like writing. And here is what is on my mind. Some days I am really afraid. But, I have discovered that I am afraid of living, not dying. It takes courage to live. We are all going to die. And 85 in a country where I am not great at the language……

Regarding my last post, I have discovered that some of my friends prefer the façade, and some prefer real. OK. I get it! I got it. Really? Good. It is not fair to attack me on my own blog . Just know that I KNOW what is real and what is not. And you know that I know. So, I don’t think that any huffing or puffing is in your best interests. Or posing for the camera. I prefer real. But, I am used to reality checks, so I am trying to easily adapt to change. And none of this is funny.

I was born in 1937. This is true. I remember as if it were yesterday. 

Born in the 1930s and early 40s, we exist as a very special age group.

We are the smallest group of children born since the early 1900s.

We are the last generation, climbing out of the depression, who can remember the winds of war and the impact of a world at war which rattled the structure of our daily lives for years.

We are the last to remember ration books for everything from gas to sugar to shoes to stoves.

We saved tin foil and poured fat into tin cans.

We saw cars up on blocks because tires weren’t available.

We can remember milk being delivered to our house early in the morning and placed in the “milk box” on the porch.

We are the last to see the gold stars in the front windows of our grieving neighbors whose sons died in the War.

We saw the ‘boys’ home from the war, build their little houses.

We are the last generation who spent childhood without television; instead, we imagined what we heard on the radio.

As we all like to brag, with no TV, we spent our childhood “playing outside”.

There was no little league.

There was no city playground for kids.

The lack of television in our early years meant, for most of us, that we had little real understanding of what the world was like.

On Saturday afternoons, the movies, gave us newsreels sandwiched in between westerns and cartoons.

Telephones were one to a house, often shared (party Lines)and hung on the wall in the kitchen (no cares about privacy).

Computers were called calculators, they were hand cranked; typewriters were driven by pounding fingers, throwing the carriage, and changing the ribbon.

The ‘INTERNET’ and ‘GOOGLE’ were words that did not exist.

Newspapers and magazines were written for adults and the news was broadcast on our radio in the evening by Gabriel Heatter and later Paul Harvey.

As we grew up, the country was exploding with growth.

The G.I. Bill gave returning veterans the means to get an education and spurred colleges to grow.

VA loans fanned a housing boom.

Pent up demand coupled with new installment payment plans opened many factories for work.

New highways would bring jobs and mobility.

The veterans joined civic clubs and became active in politics.

The radio network expanded from 3 stations to thousands.

Our parents were suddenly free from the confines of the depression and the war, and they threw themselves into exploring opportunities they had never imagined.

We weren’t neglected, but we weren’t today’s all-consuming family focus.

They were glad we played by ourselves until the street lights came on.

They were busy discovering the post war world.

We entered a world of overflowing plenty and opportunity; a world where we were welcomed, enjoyed ourselves and felt secure in our future. Although depression poverty was deeply remembered.

Polio was still a crippler.

We came of age in the 50s and 60s.

The Korean War was a dark passage in the early 50s and by mid-decade school children were ducking under desks for Air-Raid training.

Russia built the “Iron Curtain” and  China became Red China .

Eisenhower sent the first ‘Army Advisers’ to Vietnam.

Castro took over in Cuba and Khrushchev came to power.

We are the last generation to experience an interlude when there were no threats to our homeland. The war was over and the cold war, terrorism, “global warming”, and perpetual economic insecurity had yet to haunt life with unease.

Only our generation can remember both a time of great war, and a time when our world was secure and full of bright promise and plenty. lived through both.

We grew up at the best possible time, a time when the world was getting better. not worse.

We are “The Last”

More than 99 % of us are either retired or are deceased, and we feel privileged to have “lived in the best of times”!

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I learned very early in life that there is no alternative to optimism, to having visions for the future, believing in goals and achieving them. So nothing matters more than building a better world one day at a time, with the skills I have, for my family, my friends and the community.  And facades just get in the way.

Besides, this theory makes sense to me. 

THE CHRYSALLIS EFFECT  – “Some days it looks like the patriarchy is winning. Consider the opposite. The great sociologist Philip Slater: We’re witnessing the death throes of male-domination. “Strutting, boasting, fighting, destroying, and killing just don’t seem as important to the world as they used to”. The males of today’s world are losing their dominance. They don’t have the right tools anymore. Watch them. The Trumps, The Putins, The Kim Jong-uns etc… They are still trying to rule with the old “iron hand”. Winning wars is useless in today’s world. Boasting and the pounding of chests looks silly. Forbidding abortion is futile. Male dominance is over. We are watching old-fashioned men squirm and fight as they lose their power over women and the future. We are in the transition phase of this inevitable development and it’s causing the old guard to desperately try to maintain dominion.”- Jesse Kornbluth (Headbutler.com)

Louise Hay – Your Words and Thoughts Create Your Future

What stories do we tell ourselves and what meaning do we give to our experiences?

Does this meaning bring us happiness, joy, or just unnecessary stress and anxiety?

I just recently heard a story of John Dorenbos and it blew my mind.

His mom passed away and she left him a necklace and as you can imagine it was very dear to him.

One day he went swimming in the ocean and lost it. At first, he was obviously upset, standing on the same beach he looked around and he saw all those people and none of them cared about his sad moment.

But then he realized that the meaning that he is giving to this experience will not serve him.

And he created a new story! He knew that his mom loved traveling so he imagined how the necklace fell on a dolphin`s back and the gorgeous aquatic creature took it with him to California, Hawaii, and all the beautiful places Jon`s mom always wanted to go to. John told himself that this is the only reason why he “lost” the necklace because that`s what his mom wanted.

So by creating this beautiful new story he basically refused to believe the sad one.

Instead now every time he thinks about the neckless he feels joy, happiness, peace, and harmony.

Just because he realized that this sad story won`t serve him, you know what I mean?

How incredible that we have the power of creating our own story with the meaning that will serve us.

So please choose your story wisely…

“I asked an elderly man once what it was like to be old and to know the majority of his life was behind him. He told me that he has been the same age his entire life. He said the voice inside of his head had never aged. He has always just been the same boy. His mother’s son. He had always wondered when he would grow up and be an old man. He said he watched his body age and his faculties dull but the person he is inside never got tired. Never aged. Never changed.

Our spirits are eternal. Our souls are forever. The next time you encounter an elderly person, look at them and know they are still a child, just as you are still a child and children will always need love, attention and purpose.”

~ Author unknown

Best, JAY