Back in 1966, speaking to the flower power generation, Timothy Leary popularized the mantra "Turn on, tune in, drop out". It was goofy, nihilistic, short-sighted, and solved nothing of the problems then facing society.
Over the past few months, as I've had no choice (thanks to kidney issues) but to spend a lot of time sitting or lying down, I've had the opportunity to read, watch and listen to all sorts of discussions about the problems our country, and our world, are currently facing. We've discussed some of them in these pages on numerous previous occasions, and I'm not going to repeat all that now. However, the headlines - even in mainstream media - are growing more and more alarmist. I give you these few examples from the past week. If you're interested, click the links provided to read them for yourself.
It's way too easy to absorb all the doom-gloom-and-disaster flying around the news and social media. We can get so tied up in "Look what they're doing now!", "What are we going to do if this, or that, or the other happens?" and "The sky is falling!" that we ignore the reality all around us. Whatever the big-picture developments, we still need to earn our living; families need to keep raising and educating their kids; and life as we know it goes on, and has to go on, despite the foolishness of national and world leaders. Will the Trump-Biden debate today change a single thing about the way we live? It's unlikely, I think - so why obsess about it?
I think Timothy Leary's slogan might not be a bad one to adopt in the midst of all these pressures and tensions. Think about it:
- "Turn on" - to what's happening around you, recognizing danger signs (e.g. inflation, shortages, etc.) for what they are. Situational awareness is key. What's my situation? What's my family's situation? We need to be "turned on" to those vital necessities far more than we are to hypothetical big-picture nastiness that may, or may not, affect us. We can do nothing about the big picture. We're small fry. However, if each of us "small fry" takes care of what's put in front of us to do, our combined efforts might build up to a surprisingly influential weight in the scales of the big picture. For example: the nation is drowning in debt. So are many families. What can we, as individuals and families, do to pay down (and hopefully eliminate) our own debt? It's no good yelling at our politicians for taking on more and more debt for the nation, if we're following their example locally. Pot, meet kettle. Kettle, pot.
- "Tune in" - to what's going on in areas where we can make a difference. Support local food banks, thrift stores, centers for community education, libraries, and so on. We can't make a difference to or in our local community if we don't know what's going on around us. Instead of focusing only on national or international news, click on the "Local News" sections of your local news sources and find out what's happening. I've been pleasantly surprised to find out how many ways there are for people to help people and build our communities. I'd never have known about most of them if I hadn't looked for them.
- "Drop out" - of anything and everything where we can achieve nothing. By all means be politically or socially active, but emphasize activities that can make a difference. Demonstrating in the streets seldom does. Writing angry letters to politicians achieves little, if anything - besides, our politicians almost never get to read our letters. They're handled by lower-level functionaries. Each of our congressional representatives, on average, has to look after more than a million constituents. They can't possibly give individual attention to each of them - so trying to put individual pressure on them is a loser from the start. Rather join others working to achieve reform, improvement, etc. in areas you think are important. In the same way, when it comes to preparing for hard times (something all of us will be well advised to do, as the headlines above give evidence), let's focus on things we will need locally. Food, household products, fuel, a place to store our supplies, security for our family against societal breakdown, etc. - all of these have their place, and they're all important. If we don't yet have the basics in place, we need to stop spending our money on less important things and get those basics right. If we don't, the doom-gloom-and-disaster brigade will point and jeer at us and catcall, "We told you so!" - and they'll be right. Drop out of what won't help us as "small fry". Drop into practical, realistic, essential preparations for a hard time, whatever it may be.
The late President Theodore Roosevelt put it in a nutshell, as far as I'm concerned.
Truer words were never spoken. We need to take his advice to heart, stop living in Panic City, and get on with it. We can't change the world - we're small fry; but we can change our small piece of it to resist most (sadly, not all) of the problems that threaten it. Read those last three words again. They don't read "in Washington, D.C." or "in your State capitol" or "in your city council". They read "where you are".
Those are our marching orders. We'll be very unwise indeed to disregard them.
Peter
