2001-11-17 - 12:58 p.m.

Note: the running narrative of my life is officially over. You can all go home now. I have relieved myself of the responsibility to speak.

And now...

What they didn't want you to hear! It's so hot, so controversial, it was banned from the web!

Discarded Pages from Oldgreedy's Notebook

Essays! Commentary! Stories! Notes on Life! Whatever I feel like, coming to you, whenever I see fit! It's unconventional! It's random! It's rude! You don't know what it is! But you can only catch it here...

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Notes on left-wing causes, and a response to Dave Bond:

Oh, the Green Party, the left-wing activists. What to do with them I do not know. They have such good intentions, such good heart! They make such an effort to do what is right as the world disintegrates around them. But so many of them are combative and anxious, and I do not know if I can live in such a combative and anxious world. They shout and debate and get in life�s face. I do not know if I can do that.

They live in such an idealistic, alarmist world that it gets ridiculous sometimes. Everything is destroying us at once, they say � factory farming, irradiation, automobiles, additives, sweatshops, the government (all three branches), the corporations, the press, the rich, the west, the Republicans, the Democrats. The Green Party becomes a many-headed beast that runs around saying, �You�re doing this wrong!� and �This is all very terrible!� in a shrill voice. Most people just look at them and say, woah, woah, cool it there, champ, sure the world isn�t perfect and should be changed but you�re not going to get it like that, this is the world we live in and things don�t work this way. You only have this many people�s attention and you�re not going to get the changes you want until things get a lot worse than they already are, until more people have a reason to pay attention.

That�s okay, though, perhaps they should keep on shouting like this; maybe things will get bad enough, or people will wise up enough, that they turn and listen to you. But that�s the only way it�s going to happen. The system will not be changed until it is proven a failure, and that has not happened yet. Not that they should stop stating their case.

Until a critical mass of people are convinced that the world needs changing, it will not change. This is clear. The world is a collection of individuals, each of whom will have to decide for himself that something must be done. If too many of us believe that the world�s fine as it is, or if too many think it�s too late to change the world, then the argument of the left is not succeeding.

Dave Bond (Eric�s father, a wonderful man) is proof that the argument is not succeeding. Not because his counter-argument has more merit, but because it is convincing to many people. This perhaps gives it merit. He and so many other say, it�s not going to happen, and this, in large part, is why it doesn�t happen.

He was once young and idealistic like us, he fought the powers, and then he fought in Vietnam. He saw the world in a light that none of us have, and he came out conservative and cynical. And then, surrounded by idealistic young liberals at a party last week, he argued as passionately as the rest of us, with the added force of experience.

He says that if you�re not liberal when you�re young then you don�t have a heart, and if you�re not conservative when you�re old then you don�t have a brain. But why is this? Do you learn as you grow older and realize things you didn�t know as a youth? Or do other things change � do you accumulate money and family and suddenly find yourself invested in the system, standing to lose if the system is changed? Do you simply realize that the world isn�t going to change in your lifetime, and decide that it�s not worth fighting for? I do not know.

He says we have no idea how entrenched the current power structure is, how impossible it will be to tear it apart. He says protesting the system is pissing in the ocean, that all you can do is live your own life and try to be a good person.

The system is huge, and your small voice does not make a visible impact � but then, your life, however you live it, make a visible impact on the system. Does this tell us that a good life is not worth living, that doing all you can to help the world is not worthwhile? If billions of people were rolling the Earth off a cliff, would you not get on the other side and push the other way, even if you knew it would not change the direction of the Earth, but merely slow its progress toward destruction by a few minutes? Would not those few minutes be the sweetest minutes of your life?

Would you not want to do all you could to move the world in a positive direction � not because your effort will change the world, but because we all have the freedom to do with the world what we wish, and the responsibility to do what�s right?

Perhaps it is pissing in the ocean, but then so is everything that you do � raising a good family, voting, smiling at a stranger. Whether you do any of these things, or whether you take to the streets and protest what you believe are injustices, the world will still operate in approximately the way it would if you remained silent. Sometimes only you will know what you have done. You will not be congratulated by the world for fixing it; you will have only yourself to answer to. If you can justify your life in your own mind, that is all that matters. If you believe you have acted in a way that is good, that the world would want you to act, that is consistent with your beliefs � if you believe the world would be a better place if everyone was more like you � that is all that can be asked of you.

But he says that we are all guilty, that until you give up your cars you are complicit in the oil industry, until you do nothing to support the system you are supporting the system. First, to look to the specific issue. If, say, I drive a car, but it�s a car that gets good gas mileage, and I take public transit when I can, and furthermore I write a letter to my congressman to give funding to researching electric cars and mandating higher efficiency standards, then am I as guilty of supporting the oil industry as the person who drive a gas-guzzling car and thinks nothing of it? The fact is that until we create our ideal world, we must live in the real world � that does not mean that we cannot throw our weight behind the fight for a better world.

Is all guilt equal? Is the man who has two dollars but gives only one as guilty as the man with a million dollars who gives only one? I think not. We all have our own duties, our own responsibilities, and we all must fix the world to the extent that we can. Those with greater opportunity to impact the world must shoulder a greater burden.

Guilt, in the end, is not the issue. The idea of guilt is unproductive � nobody can judge another. Nobody knows what ideas, background and tools each person has been given, nobody can tell a person that the choices he has made were wrong. Each person must determine his own guilt.

Guilt by association is counterproductive. Anger or hatred toward those who oppose their cause, who are operating within the system we want to change, will not work. All that can be done is to argue for passionately for change, explain what should be done to create the better world we want and let each individual decide for himself his own responsibility � and his own guilt.

But if you realize that you are guilty, if based on your own standards you decide you are not acting properly, you should not pipe up and say, ah, but you are guilty, too, and we all are guilty, and therefore, given our collective guilt I myself am guiltless. No, once you have reckoned your own guilt then you must bear its burden, the world�s guilt does not relieve you of yours. The world is a collection of individuals, and each is responsible for himself.

Dave Bond says that hope is icing on a turd. Perhaps he is right. He has lived longer than any of us, though he has lived his life and not mine, or anyone else�s, so his arguments only apply to him. Icing on a turd � that is to say that life is a turd, it is bleak, cynical, doomed to fall off the cliff, and hope will not change that fact. Well, if life is a turd, then I guess I�ll have icing on mine.

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