I write often about the past and maybe its because my memories seem much more pleasant to me then the reality of things today. Then too, maybe its because I know nothing of what tomorrow might bring, because I’m really not that involved in it anymore. But I do know where I have been and what I did and maybe in reality this is just a bunch of musings of an old man, hopelessly lost in the thoughts of yesterday. I used to live in the moment of each new day. As the New Christie Minstrels sang back in the early sixties. “A million tomorrows can all pass away, Ere I forget all the joy that is mine today.” That was my mantra back then. At that time I had no past, I wanted to recollect. Each day was a new adventure and I lived them as if there were no tomorrows that mattered. I guess I secretly knew someday the credits would roll, the curtain would fall and although for some of us there could be a short encore, basically the show was drawing to an end so make the most of it.
Well actually, not a million tomorrows, but a lot of them have passed away and my whole outlook on life has changed. Oh yes, I still cling to the past but only for my own comfort and entertainment. You see this world no longer belongs to my generation or little does the present generation even care what our dreams were, or what our accomplishments have gained for today’s society. For the most part we have now been relegated to the dark ages, even though our blood still flows and our neurons still flash, albeit much slower and dimmer. It’s time to forget the resume building and build character instead. There is a new sheriff in town and we need to sit quietly and listen.
We had our chance didn’t we? But even the person who invented the wheel-- and yes, that was before me-- never dreamed that someday it would be replaced by a driverless car that would take to the air, needing not asphalt or semaphores to get to its destination. That cancer would go the way of the mumps and we would wear our phones on our wrists like Dick Tracy, and not all of that is here yet-- but it will be.
For without change there is no need for tomorrows. Dreams and aspirations become just that: hopes of achievements that were never brought to fruition. Society is constantly being built and rebuilt on the building blocks of human minds, whose ideals belong to those who dare to dream bigger and better. These are not self-deluding fantasies; these are a blue print for tomorrow, for a bigger, kinder and better world for those we dared to pass the torch to.
It’s not any of this change that I lament today as I write this. In fact I embrace it. What makes me blue is just all of the players who were part of that cast that I lived, played and worked with— that for the most part no longer exist in the flesh. Only in the dark recesses of my mind. “Old Blue Eyes” sang, “Regrets I had a few, but then again, to few to mention. I did what I had to do and saw it through without exemption.”And now just like Frankie I’m stating my case without exemption, and saying to those who are succeeding my generation and me. You do it your way and I’ll just sit quietly and watch.
No comments:
Post a Comment