I wanted to write this one before this upcoming election. Going back to last July , I was in Belmont N.C. sitting outside on a warm summer night {smoking}. The air conditioners were running , cloudless sky , moon visible. Very quiet. Then for some reason I began to have the odd experience of deja vu. That feeling you have been at this particular moment before. Lasted for less than a minute. That was only the third time in my life that I have had that experience. One explanation is that you have been in a similar circumstance before and you had maintained a latent memory of it. So , where did I experience that before.........
Well I am not totally sure but from my feelings during the experience it comes from sometime in the late 1960's. That feeling was a light optimism , all most a carefree optimism. Wow....interesting. As I explored this moment and talked to people like my 88 and 94 yr old aunts I have come to believe that those yrs for some people atleast were optimistic yrs and we have lost that. One can never be quite sure bur I believe my generation was one that believed we could accomplish anything. From landing on the moon to Woodstock and social readjustment to curing illness etc. Not just young people but the adults around us. We would create a better world though visions could differ. depending on one view.
Somewhere in these intervening 50 or so years the optimism {which I believe we took for granted} has slowly and often quietly slipped into our angry election time of today. People are angry at this present moment. I have come to believe increasingly that lack of optimism is as destructive as depression both personnel and economically. I have also begun to understand why some people remember those years so longingly. They don't just miss their youth , it was that times optimism they long for. I also think that when I have spent time explaining the 60's to younger people perhaps it is that feeling they look for. Maybe.......?
Well I am not totally sure but from my feelings during the experience it comes from sometime in the late 1960's. That feeling was a light optimism , all most a carefree optimism. Wow....interesting. As I explored this moment and talked to people like my 88 and 94 yr old aunts I have come to believe that those yrs for some people atleast were optimistic yrs and we have lost that. One can never be quite sure bur I believe my generation was one that believed we could accomplish anything. From landing on the moon to Woodstock and social readjustment to curing illness etc. Not just young people but the adults around us. We would create a better world though visions could differ. depending on one view.
Somewhere in these intervening 50 or so years the optimism {which I believe we took for granted} has slowly and often quietly slipped into our angry election time of today. People are angry at this present moment. I have come to believe increasingly that lack of optimism is as destructive as depression both personnel and economically. I have also begun to understand why some people remember those years so longingly. They don't just miss their youth , it was that times optimism they long for. I also think that when I have spent time explaining the 60's to younger people perhaps it is that feeling they look for. Maybe.......?
