CHANGES

sophia in the window

 

Every day I see something on Facebook of somebody wanting change. Seldom does anyone name the change they want, only change. When they do state what changes they want, they're at odds with changes somebody else wants. So many different changes perpetually dissatisfied Americans want, put them all together and the result is chaos, what we already have. I saw a good meme of the appearance of several ventriloquist dummies sitting in a theater. The caption said these are liberals waiting to be told what to think. I thought it would be more to the point if they were in a coffee shop. I've stopped going to any coffee shop from refusal to watch my language for superficial reasons. They want changes in other people, never themselves. I hear John Lennon singing, If you want to change the world, change your mind instead, from the Beatles' song, Revolution. In the time it was new, early 70s, every band was required by social trends to have a song about revolution on a new album that year. Lennon was essentially saying to the pretend call for revolution, bullshit. The song was dismissed by many trend-marionettes as the Beatles sold out.

 

 

It brings to mind in the late 60s a year every band was required to have a song on the new album about Jesus or risk the publicity of so-called Christians burning their records on tv so-called news. The Rolling Stones, like the Beatles later, met the trend requirement with a song, I don't want to talk about Jesus, I just want to see his face. These were the only words to the song, in my imperfect memory, repeated over and over. I thought it clever of the Stones to meet the requirement, yet in a way that says it is bullshit. It doesn't matter if Jagger wanted to see the face of Jesus or not. I thought it a masterful way, as with the Beatles in Revolution, to concede to a social trend and call it nonsense in the concession. The period called the Sixties, 1965-1975, was, indeed, a kind of revolution. It revolutionized the possibilities of an electric guitar. Since then, the length of a guy's hair is a matter of choice. Before, all males were required to be barber shop shorn. Optional long hair did away with barber shops like amazon did away with bookstores. I see redneck guys going to beauty shops for hair cuts. I go to the Cutting Corner to get my hair "done" by Crystal's friend, Morgan, who has a new baby, Emma.  

 

 

Through the years before the hair length revolution, I never liked it that there was no way around a barber's shearing, marching as to war. It was objectionable to a born pacifist. I don't know if mother set me in the pacifist way as a baby from fear during WW2 or if it's from past life experience. Going by where I suspect last lifetime might have been, I can see how that person would return at odds with war and its glorification. If mother inspired pacifism, it was not by intent. It was likely through fear the great motivator. If she had a hand in it. It doesn't matter where it came from, it's that deep. If what I thought mattered beyond myself, the change I would want for "the world" would be no more war. What a radical change it would be. The Arts would flourish unimaginably like entertainment flourishes in a martial society. The human as an individual might have value. Being, itself, might have value. A change I'd like to see and believe will see over several hundred years would be regarding all life forms people, the same as us, just living in different forms. Let them be, let them live as who they are. Learn to communicate with them wordlessly, a language course in school, the inter-species language of silence. Best-selling books, Conversations With Birds At The Feeder. 

 

 

It is fantasy to think I could make a difference that mattered toward no more war. In such light, it is absurd to waste thought time on the matter. Another way of looking at it, change your mind instead, I can bring it home and say I want no more war in my world.  No silent, unsettled disagreements that linger, no arguments with vehemence, no settling scores mentally, no more wars in my mind when somebody pisses me off severely. That's a big one. The trick: don't set somebody up to piss me off. Easy. I can't give any sound advice to myself on the matter. A decade ago I fell into a mental rage that lasted a year, until realizing, finally, the other had done me tremendous service, on a platter with a smile service, and it took a year to see it. One of them times I have a sit-down with self and talk about being a little slow catching on. Could it happen again? Yes. But it is worth being aware of, reminding self when needed, war does not cease outside self before it ceases inside self. Keeps me reminded that war ends inside self first or not at all.  

photos by tj worthington

 

 

 

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