Coffee Thots
on reading this, this and this
Perspectives; Throughout Human history the world has always been a dangerous place. Saber-tooth tigers. Bears. Starvation. Ice crevices. Invading Mongol hordes. Slave traders. Neighborhood preditors. Food gone bad. Farming accidents. Swords. Pirates and Highwaymen. Guns. Diseases we now cure OTC. The daily mode of transportation for everyone for centuries is something for which we now require children to wear helmets, ferhevinsake.
Then, after the greatest expense of effort, we won a world-wide war and came home wanting—more than anything—to be safe from Danger. To make our home and our children safe from Danger. So we made a world so safe that we denied all Danger. We created myths and fairy tales completely unlike the archetypal tales of the Brothers Grimm that never ever dealt with Death, Danger, Fear, Privation or Threat. Our fairy tales told of boys who stayed boys forever and cartoon pirates and cute furry animals frolicking in the forest. We acted so civilized that we forgot Danger, and our children never really encountered it; never came to know it in person.
Now those children have grown and they don’t realize; they can’t imagine that, even though we are cushioned from it by the civilization we have built, Danger is the Natural Order of Things. They don’t realize that the Civilization their ancestors built, like a Holland levee, must be tended and kept in good repair so that it can perform its job of keeping the tides of Danger at bay.
We have gotten loose and sloppy [like Sandy Berger] in tending to our Civilization—allowing small things to quietly erode it. Not feeling moved to pick up litter. Not caring how we dress or how we speak to our fellows. Not holding any boundaries on when and where is what appropriate.
So now we find that our old companion Danger has come again. Will the experience of a common enemy be sufficient to get us to pull up our socks and get back to the work of Civilization?
Excellent post.
I, for one, was never allowed to think we were without danger. Too many Soldiers, Sailors and Marines in the family. Too many deployed, injured and lost. Too many remembered with flags on their graves.
Some families run stores, some are cops or firefighters mine were, and are, warriors.
Posted by on 11/10/05 at 01:38 PMS’troo, Airdale. You warriors have been the Keepers of the Flame through open combat and, maybe an even more difficult task, through quiet peace when everyone else has the luxury of putting the thought aside…
One of the many reasons y’all deserve admiration, respect, and a helluva bigger paycheck.
Posted by Claire on 11/11/05 at 08:41 AM
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