I would apologize for my procrastination but it would do little good, and just occur again. I am recalcitrant towards the need to keep up a frequent monolog on this blog site, preferring to write on my next book. However, I return today in hopes of correcting my long absence. The Pandemic is finally winding down, but not gone or forgotten. Variants will continue to pop-up and wreak havoc with out lives. Between disease, weather, rising sea levels, and overall warming of the mud ball (no matter what you consider the cause or source), it will be amazing if humanity survives the century. But, I feel extremely confident it will, it’s just in what condition that I am pessimistic. There is just too much turmoil. No one is happy with little gains or improvements in their situation. We live in a world of ‘me and now.’
“I want it yesterday and I want exactly what I ask for, no compromise. And, if I don’t get it, I’ll take my ball and go home, but not until I’ve ruined your life.”
I remember this attitude from my elementary school days. We use to called them ‘bullies’ but now we call them ‘activist.’ In the end it’s all the same. It amazes me how no one learns from the past, even our own personal past. The victim becomes the bully, making the former bully the victim. That is until the new victim rises up in retaliation, and it all cycles again. We are not learning or solving anything.
Tolerance, Inclusion, Compromise
I was listen to a group of average, normal, everyday people. It included a cross section of society. There were a couple of African-Americans, a white, and a hispanic. They were discussing various TV series. I suggested Netflix Schitt’s Creek as an interesting comedy about riches to rags and back to rich again, overly educated to less educated, types and attitudes of people from various segments of society, and (here it comes) a look at the LGBTQ community. Once I mentioned that it had an element of a gay love story the attitude went from interested to ‘no way’ in a nano second. Yet, these same people are very tolerant of individual LGBTQ persons. So, what’s the difference? Why can they be friends with a real LGBTQ person face to face, but be so critical of an award winning TV series, just because of its gay romance?
Tolerance, Inclusion, Compromise
Our society HAS come a long way. It’s not perfect, but it is better, and things seldom change overnight. We no longer lynch African-Americans, we do not tolerate the murdering of LGBTQ+ individuals, and we don’t burn red-haired women as witches. Employment is fairer (still not perfect) and everyone’s life style has improved (if you doubt that go visit Honduras or El Salvador). But instead of trying for steady upward socioeconomic progress, we want it to happen yesterday. This is causing more confrontation than solving problems. If I throw a running drill at a metal plate it will only make a small dent before bouncing off. If I press the running drill bit against the metal plate, with a constant steady pressure, it will eventual drill through the plate. Look how long it has taken for 95+% of our society to wear seat belts. I remember, as a child, when they were first put in cars. It has taken over sixty years to change people’s habits. Now, most of us feel wrong when NOT wearing one.
That’s not to say that we should tolerate hate crimes. No, we need to press for laws to prevent such things. But we all need to look at our own contribution to the problems in our society. Even the best intentioned among us is not perfect. Getting up in someone’s face to admonish them is not going to make them change, it will just ‘piss them off’ and make them dig in their heels, hanging on to their own misconceived attitudes even stronger. I preach at people all the time, but in a nice way. Convince someone to your point of view and you have an ally, force them and you have an enemy.
The next book in the Gala Series, Cameron, is coming along but is different. It looks at a different side of things. While it is 2/3rds finished I’m having writers block on the last third. Still, I hope to have it done by the end of the year. As always, it is the editing and Beta reading that slows things down. I look at my books more as a way to put out my feels (since I’m not on social media). I try to show a reader that there are different ways of looking at things. My greatest frustration is how totally oneway the minds of many people are, how strictly black and white, with no gray gradients allowed. Unfortunately, life is seldom straight oneway or another. There are so many little twists in the how and why of our lives that it is a maze. And, it’s just going to get worse. As our society becomes more and more multicultural, more and more varied, it also becomes more and more complicated, and less oneway or another, less strictly right or wrong. The least stressful societies are those which are the most homogeneous in their makeup, all one ethnic group, or one religion, and so on. Societies, like the US, are very difficult to live-in. Not because they are wrong or evil, but because there are so many different groups, with so many different needs, that finding common ground is difficult. All the more need for Tolerance, Inclusion, and Compromise.
Rene C. Delacroix - Author 