Knowing Where We Are and Knowing When We Are

“Come gather ’round, people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You’ll be drenched to the bone
If your time to you is worth savin’
And you better start swimmin’
Or you’ll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin’”

Bob Dylan – From the song “The Times, They are A-Changin’”

“Well, then can I walk beside you?
I have come to lose the smog
And I feel myself a cog
In somethin’ turning
And maybe it’s the time of year
Yes, and maybe it’s the time of man
And I don’t know who I am
But life is for learning
We are stardust, we are golden
We are billion-year-old carbon
And we got to get ourselves
Back to the garden”

Joni Mitchell – from the song Woodstock

You may have seen previous postings from me about climate change. If you have you know that while I don’t hold myself out to be a climate scientist, my own observations are that man is impacting the climate, everywhere, including here. I plan to prepare an update to that posting when the data is in for another record setting year of precipitation in our state. It is hard to believe but there are people in the world who don’t accept that I have a corner on the truth and actually hold beliefs that are different than mine!! There is a school of thought that says that while climate is changing that these changes are nothing more than variations that take place over the eons of time in our world.

The divergence of opinions about climate change is an example of something that I wrestle with a lot in my old age. The struggle is described in the line from the 1970’s song by Joni Mitchell – “maybe it’s the time of year, or maybe it’s the time of man”. One of the good things about growing old is that you get a better sense of time. By that I mean that I have lived more years than my children and grandchildren, (although not as many as my wife’s mother who is still living). We have seen things come and go. When I was younger, I didn’t have the perspective that I have now. It was hard for me to escape the present. It was hard to imagine that things could or would ever be different. I was impatient. Things were not changing fast enough – those old people just weren’t getting out of the way fast enough. That is the way Bob Dylan felt, but then again that song was written in the early 1960’s!!

But sometimes all this supposed wisdom of the years just makes me more confused. If you believe what many of the pundits say, things today are more extreme than they have ever been. With what is happening in Washington and in California it does make me wonder. Wildfires have never been this wild. Income disparity has never been this great. The moral fiber of our country is weaker than ever before. Political parties are more radical than they have ever been. We have less unity than we have ever had in our country. There is more corruption in business and government than ever before. There is more unrest in our country and in the world than there has ever been. At least this is what some would have us believe. But is that all true? Is it just “the time of year”? You know, maybe all of this is just a phase in the course of human events not unlike phases that have come and gone in the past. Or maybe it’s “the time on man”, things are fundamentally different now, and we are headed for some cataclysm unlike what we have seen – this is THE time in the course of human history.

What is the answer? My wisdom is lacking. But maybe the truth is that there IS no single answer. There sometimes IS hard objective data to help us. For instance, economic data indicates that income disparity IS higher than it has been since the mid 1900’s. But what kind of data is there about how much “unrest” there is? What kind of data is there about how moral we are now compared to the past? I believe that there ARE many things that we need to be concerned about. But I don’t subscribe to the feeling that everything is going to hell in a hand basket. I am old enough to remember that the “good old days” weren’t always that good. Many things are much better than they used to be.

Maybe Joni had it right – it will always be a struggle to understand. We may feel like we are just a “cog in something turning” and we don’t know who we are but “life is for learning”. I wish I could say that this “experiential learning” was always fun and an adventure. Sometimes for me it is just plain scary. And I must tell you that sometimes I just want to withdraw – to stay in my little corner of the world and to not engage in the concerns. That is a trap! We can’t allow ourselves to do that. We DO need to stay engaged, and to evaluate everything that comes along and to ACT on our beliefs. That is what Dylan and Mitchell would want us to do.