I WONDER
I WONDER: I grew up in a house full of music. We learned about the delicacy of touch. About being ‘in tune,’ about listening carefully, about nuance and beauty, about crescendo and rubato and perhaps even the ‘music of the spheres.’ I suspect there are a great many like me, who were taught to value beauty and loveliness, and perhaps along the way to see and hear such things in the world around them—in the perfection of a wildflower, the flowing of a clear stream or the majesty of a mountain. Maybe in the silence of a forest and the mist over a meadow, or in the artistry of a brushstroke on canvas, the interplay of colors, of darkness and light, or in the choice of just the right word or phrase for a poem or an essay. Such a way of being acknowledges or presupposes the existence of meaning, of beauty, and the value of thought. Of education.
But there is another way of being as well. Which acknowledges only such considerations as the endless greed for ‘more.’ Such values as faster and louder. Intimidation and cruelty. And power. Always power. Always more power. In this world there is no time or need for nuance or delicacy, for grace or beauty. Or even knowledge or wisdom. In fact such considerations mark one for mockery. For disdain—as an ‘elitist’ or a snowflake. Or in the common vernacular of the cult, as a libtard or even a ‘retard.’ The irony is palpable. The double insult—applied both to those who may truly be developmentally challenged and those who care deeply about empathy and the importance of thought—is deployed by human beings who are… what? Shallow? Ignorant? Cruel? Backward? Unpossessed of common decency?
I wonder if the ‘new world’ toward which we are slipping (being pushed) will be marked or defined by simply two classes of people. Those who are intelligent, empathetic, decent, caring, artistic, educated… and those who are not. Who simply LMAO (laugh their asses off—a favorite expression) at everything not within their extraordinarily shallow and backward understanding of the world. Who in fact seek to destroy all they do not understand. Maybe this will be the new division—not so much the traditional lines between class or wealth or color or political party—but simply between caring and not caring. Beauty and ugliness. Intelligence and willful ignorance.
A division between the art and music of the spheres and the flat earth of the new ‘know-nothings.’
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