All You Old Folk...

read Friedman today.

The same honest factors he cites as encouraging young people "there", are transferrable to our own domestic and finance problems here. Our young people aren't yet irreversibly locked in, like say the Irish young, yet those very same factors will no-doubt-at-all-in-my-mind one day come in to play here.*

We Americans are late bloomers, they say. Waiting until we have no other choice but to act, preferring not to jump into the fray right away.

We're not taking marching orders from the youth in other countries, of course, but again: what Friedman cites today as honest indicators -- or spurs to action? We're not immune here either.

Now whether you take that as a positive (as I do), or if it frightens you a bit, seeing "radical" shakeup from ensconced positions -- the "traditional" way of doing things, "why mess with success?" -- to more efficient and effective ways of doing business as usual... no doubt what's over there is coming here.**

The more facts that are accessible to people, the more transparency, the better.

Two factors, in retrospect, have greatly influenced my life: my father's freedom, and my insatiable attitude to independently read and learn. Regarding the former, he's passed on to his children, what perhaps is the defining characteristic of his life.

Born in 1932, the eldest of 7 in rural Co. Galway, he left home on a ship at 20, back when that really meant saying goodbye. His parents were buried without him present -- sudden enough deaths, no time to get there and say goodbye -- what can you do?, and no sense in spending the money to go home just to be present at the funeral. It was a working life, a thrifty one that continues today, with a keen eye toward costs and benefits, whether it was worth this to give up that.

He spent his pennies wisely enough, for example, choosing the better made Betamax over VHS, after consulting with Consumer Reports. Which leads to the next truth: some things we can control, some we cannot.

But overall, if our circumstances shape us, I've been lucky like that. My father raised me, not to be sheltered as a "girl" (in fact, it sickens me to this day to see grown women, often ground-breaking Boomers, still playing the pretty lady card, with all the special privileges that entails...) but as an American kid, who could go out and seize the opportunities around me daily, and make the most of my life through my own efforts. I'm grateful that he wasn't like some American parents, who use their own family money and the power of inheritance to dictate their children's life paths. You see that so much now: subtle pressure to conform, to carry on generational dictates, because if Daddy pays the bills even through young adulthood, of course he's going to have a greater influence on the life choices made.

My father trusted that he'd taught his own 5 well, and then set us free. But "set us free" really isn't the right term either: instead, his own background showed him early on, something I suspect took hold in his bones. Every individual has the power to shape their own destiny's; it's no more one person's power over another (father to child, spouse to spouse, boss to employee) if an independent one can stand on his own and survive despite the artificial hierarchy. Your life is yours to create your own destiny, if you're strong enough to stand alone.

Too many even Americans today haven't figured that out yet, I'm afraid. Or won't compromise away the easy life to earn the benefits of the fully free. No guarantees, of course, like with the Betamax. But eventually, you own yourself. If...

The second factor to the equation:
the independent ability to read, think and learn. That's a bit of what Friedman's column hit at today: if those on top no longer have sole access to facts, there's simply no stopping progress. The artificial hierarchy's will necessarily fall, because there's no denying reality.

I don't think it's all an online thing either. Anyone who's visited second-hand stores in decent locations can find a quality education for pennies on the dollar. The old books out there -- even in the science and history books where the knowledge has since been updated, can build a quality library and enrich himself times ten. It amazes me, looking at the quality of early student books, even leisure reading, through the early 60s say, at how far we've fallen.

I've got paperbacks on a topic: Columbus, say, -- from the same publisher years apart, that lift copy but leave out so much rich detail over time. Today's "pop factoids" that you find in so many student books -- the better to keep their ADD minds focused, for a minute, they say -- is but a paltry shell of the paragraphs that used to be devoted to a topic. Whether children read less with more entertainment diversions, or like so many of their food diets, have had their reading materials just reprocessed down to nothing really ... makes no difference.

For those who choose to learn and are eager to pursue something, the materials are still out there. More accessible than ever before.

That's what I took from Friedman today. We see it in our churches, classrooms, workplaces. You can't deny reality, the more you know, the more you can question to comprehend. Those currently artificially up high -- who prefer the hierarchical relationships for their own sake: "I did my time/this privilege is mine" -- might deny it, but any neutral observer knows, armed with true knowledge, the distinctions are falling...

Myself,
I'm a risk-averse individual, necessarily. And I understand in some contexts more than others, the continued need for establishing a trusted leader, and those who will follow to carry out a mission. But the more we know, the more we truly grow. And less and less hidden corruption and inequities will be permitted take to hold, as the people wake up and question the unquestionable -- hey, we voted out Bush's foreign policy eventually, right, and put the exact opposite in office with President Obama.

That's what Friedman seems to be saying, and whether you're an AARP member who doesn't really welcome "hope and change", or an affirmative action benifitee based on the color of your skin, you'd be wise to read up and think ahead. Freedom comes with costs, but as any independent kid could tell ya: in the end, it can be quite a fulfilling and rich life to determine yourself your course.

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* Here's his basic list:

It said: judge me on my performance, on how I deliver government services and collect the garbage and create jobs...

When you live right next to a country that is bringing to justice its top leaders for corruption and you live in a country where many of the top leaders are corrupt, well, you notice.

... vast tracts of empty land, while tens of thousands of mainly poor ... were squashed together in small, dense areas.

“Hmmm, let’s see. He’s young. I’m young. He’s dark-skinned. I’m dark-skinned. His middle name is Hussein. My name is Hussein. His grandfather is a Muslim. My grandfather is a Muslim. He is president of the United States. And I’m an unemployed ..."

Once the young people in America realize they hold the keys to breaking their own shackles, and are willing to put in the time and discipline necessary to make right beat might, there's no stopping us as a country.

Perhaps as the social nets fall, and the established players cling more tightly to less and less, (I personally was in the "Don't Bail The Biggies Out" camp, even if it hurts all of us today, they must see their actions have consequences and pay their own way... The best life teacher is taking the Consequences of Your Own Actions -- we'll never insure against that.)

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This is the year of the guilty man
Your television takes a stand
and you find that what was over there
is over here...

So you scream from behind your door:
Say what's mine is mine and not yours.
I may have too much, but I'll take my chances,
'cause G-d stopped keeping score.

Did you cling to the things they sold you?
Did you cover your eyes when they told you?
That He can't come back, 'cause He has no children...
to come back for.
...
Maybe we should all be prayin' for time?
~George Michael, Listen w/o Prejudice.