The Kibitzer

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By Bill Fried
By Bill Fried

The Times They Are A-Changin

“Come mothers and fathers

Throughout the land

And don’t criticize

What you don’t understand

Your sons and your daughters

Are beyond your command

Your old road is rapidly agin’

Please get out of the new one

If you can’t lend your hand

For the times they are a-changin’ — Bob Dylan, Nobel Prize laureate

 

How to make sense of it? It’s like we’ve been living at a beachfront resort, sipping mai tais on the sand, when a tsunami swept in and laid waste to everything that was familiar and safe. Suddenly the world is upside down and unrecognizable. A seismic recalibration of everything we know and hold dear. And its cuts so deep. People can’t get out of bed. Friends are outraged and drawing battle lines against each other. Minorities are fearing for their lives. And blacks just say now you know what we’ve been living with all these years!

It’s the Divisive State of America, and it is a dark time and place. The worst of all of us has come out in Donald J Trump. How could he say the things he said? Why didn’t more women vote him down? Well, perhaps they are numb to the vulgarities of men. Maybe they’ve heard it all before, late night and every day – at work, at home, and on TV, and he was just refreshingly real at a time when they were desperate for change.

This is our moral 9/11, as Thomas Friedman said. But I believe America is about to shine brightest. It’s always darkest before the light. In a way, this had to happen. Four years of Hillary would have made us safe, but somnambulant, just floating down the lazy river on the party boat, unaware of the waterfall ahead. But now people are waking up, getting off the couch, writing impassioned posts, staging peaceful demonstrations, talking to their kids, seeking spiritual guidance, connecting with nature, and re-assessing what’s important in life. They are defending human rights and the environment, postponing frivolous purchases, and getting real.

We are going to experience a renaissance, a flowering of human potential that can only birth from cataclysmic events. A new forest grows only when old, decayed and diseased growth burns to the ground. And it will be beautiful and caring and enlightened and in just in time to reverse the sickening spiral of the human species from the death grip of greed.

Donald Trump represents nothing more than the last act of our reptilian core. He is a carny act, a bottom feeding, low vibration being, reflecting our craven instinct to kill or be killed, eat or be eaten. He is in all of us. He is a cry for survival from those who feel unheard.

There is no percentage in speculating what he will do and what it will mean. Because we have the ultimate power. It’s always been that way. Remember injustices that have been struck down by the people? Slavery? Gone. Gay rights? Done. A woman’s right to choose?? Hell yeah. Equal rights? Yep. Marijuana legal? Finally. We have headed in the right direction in the 50 years since Dylan wrote that song and the 60’s ushered in a new consciousness. This little hiccup in the spectrum of time, this bump in the road of human evolution, will soon be roadkill in the rear view of enlightenment. Has to happen, because we know we are better than this. In fact, how great was it to hear LA Police Chief Charlie Beck say the LAPD would not help Trump deport immigrants! The people united can never be defeated. And that includes the police and military, too.

It’s our children who will lead the way out of this. They always do. It’s young people who have already taken to the streets and put Trump on notice. They will be voting in four years, many more of them than now. They are decidedly progressive, support human rights, social diversity, and saving our planet. And they are waking up, thanks in great measure to Bernie Sanders. The great lethargy of social media and dumbed down, pleasure-at-all-costs society, is dissolving into people connecting with one another and sharing real pain and emotion again. They are waking from their gilded slumbers and developing inner capacities for empathy, compassion, hope and action.

Ultimately this starts with you, parents. It is you who must teach your children that language is violence, that love trumps hate, that we are all one, interconnected planet. That ignorance, fear, intolerance and bigotry is not the way forward. It is you who must teach that civil disobedience is the most patriotic thing they can do, that to have a voice in a democracy they must use it. When we see our children finally join their elders at weekend demonstrations on Main Beach, we know our future is bright.

In the meantime, for your own sanity, here are some things to help reconnect to yourself, find your power and your inner peace. Turn off the news and get out in nature, where everything makes sense. Make or consume art, where everything is illuminated. Meditate, where everything is nothing. And do some good for others, where everything matters. The journey to enlightenment has just begun.

Billy Fried hosts “Laguna Talks” on Thursday nights at 8 p.m. on KX 93.5, and can be reached at billy@lavidalaguna.com.

 

 

 

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7 COMMENTS

  1. This might be your best work yet. When I finally began emerging from the fog of the election hangover, I remarked to a few friends that maybe this would finally get us (me included) to pay more attention. I hadn’t thought about the younger generation, but you are so right. Our 13 year old daughter reacted more strongly to the result than expected, and our 16 year old son was very engaged since the primaries. “It’s always darkest before the dawn” is now running through my head!

    Reconnecting with nature is indeed one step toward keeping our sanity. I suggest a walk or run at low tide at Crystal Cove State Beach – and send up a big “thank you” to the late Fern Pirkle in the process.

    Well done, Mr. Fried!

  2. I couldn’t disagree more! Why don’t you quit spinning your wheels over what you have no control over. There are no secrets here. He’s going to do what he has said he’s going to do unlike the skank you all supported. Exactly how do you think the rest of us have endured the last 8 years with numb nuts?

    Tell me, are you people going to complain as bitterly when you actually see your taxes go down and your portfolio improve? you all need to get over it!

  3. Yeah, I though the Bush years would lead to ” a renaissance, a flowering of human potential that can only birth from cataclysmic events.”

    Turns out, not so much. Innocent people died then. Innocent people will die this time too. Same as it ever was.

  4. Wow.
    One could argue a bit dreamy & assumptive, but I don’t care. It is as inspirational as anything I’ve read in years. We, and the next generation must follow this direction. Thanks Billy for spelling it out. I wish a larger audience could hear this.

    Ha, I’d given up on news, but “The King of Fishermens” turned me onto this. Thanks Brad!

  5. Yes Billy!
    Great article, great writing, great opinions. Masterful selection of thoughts and interpretation. Keep up the good work in Laguna Beach.

    Sincerely,
    Kevin’s Beach

  6. Meh..
    A lot of people are too young to understand much of what is happening, an some still others not old enough to have learned from the past examples of political leadership.

    Most of the attention related to the political process is only attributable to the what affects the individual not on what is a moral or polar in direction.

    If we could only have such inspirational artists as leaders, all of our problem would be solved? Without our own struggles their words too would be meaningless.

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