We have now officially begun summer. Not astrologically of course, that won’t happen until June 20, 2024 at 4:50pm. But post Memorial Day it is now the days of summer 2024.
And what a summer we are going to have. War, famine, riots, political conventions, with emboldened autocrats and worldwide support for genocidal terrorists.
Heck, it sounds alot like 1968. Only this time we have social media which makes it a whole heck of alot more idiotic, ridiculous, dangerous. (Yes I know I am writing on a social media platform so this does come off as a bit self-deprecating.)
There is a curse sourced to China but no one is actually quite sure where it comes from, “may you live in interesting times.”
We are in one of those times.
So what does it mean for the everyday, for those of us living our lives simply trying to decide what to buy in the supermarket, which film to go see, or what time to walk the dog.
Having grown up with a father who had to work behind bulletproof glass because of his job, I have been well aware of the evils of this world for quite along time. For all of my over 60 years on this planet, I, and my family, never took a break from history. I am not sure why anyone ever thought that history was never going to catch up with them.
Kafke wrote his Metamorphosis at a time when Jews in Europe still thought of themselves as strivers who could eventually work, and be included within the system in which they lived. He, it seems, knew better. While his book is not specifically about the inclusion of the Jewish People into the world around them, it is a reminder that the surface is what you see, but it is not the truth of who a person actually is (not the person undergoing change nor those around them). That those you have devoted yourself to, whether through love or politics, can in fact alienate you if you do not conform to an ideal.
It is a hard thing to accept, that those you loved never really loved you back. You go through a mourning period. A time when you try to right yourself and to find where you belong.
Some of us knew that we were politically homeless long before October 7. It gives me no pleasure to know I was right.
But after the mourning period, after the metamorphosis takes place, and you need to right your world, what do you do? Where do you go? Who do you befriend?
Perhaps, it is time to accept who you are. Embrace your difference. Stand up for yourself and know that there is nothing wrong with demanding to be heard, to be seen, and to be thought of as having a right to defend yourself.
To this extent, people like to talk about being on the “right side of history.”
It’s a ridiculous catch phrase meant to silence critics. It is a phrase used to imply that you need to join the mob, the group, the clique or history will judge you poorly.
But maybe the single voice is the one on the right side of history. Maybe it is the outlier, the person who stands alone, the People of Forever, who are on the right side of history, and not those who glomb onto this newly metastasized oldest of hatreds.
In truth, in order to figure out what is the right side of history, you really need to know what history is all about, what it means, and the lessons it seeks to teach.
History is written by the victor it is said. Perhaps, perhaps not. For the Sumerians, the Babylonians, the ancient Egyptians, the Greeks, the Romans, the Byzantines, the Mamluks, the Ottomans, the Holy Roman Empire, the Nazis, the Soviet Union all wrote their own histories. They decided what was truth and what was good. What do we think of these empires, these humans, the people that ruled the world in their time?
History may be written by the victor, but the world goes through change. Societal metamorphosis continually takes place, so the philosophers say. But are we so different than our ancestors? What do we want history to say about us?
Will we be on the right side of history?
We will find out this summer.
https://foreignlocal.substack.com/p/desperately-trying-to-save-hamas