Histories

[degringolade]

 

Got a call from J.  As always, good to chat.  Both of us getting long in the tooth and both of us continually surprised by the antics of the world around us.  

Yesterdays discussion was on the vagaries of old men's memories and the tales we tell ourselves about out youth.  I think that it is human nature to try to write the narrative in as positive a light as one can arrange.  Minor obstacles become major acts of evil, dealt with smartly by a perseverance and bravery unmatched even by Hector.   This is the norm.  

The hard part is seeing it in yourself.  Because, simply put everyone does it.

Now, no one parties as hard as they think they did, at least no one over 60 who is still alive at this point and with an intact and functioning ADH1B wasn't half the party-er that they claim.  No one fought as many battles with malefactors, no one was that oppressed, no real wrongs were righted, no real power was claimed.

You see the hard part is that, in our America, we took the Bourgeois route.  Even those who rejected the boojie worldview never really got away from it.  I can respect those who claim that they were excluded from Boojie-ville and want their share.  What they are saying is valid.  What I can't respect is those who bought into Boojieland and then try to paint themselves with the coloring of the oppressed.

I think that somehow this is coming full circle to where we all started back after the second world war.  The folks back then were hard, focused folks.  The had gone through the great depression and the second world war and had earned their stripes.  The silent generation and us boomers never had it anything but easy and now, that we are in our dotage, we are trying to lay claim to the idea that our wealth was deserved and the product of brave perseverance and not merely a function of being born at the right place and the right time