Mickey Z

Cool Observer

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Wednesday, January 04, 2006

"The future is an infinite succession of presents..."

(Not that kind of present)

But first: In the headlines these days is the story of a dozen men trapped in a West Virginia coal mine (http://tinyurl.com/bfdxs). This tragic episode reminded me of one of my favorite films, Billy Wilder’s Ace in the Hole (a.k.a. The Big Carnival).

Anyone remember that one?
More info: http://tinyurl.com/bvqla

We now return to my regularly scheduled post:

Man, as much as I hate getting older, I’m not too sure I’d want to be a young man today. What a mess we’ve made...and left behind for the video game generation. It reminds me of another gem from Fight Club: “For thousands of years, human beings had screwed up and trashed and crapped on this planet, and now history expected me to clean up after everyone”

If only the promise of the 1960s wasn’t co-opted, sanitized, and sold back to us as a trend...if only we didn’t buy into the one-size-fits-all commodity culture...if only enough of us could have seen past the next fiscal quarter.

Wow, I need a dose of Howard Zinn just about now:

Howie Z. sez:
“Revolutionary change does not come as one cataclysmic moment (beware of such moments!) but as an endless succession of surprises, moving zigzag toward a more decent society. We don’t have to engage in grand, heroic actions to participate in the process of change. Small acts, when multiplied by millions of people, can transform the world. Even when we don’t ‘win,’ there is fun and fulfillment in the fact that we have been involved, with other good people, in something worthwhile. We need hope. An optimist isn’t necessarily a blithe, slightly sappy whistler in the dark of our time. To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places—and there are so many—where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction. And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.”