Saturday, September 17, 2011

All Hope is Not Lost

   On any level, from any perspective Hope has not been lost.  It is pretty easy to focus on the bleak, negative things are thrown at us every day.  There is money to be made in the attention towards our ills, our aches and pains and political parties are finding strength in our despair and frustration.  It has become negative campaigning at its best, no one is offering a bright future.  They sense power in these economic times and the worst picture they can paint the more power they can get.
   Who knows where all this began?  I am so sick of television advertising, especially the "prime time" for older Americans, from 4pm to 7pm.  That would be a great time to rekindle our interest in Art, guide us to the library, interest us in reading, attract us to travel, find part-time work or volunteer efforts toward our community.  Lots of positive stuff.  Heck, they don't even try to sell us cars anymore, not like they used to!
   It is all about how sick we are.  All about aches and pains, allergies and constipation and for Christ's sake,
Viagra!  Like we could screw our way out of this mess!
   It seems to me that News is about entertaining us.  A fellow blogger mentioned on his blog that this began with "60 Minutes" and the discovery that news could become profitable.  No longer informative and educational, they can operate with fewer employees and make more money.  Negative sells.  We are attracted to this dark side.
   We are never told the "rest of the story", the follow-up, the consequences, what "really happens".  Just the headlines, the next bleak news, the next negative thing.
   I wonder about things all the time.  On any given day it takes about ten people to build a house, plus the inspectors and city or county administrators, maybe 15 people could be involved.  Architects and engineers,  planers, foundation people, framers, electrician, plumbers and so on.  1,500 houses were burnt to the ground in the Texas wildfires.  That is an opportunity for 15,000 jobs and a lot of money entering the economy.
It seems as though Nature is trying to help us.  The hurricanes and massive flooding on the east coast should provide a lot of work.  There are always opportunities with calamity.  Somebody should be rebuilding something.  Good news doesn't sell and we are seldom exposed to the brighter side.
   I have a neighbor from Guatemala, a little short stocky tiny guy who is far short of five feet tall!  Someone should write a news story about him but they never will.  He has been in this country for 17 years and originally, like so many others, crossed the dessert, friends falling by the wayside.  Risking his life for opportunity.  He became legal in one of the amnesty programs and found a job making motor homes when we had that huge industry here.  He worked there for ten years until they closed and shut down the plant.
That was the story that made the news, the loss of over 5,000 jobs.  Good jobs with good benefits.
   It was difficult to find work and many have been on Government Assistance ever since.  Not my neighbor.
He has never collected a dime from this adopted country.  He saw as I mentioned yesterday, the unattended lawns in our neighborhood and bought a lawn mower.  This is a lower middle class working neighborhood and we do not have "lawn boys" and he knew that.  It didn't stop him.  His sales pitch was simple and direct.
"Let me show you what I can do for twenty dollars".  Well, he is a little ball of furry but what is most noticeable about him is his happiness.  It is an attitude thing and not newsworthy.  He sees everything as an opportunity and is willing to work.  He always works 12 hour days and says it is a piece of cake compared to crossing the dessert, compared to the real poverty of his youth.
   People are doing this all across this country.  My daughter, by choice, lives in Washington D.C. and rents one tiny room in a great big house with a lot of other people.  People joining together to make life affordable, to make things work.  It has always been that way.  We didn't settle the West one wagon at a time but came in droves, in "Wagon Trains", lots of us helping each other.  There was work to be done when we got here and we did it together with barn raisings, hard work and community effort.
   Hard work is very much a part of the "American Dream" and we have forgotten that.  "Hope" is not the idea that someone will give us something, it is the realization, the attitude, that it is there for the taking.
Nothing is free, you have to work for it.  In this country there are still a million ways to earn a dollar.

My Art Stuff is HERE

3 comments:

T. said...

If nothing else the one thing we always have is hope. I think it's easy to lose hope when we focus on just the negative, which isn't hard to do these days. I find from time to time I have to disconnect from all the negative in the world to get back to the hope and the knowledge there is always a way. That there is always something better than the bleakness we are shown on a daily basis.

Yvonne said...

Good post, Jerry. Seems many people would rather whine, than go out and do those other jobs that don't have the big bucks attached like their old job did. I remember many times in my youth having roommates to be able to afford life. You do whatever works. How's your garden doing these days?

Jerry Carlin said...

Yes! more to life than politics and economics! Tomorrow I will share my garden!