Monday July 4th, 2011 - Cary, IL Independence Day. That could mean a lot of things to a lot of people. Funny is the beast called man, as we never seem to be satisfied. When we’re constricted, we want to be free. When we get free, we crave structure. Is there a happy medium? I’m feverishly searching. Nobody wants to be told what to do, but the truth is sometimes we all need a swift kick in the education department. I know I do. Where that comes from is the $64,000 question. Should the government be the one telling us what we can and can’t do? I have to say no. On the other hand, who should? Family? If that were the case, I’d be in a biker gang and wouldn’t have graduated high school. I don’t have to wonder how that would have turned out. Instead, I clawed and scratched my way to where I am, making mistakes constantly. Is it wrong to make mistakes? No, it’s part of life. But ‘mistakes’ are defined differently by different people. To some, a mistake is getting caught doing something illegal. They’re not sorry they did it, they’re just sorry they got caught. Everyone is an individual entity. I think that’s why life is so difficult. Some of us can handle freedoms better than others, and there’s a fine line between escaping oppression and needing outside discipline. I sure know that many times I’ve taken my freedom of choice and screwed it up beyond royally. Looking at my current situation is a perfect example. Could I have eaten better food and worked out more for the past twenty years? Yes, but I didn’t. I totally blew it. Now I have diabetes. My ‘freedom’ didn’t lead to a positive result, but if I’d had someone forcing me to pump iron and eat vegetables every day, I’m sure I would have bitched beyond belief. Can you leave idiots in charge for long and not expect something major to go haywire? Not in the real world. Give a classroom full of kindergarteners some open paint cans and brushes and tell them not to touch anything as you leave the room for the next half hour. Think there might be a couple of racing stripes painted on the walls? Yes - and floors, windows, desks and everything else. It’s human nature, whether five years old or fifty. In a perfect world we’d all be able to take our freedom and build a dream life, but this by far isn’t a perfect world so what do we do? I for one am glad to have a little structure in life. I’ve lived foot loose and fancy free for a lot of years, and even with all my problems it’s been a hell of a ride in retrospect. I’ve had fun adventures, but honestly I could have gone a lot farther had I had a structured plan at an early age and someone to enforce it on me. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not turning into some pinko sympathizer who wants America to turn into a government run state, even though that’s exactly where it seems to be going. I’m all for freedom of all kinds, but I also think there has to be some kind of regulation to keep us from killing ourselves with it. I don’t have an answer as to what to do for a nation or a world, all I know is I need it personally. A little dependence might not be a bad thing.
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