I first read George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four in...well....1976.
At the time, as a young man of (AGE REDACTED), and in the time of upheaval that was the end of the Nixon administration and the push-back that became the Carter administration that later became the push-back that became the Glorious Day of Reagan....
Well, needless to say that although I was fairly attuned to what was going on (I was an incorrigible 'need to know' kid), but had no idea on how things ran until....
Wait.
I still don't REALLY know how things run.
And if I do, I can't tell you.
And if I do, and I can't tell you...I have to say that you DON'T WANT TO KNOW.
I know and I DON'T WANT TO KNOW sometimes.......
But there is digression here.
The whole idea at the time seemed absurd....how could a country such as ours, who had served as a beacon for the world, could be turned into what we perceived our enemy to be? And by enemy, I mean the Soviet Union, frozen in the image of Stalinistic Creepiness.
A country where 85% of the population answers to the other 15%, which controls all the media, the economy, and the military forces.
A country that has boiled it's language down to the very basics, eliminating art, and poetry, and drama.
A country perpetually at war, with enemies that may, or may not exist.
A country who's government monitors everything, including the thoughts of the populace.
A country where torture is acceptable at even the lowest levels.
Surely, this would never happen here.
Sometimes, it just doesn't pay to get out of bed.
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What we have is what we have. I grew up as a child of Reagan. I slept underneath my bed sometimes fearing the bomb. I feared invasion. I feared. I've been thinking about that a lot lately. They showed us films in school and instructed us about how to react after nuclear war... as if. And it was all smoke and mirrors. They don't show those films currently. They don't show them films about how to react to school shootings either... or run drills. So what could be useful is not being told to the children these days. We were told a lot of unuseful things. We were conditioned. I ate it. Swallowed it and wanted more jelly beans. Until Clinton... I didn't know much about anything. And then I felt as if I knew too much about everything. Cigars are Gap dresses. But one thing remains... in my mind... this world is not permanent for any of us. We are not long of it. You'll appreciate the darkness of that statement Clemo. However... we choose. We choose how we spend this time. I choose not to spend in worrying about the bomb or cigars or jelly beans. I prefer rather to go out and water my trees and flowers... chink some ice cubes in the glass and cloud burst.
Yeah. Me, too.
The morning went a little sideways, and I flashed through the whole Orwellian midset.
As Pogo Possum once said, "Don't take life so serious; t'ain't noway perm'nent."
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