When I was growing up in the fifties, the weight of society was ever present. Every adult that swam into my orbit felt a responsibility and the freedom to correct and guide me. I was told to hold my fork correctly by a neighboring mother when eating dinner at a friend’s house. I was criticized by any nearby grownup when I did not look both ways before crossing the street. It would never have occurred to me to venture my opinion in opposition to the adults around me. They were in charge of the world and in charge of bringing me into the world as they saw it. I think that is why Mary Poppins and her umbrella, and Peter Pan and the Lost Boys held such an appeal. In those books children had adventures away from the correcting and prying eyes of adults.
Now that societal weight is gone, in its place we find people causing disruptions on planes, being extremely rude to their neighbors, and defending their children no matter what they have done. But this is not a comment from a grumpy older person for whom the world of her youth was so much better. For the truth of the matter is that along with the ‘good old days’ came widely held beliefs that were not to be contested. Think of how mentally challenged, religiously, sexually and racially different people were treated in years gone by. We may have a long way to go, but it is better than it used to be in my youth.
Unkindness, while it still exists unchanged but repressed, is not what we need. Perhaps what we are experiencing in society today is the muddy stream being churned up so that it can run with clarity. When I was corrected as a child, I knew when it was done from love. While I may not have enjoyed it or agreed with it, I understood it came from the heart. Perhaps if all of us just concentrated on our own hearts and what is in them, we could change the world. Then it would not be the weight of those around us that we took out the door every morning, but the soul of our better natures.