{"id":25337,"date":"2022-04-01T15:49:14","date_gmt":"2022-04-01T19:49:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=25337"},"modified":"2022-04-01T15:49:27","modified_gmt":"2022-04-01T19:49:27","slug":"may-we-stay-forever-young","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2022\/04\/may-we-stay-forever-young\/","title":{"rendered":"May We Stay Forever Young"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"intrinsic-container intrinsic-container-16x9\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/9LR_Q6FpaUE\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"smalltext\"><em>[Video: Bob Dylan&#8217;s &#8220;Forever Young,&#8221; covered by Johnny Cash. This song may be to Dylan&#8217;s entire oeuvre what &#8220;O Holy Night&#8221; or &#8220;Ave Maria&#8221; is to Christmas music: over-interpreted, -emoted, and -performed by dozens of artists, each seeming determined to show proper reverence to the songwriter rather than to the song itself. Cash&#8217;s offering seemed best for my frame of mind today, and I hope it sits well with you, too. I also considered using Lee Ann Womack&#8217;s &#8220;I Hope You Dance,&#8221; especially for the line, &#8220;when you get the choice to sit it out or dance\/I hope you dance,&#8221; which feels perfectly in tune with today&#8217;s theme. But the rest of the song is a bit too&#8230; syrupy? Or am <\/em>I<em> now overthinking things&#8230;?]<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"smalltext\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-drop-cap\">One of the things I like most about <em>whiskey river<\/em>: if you just drop in there once in a blue moon you can convince yourself that its sources are all scraps of, y&#8217;know, woo-woo philosophy, poetry, idle dreamings and speculation&#8230; but if you visit regularly, you get, well, <em>poked<\/em> pretty regularly. There&#8217;ll be a joke, a fiercely political exhortation, an overturned worldview. It&#8217;s never &#8220;news,&#8221; but the pot keeps stirring, and you can never know in advance what might turn up in your soup spoon. This week I&#8217;ve found two gems there, by way of illustration. <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"http:\/\/whiskeyriver.blogspot.com\/2022\/03\/big-brother-isnt-watching.html\" target=\"_blank\">First<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>Big Brother isn&#8217;t watching. He&#8217;s singing and dancing. He&#8217;s pulling rabbits out of a hat. Big Brother&#8217;s busy holding your attention every moment you&#8217;re awake. He&#8217;s making sure you&#8217;re always distracted. He&#8217;s making sure you&#8217;re fully absorbed. <\/p><p>He&#8217;s making sure your imagination withers. Until it&#8217;s as useful as your appendix. He&#8217;s making sure your attention is always filled. <\/p><p>And this being fed, it&#8217;s worse than being watched. With the world always filling you, no one has to worry about what&#8217;s in your mind. With everyone&#8217;s imagination atrophied, no one will ever be a threat to the world.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>(Chuck Palahniuk [<em><a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/books.google.com\/books?id=D0gCo8m7fl8C&amp;pg=PA18#v=onepage&amp;q&amp;f=false\" target=\"_blank\">source<\/a><\/em>])<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8230;and <a href=\"http:\/\/whiskeyriver.blogspot.com\/2022\/03\/a-childs-instinct-is-almost-perfect-in.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">here&#8217;s the other<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>A child&#8217;s instinct is almost perfect in the matter of fighting; a child always stands for the good militarism as against the bad. The child&#8217;s hero is always the man or boy who defends himself suddenly and splendidly against aggression. The child&#8217;s hero is never the man or boy who attempts by his mere personal force to extend his mere personal influence&#8230;<\/p><p>But really to talk of this small human creature, who never picks up an umbrella without trying to use it as a sword, who will hardly read a book in which there is no fighting&#8212;to take this human creature and talk about the wickedness of teaching him to be military, seems rather a wild piece of humour. He has already not only the tradition of fighting, but a far manlier and more genial tradition of fighting than our own. No; I am not in favour of the child being taught militarism. I am in favour of the child teaching it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>(G. K. Chesterton [<em><a href=\"https:\/\/archive.org\/details\/sim_illustrated-london-news_1906-10-06_129_3520\/page\/n1\/mode\/1up?view=theater\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">source<\/a><\/em>])<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-drop-cap\">Notice the unstated, perhaps unintentional interplay between the two very different passages: the first, angry and assertive in its warning against the traps of the modern world &#8212; its ceaseless distraction from What&#8217;s Really Going On; and the second, gently pointing out an approach to <em>fighting<\/em> the world, by modeling our own behaviors on those of children.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Omitted, though: what, well, to <em>do<\/em> at one critical moment or another? It&#8217;s one thing to acknowledge evil when you encounter it, perhaps point it out to others. And it&#8217;s one thing to act on your recognition of evil, to fight it, actively, with a child&#8217;s sense of right and wrong. But of what should that action consist? Should we take to the streets? Should we donate money? Should we join the <em>[insert nationality here]<\/em> Foreign Legion to do battle with evil on other shores? Should we meditate, do yoga, learn calligraphy, write a satirical novel or inflammatory op-ed article?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There&#8217;s a response to these questions popular among those of a Christian bent: <em>What would Jesus do?<\/em> (You may have seen this sentiment expressed as <em>WWJD?<\/em> on bracelets, tattoos, and so on.) The thing is, no one possibly has any idea what Jesus &#8212; or anyone else from then to now &#8212; &#8220;would&#8221; do at this moment, in our shoes. Furthemore at root, we don&#8217;t need to turn to religion (the gods know, a source of plenty of evil in its name) for answers. I think all we really need to ask ourselves as we confront evil in our world, in our age, is: <em>What would a child do?<\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>No matter the evil of the moment (there&#8217;s always evil of the moment): put yourself in a kid&#8217;s &#8220;the battle between good and evil&#8221; frame of reference. Don&#8217;t try to predict what specific course of action they&#8217;d recommend, and for gods&#8217; sake don&#8217;t ASK them for advice. Just, well, adopt that state of mind. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And then&#8230; then act, or not. And don&#8217;t second-guess yourself, or the hypothetical kid. Take the next step, and the one after that, and so on. <em>And don&#8217;t look back<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[Video: Bob Dylan&#8217;s &#8220;Forever Young,&#8221; covered by Johnny Cash. This song may be to Dylan&#8217;s entire oeuvre what &#8220;O Holy Night&#8221; or &#8220;Ave Maria&#8221; is to Christmas music: over-interpreted, -emoted, and -performed by dozens of artists, each seeming determined to show proper reverence to the songwriter rather than to the song itself. Cash&#8217;s offering seemed [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","h5ap_radio_sources":[],"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Bob Dylan, G.K. Chesterton, etc.: \"May We Stay Forever Young\"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[38,247,1393,94,74,4878,4159],"tags":[66,895,3991,4128,5536,5537,5538,5539],"class_list":{"0":"post-25337","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-backwards","7":"category-ruminations","8":"category-whiskey-river-runningaftermyhat","9":"category-02_in-the-news","10":"category-music","11":"category-fiction","12":"category-essays","13":"tag-gk-chesterton","14":"tag-bob-dylan","15":"tag-chuck-palahniuk","16":"tag-johnny-cash","17":"tag-states-of-mind","18":"tag-decision-and-indecision","19":"tag-action-and-inaction","20":"tag-can-it-really-be-that-simple","21":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-6AF","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25337","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25337"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25337\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25347,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25337\/revisions\/25347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}