Middle-class middle-age malarkey
July 28th, 2023
Am I heading for the same brick wall? Is there anything I can do about anything at all? Except to go back and dig deeper, dig deeper this time. Down beneath the unbelievable pain of our history, beneath the unknown bones of our history, beneath shiny sidewalks with garbage pushed aside in heaps, beneath the screeching of death-wish idiots’ wheels, beneath the hypocrisy of friendship and street deals, beneath the tangle of sewage and internet optic cables (both interchangeable), beneath the good and the kind and the stupid and the cruel beneath it all, beneath it all — there is fire just waiting for fuel.
The above is my paraphrasing of and musing about the lyrics to a song by Ani DiFranco. Sometimes an old song like this one comes back to my mind and I cannot stop repeating it time after time, but with a song as good as this one I don’t mind.
And I have been musing a lot lately — yesterday while thinking about Sinead O’Connor I remembered a curious incident. This time not about her per se, but from the concert where she also performed — a tribute to Bob Dylan in 1992. There was a performance there by Eddie Vedder and Mike McCreedy singing Dylan’s Masters of War. A haunting performance of a masterpiece of songwriting full of righteous anger and tangible pain. A heartfelt indictment of those who start wars and especially those who then hide in the comfort and security of their lairs. And that performance was met with indifferent silence and then with perfunctory applause by the well-to-do and well-connected middle-aged and middle-class attendees there. I guess it was too grungy with too much genuine anger for the sheep-like mob in attendance. It was too sincere. And now that I am a well middle-aged and middle-class person, a thought occurred to me — where do I stand on sincerity? I am doing fine with being sincere towards myself, what about showing it on the outside? I think there is too much hypocrisy in me. I don’t show my true face and still, I feel afraid many times and situations, but I know somewhere in me there is a righteous fire and it will burst out in flames one of those days. But not today — I need to do my shopping, and not tomorrow — since I am going on a trip. But soon after that, why not?
