Tuesday, May 17, 2005
I Remember 1968 When I Was Naive
It was 1968! I was a Junior at West High in Aurora, Illinois. I was becoming politically interested. And I was a Liberal, a Democrat. At least I thought I was back then, these days I'm not really sure if I was truly liberal then or if I just felt like I wanted to be to share the predominant feelings of my friends at the time. No, now that I think about it, I was definitely liberal in 1968. I didn't know enough to be conservative yet but I was actually leaning to a Libertarian point of view already. At any rate, I did admire Martin Luther King, Jr. and Bobby Kennedy.
MLK was assassinated first that spring. It was quite a shock to me that this important civil rights figure was gunned down in a southern town. I was a naive teenager. I believed the best about everyone and everything and was always shocked when bad things like this happened for no apparent reason that I could see. Yes, I knew there were major changes happening throughout the country in regards to race relations and civil rights but having lived in Illinois all my life at that point, I had never experienced such intense hatred of a person just because of skin color. Naive.
I was following the Democratic Presidential Campaign and rooting for my favorite, Bobby Kennedy by the end of the school year. Another shock. Bobby was shot at close range, kind of like Jack Ruby shot Lee Harvey Oswald in 1963. Why would anyone want to kill this honorable man? Naive. I expected Bobby to cruise to the presidency and then he would finish the work that his brother had started before he was gunned down by an assassin in Dallas. Naive.
I was a naive kid for a long time, well into my 20s. My mom used to tell me that I had no common sense. I never understood that because if it was "common", I must have it. And if I didn't have it, then maybe this sense she talked about wasn't really common after all. Naive. I remember having a hang up about the phrase "You can't have your cake and eat it, too". Really! What good is cake if you cannot eat it, is what I would say. It's a stupid saying, useless. These days I understand what the saying is trying to imply but I still think it is a stupid saying. The point, though, is that I had a naive point of view about the world. I am not that way anymore, but maturity came late for me. Naive.
So in 1968 I was struggling to understand the world around me and not having a very easy time of it. It's only natural, I know now, to have doubts and negative feelings about the world and my place in it. Wondering how I was supposed to fit my round ideas into the square world gave me nightmares. Surely I wouldn't be ready to face the world on my own when I graduated from high school in a year. What would I do? How would I live? Naive.
Obviously I managed to get through the teenage years and eventually I grew into a pretty responsible, mature adult with sharp cognitive skills and I lost my naivete. It happens to almost everyone, I guess. Sometimes I wonder how I got my common sense. Why did it take me so long to acquire common sense? And why do I now give credence to the existence of "common sense" anyway? I guess I finally decided that mom knew what she was talking about after all.
Somehow that which is common found its' way to me and grabbed hold of me. I hope it doesn't go away now. At this point in my life I can already visualize the day when I am old and gray and feeble-minded and wondering what all the fuss is about common sense anyway. It took me too long to acquire common sense. I don't want to lose it again when I grow old. Is that being naive?
OH
MLK was assassinated first that spring. It was quite a shock to me that this important civil rights figure was gunned down in a southern town. I was a naive teenager. I believed the best about everyone and everything and was always shocked when bad things like this happened for no apparent reason that I could see. Yes, I knew there were major changes happening throughout the country in regards to race relations and civil rights but having lived in Illinois all my life at that point, I had never experienced such intense hatred of a person just because of skin color. Naive.
I was following the Democratic Presidential Campaign and rooting for my favorite, Bobby Kennedy by the end of the school year. Another shock. Bobby was shot at close range, kind of like Jack Ruby shot Lee Harvey Oswald in 1963. Why would anyone want to kill this honorable man? Naive. I expected Bobby to cruise to the presidency and then he would finish the work that his brother had started before he was gunned down by an assassin in Dallas. Naive.
I was a naive kid for a long time, well into my 20s. My mom used to tell me that I had no common sense. I never understood that because if it was "common", I must have it. And if I didn't have it, then maybe this sense she talked about wasn't really common after all. Naive. I remember having a hang up about the phrase "You can't have your cake and eat it, too". Really! What good is cake if you cannot eat it, is what I would say. It's a stupid saying, useless. These days I understand what the saying is trying to imply but I still think it is a stupid saying. The point, though, is that I had a naive point of view about the world. I am not that way anymore, but maturity came late for me. Naive.
So in 1968 I was struggling to understand the world around me and not having a very easy time of it. It's only natural, I know now, to have doubts and negative feelings about the world and my place in it. Wondering how I was supposed to fit my round ideas into the square world gave me nightmares. Surely I wouldn't be ready to face the world on my own when I graduated from high school in a year. What would I do? How would I live? Naive.
Obviously I managed to get through the teenage years and eventually I grew into a pretty responsible, mature adult with sharp cognitive skills and I lost my naivete. It happens to almost everyone, I guess. Sometimes I wonder how I got my common sense. Why did it take me so long to acquire common sense? And why do I now give credence to the existence of "common sense" anyway? I guess I finally decided that mom knew what she was talking about after all.
Somehow that which is common found its' way to me and grabbed hold of me. I hope it doesn't go away now. At this point in my life I can already visualize the day when I am old and gray and feeble-minded and wondering what all the fuss is about common sense anyway. It took me too long to acquire common sense. I don't want to lose it again when I grow old. Is that being naive?
OH
# posted by OH @ 1:06 PM 
