Thursday, December 27, 2007

The Darkest Days

Vancouver songstress Sarah McLachlan opens her song World On Fire with the lyrics “Hearts are worn in these dark ages”. Every time I hear that song, I think about how a lot of people think that we live in the darkest days in history. My tendency is to think that while yes, there are dark things happening on earth, and horrifying potential, we are actually the most privileged set of human beings ever to live on this planet.

There are famines, there are population problems, there is global warming, there are wars and threats of wars, terrorism, nuclear technology, and outbreaks of diseases. But what are these problems compared to the problems of the past? We are privileged enough to have international law, whereby cruel dictators, which are dwarfed by ancient figures like devil-spawn Nero, can be stripped of their power. We have the technology that has created a better world in so many ways, such as medicine and healthcare and sanitation. We have advanced more in 100 years than humanity advanced in all of recorded human history combined in every way. We have a large portion of the planet’s population living under legitimate democratic government. We no longer have an educated elite hanging on to the ignorance of a general populace who can’t read to fill their coffers with the gold and silver of repentance. I could go on and on…

It’s been said that every generation says that the world is a worse place than when they were young. This all comes down to perspective. When they were young, they didn’t know half of what was going on, and weren’t versed enough in life to know how bad something actually is. When they become an adult, rationality is hijacked by the emotions involved in having children of their own, so mole hills become mountains, and everyone forgets that no one is dying from Polio anymore! Everyone forgets that Christians don’t get dipped in tar, have their mouths sewn shut, set on fire, and hung on a pole to light the road into Rome anymore.

Yet all the visible signs of a better world speak nothing of the heart’s condition. With the freedom of speech and the freedom of lunacy, the ease and universal nature of communication mediums, the inflammatory tendency of the media, there is mass confusion, a hiding of truth in the noise of opinion and commentary. This confusion added to the already confused state of most Western young people, whose legacy is one of confusion and non-clarity. No one knows who they are, where they are, why they are. The hearts of the fathers have turned from those of the sons, and because of this, the sons have done the same to their fathers. Starting with the industrial age, and ending in the death of any resemblance of the family necessary for proper nurture and care. Even though I can spend 8 hours in a plane and land on the other side of the planet unharmed, the world is full of despair and confusion.

Yes, we are wonderful, but we are despaired. Maybe, with this widespread darkness of the inner self, we do actually live in the darkest days... yet.

1 comment:

John said...

I think when people say the world was better when they were young, they really mean that THEIR world was better. Youth isn't necessarily ignorant bliss, it's just youthful bliss. As you grow older you simply miss that, and tend to believe the world actually WAS better back then.

Maybe age just makes your more realistic and less prone for idealism.

Maybe.