What Have We Done?

It is a cultural crime that the modern world has committed. In our hands we hold wonderful tools for communication... television, radio, music magazines and newspapers. And of course, the computer and the internet. And we have squandered all of these mediums of communication. If the medium is the message, a statement about who we are and what we are, then the foolish and pointless use we have made of all of these inventions speaks badly about us.

Look anywhere and there is an endless supply of pointless and gratuitous sex being peddled. The music that comes at us from every direction has been dumbed down to the lowest common denominator. Those who produce television shows have taken the path of least resistance and doled out to us one reality show after another. They produce too many television series without merit or value and sitcoms that just are not clever or even worth watching. Even the ads aren't very interesting anymore. Newspapers no longer serve to inform us very well and are starting to disappear. Magazines are shadows of what they used to be. Magazines now have a lot more pictures and a lot less text and are mostly about the newest things one can buy out there in the marketplace. Even the venue of Broadway has been dumbed down.

The public wants to be entertained and the media folks give them what they want, in increasing measure with each passing day. Even the news broadcast has to be entertaining enough to garner the highest ratings possible and the news broadcasters have to be easy on the eye. The latter part is more important than their ability to bring us the most important news of the day.

The world changes so quickly these days. Somehow, in all this change and transition, something very significant and important has been lost. The ability to express ourselves coherently and intelligently. The capacity to think and analyze what is happening to us and our world. The capacity to feel and to be compassionate and to care about others in a meaningful way. Such things don't seem to mean very much anymore. So long as the media moguls keep us laughing or singing along with the latest stuff that passes for music today, most people are happy and pacified.

So much has been lost. This is not progress.

The Plan

I have been searching for myself lately. Amidst the chaos of our economy and of my own life, for a time I have found myself lost, or more precisely, at a loss, in my own life. These are confusing times. These are difficult times to navigate. These are difficult times in which to maintain one's focus. And these are certainly uncertain times during which it is occasionally very difficult to think clearly, especially when more and more, surviving even the day becomes the most pressing problem.

What is at risk in the process is our humanity, our dreams and our aspirations. Somewhere among paying the bills, keeping a roof over our heads, keeping gasoline in the car and making sure there is food on the table, doing those things which we most long to do, ceases to be a priority. We we are forced to do whatever it will take to survive the moment. I am no different than anyone else these days. Day to day, I am just trying to survive until the economy recovers. There is that awful sense that really significant parts of my life are simply shutting down. Life has become a bit darker and depressing.

Still, always on the tip of my tongue are the words, "And yet...." And yet, what? We pay a price when we fully abandon dreams. We pay a price when we just set aside our personal aspirations, in the face of a personal crisis. I fully believe that no matter how seriously chaotic or disruptive are the times in which we live, we still must never fully abandon or forget the shining hopes that inspired us to become more than we are today. It is that element of hope that enables us to keep going, no matter how bad things may get. It is that hope that allows us to rise above almost any situation and to somehow give hope to others or to continue to make a difference in the world.

I am, like everyone else, a unique person. I possess certain unique talents and I have the potential to touch the lives of other people in my own particular way. There is no guarantee that my partular personal attributes or my skill sets will enable me to make a comfortable living or make survival in these challenging times any easier. But, for me, individual survival is about much more than monetary considerations. No matter what, I need to sustain a healthy level of self-esteem, to retain the capacity to love others and be loved and to maintain a healthy sense of humor. I do not care how stressed out I become, I never want to lose the capacity to be compassionate and caring. I never want to lose that hope that someday I will realize at least some of the dreams I have for my life. Even if my life is difficult and limited today, I never want to lose that hope that in time, it will get better.

When life is bumpy, it is very easy to lose these qualities, amidst the struggle to simply survive. So at the end of a tough day, I try to remind myself to remember those qualities and hopes that make life bearable and worth living. At the top of my to do list, are reminders to tell my wife and my kids I love them and to go out of my way to help someone else. I am not being noble or particularly wonderful. In fact, I am doing something for myself. I am preserving my own humanity and bringing light and joy and happiness into my life. By doing that, I can partly dispel the darkness and cynicism that difficult times bring with them.

Well, I have made it to the end of yet one more day. I am still in one piece and I am not yet defeated. But tomorrow is another day. Tomorrow, at the end of the day, I may well have to remind myself yet one more time about never giving up and about being kind and compassionate to other people and all the other items I listed above. It may not be rocket science, but it works for me.

Sightseeing [Part 1]

By any definition, Charlie Lester was a successful fellow. After too many years as a successful accountant at a big firm, he had quit his job and struck out on his own, twelve months ago. He wanted a better life for himself and his family. A year later, things were going well for him and it looked like he has going to get just that.

On this particular afternoon, he couldn't concentrate on the computer screen in front of him. He had tried six times to locate the cause of an error in the books, with little success. He experienced mental gridlock and although it was only 5 pm, he decided to try again in the morning. He had put in long hours for a year and he felt worn out. After he cleared his desk and packed his briefcase, he got up to go home to his family.

Sarah Winslow, his administrative assistant, seemed surprised to see him leaving before six pm. She always put in as many hours as it took to get the work out, without complaint. He appreciated that and told her to wrap things up and go home early today. What still needed to be done would be there in the morning waiting for the two of them.

Lately, Charlie had the sense that something was missing in his life. He couldn't exactly pinpoint what that something was. However, he knew that he had lost that initial excitement he had experienced when he had set up his own company. Now, the wonderful challenge had become just work, pretty much the same from day to day.

The main reason he had left the firm was that he wanted to spend more time with his family. After leaving, he had discovered that he was spending more time working for himself than when he was working for someone else.

As he walked to his car, he knew that things were not working out as he thought they would. Something was wrong with this picture. But what?

To be continued...

The Adventure Begins

Everyone of us is a JourneyMan. We are born. We navigate the difficult journey of life. At some point our life comes to an end. Each of us has a story to tell.

In the stories, poems and other short pieces which will appear in this blog, we will explore different slices of life to discover what really happens out there in the world. We will intrude into the hidden moments in the lives of people we don't know and have never met. If we can look upon their experiences with compassion and objectivity, perhaps we can begin to get a sense of the impact of the events in their lives on each person. And maybe the world outside will even begin to make a little more sense to us. Strangely, we are better able to understand how the world works in the story of one person than in the history of what happened collectively to six million people.

David Merrick, the well-known Broadway producer, wrote, "The best [song] lyrics are always the simple ones; and a capacity for meaningful simplicity [demands] great talent." That is no less true for anyone who aspires to be a wordsmith. The trademark of my stories will be brevity and meaningful simplicity, as time is a scarce commodity in the age of information and insights which touch our very soul even scarcer.

So the journey begins. I will spin the tales as they come to me. Let me know if you are enjoying these modest attempts to peer into usually hidden corners of the world. Let me hear from you if you do.

Kindest regards,

Howard Fireman