Tempus fugit, anyone? For the Boomer generation (of which I am one) there’s plenty of remembrances of things past. Several decades worth. That metaphorical rearview mirror of memory will, for anyone of any age, become quite cluttered with an array of vivid to murky recollections that may or may not provide any current forward movement. Considering how important is is to keep one’s eyes on the road, literally or figuratively, one needs be careful about letting side or rearview mirrors control one’s attention. They can provide safety, but as easily betray one’s attention at the exact worst time. With a clear head and sense of purpose, proceed ahead, and use experience to avoid past pitfalls. The future is now and the past, all at once. It’s the journey, right?, and not the destination. To quote Marcel Proust, your voyage of discovery is not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes. Are your eyes wide open? Are you seeing things, in the here and now, clearly? What do you see? Do you like the landscape of your mind’s eye? Does your perceived reality make any sense? At all? Is reality open to interpretation or set in stone? New eyes? Hmm. Look around. Are your mental mirrors clean or coated with an ever thicker film that frustrates needed clarity? Can you scrape off the grit and grime on your metaphorical windows to the world and see reality for what it is, and isn’t? Are you really the one behind the wheel, or just along for the ride? And wanting to get out and take control? Finally. Get that self-help book, but realize that if someone besides yourself wrote it, you are still not in control? Exactly who–or what–is behind that curtain?

And by now you must be wondering why you are still reading this posting?, as it does nothing but ask questions while providing zero answers. Of course it has no answers but only questions–all having to do with the road of life for one and all, generation to generation, a perception of a possible reality but impossible to make sense of much of anything, anymore, to provide any answer that makes any sense, as common sense seems to have been revoked by the authorities and up is now down, down is now up, wrong is now right and right is now wrong, reality is right there in front of your eyes but that’s in the very small frame of your self-righteous consciousness, while the bigger frame, the one that is filled with what seems to be nothing but doublespeak, doublethink, facecrime, crimethink, war is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength, has become a fearsome matter of fact once born of fiction. That fiction is not 1984. It’s now 2024. And everyday, for a long time now here in the U.S of A, the fiction of 1984 has been co-opted and deployed in a stupefying slight-of-hand that defies logic while common sense and critical thinking has now become a virtual superpower, although in many corners of the country common sense has been literally outlawed, to mute the protests of defiant, opposing thinkers. 2024 is the tipping point, and resistance to its current authoritarian trajectory needs to prevail, to roadblock its nefarious agenda, surround it and crush it. Then the road ahead will lead to saner and safer destinations, with new eyes that see a crook for a crook, and make that crook pay, that see how wrong is wrong, and how easy it actually can be to seek to do the right thing, in a logical, moral, compassionate manner. Correct the mass media’s messaging, and restore it’s once truth-seeking mission. Call bullshit instead of spreading it. You know like it…like…I think…as…uh…as I seem to have a vague memory of it being such but now come to think of it, hardly ever, maybe never really was. Mis-remembrance of things past? Or so suggest the history tomes with their own rearview mirrors looking back at so much chaos and carnage. Recall Joyce’s lament about history being a nightmare from which he must awake. Eyes wide open and shut all at once…

2024, the year of the Dragon. Will that dragon be benign or bellicose? Each incarnation has been invoked as possible. Narratives abound. What will 2024’s story entail? We’ll find out in about ten months. In the meantime, as easy as it is to fall back on Hemingway’s try not to think about it prescription for approaching evil, don’t forget Edmund Burke: the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil, is for good people to do nothing. Power to the people! Right on! I think I’ll go with a spin on Gil-Scott Heron’s message of righteous anger and political assertiveness: The revolution will not be televised. In this digital, social media age? It’ll be in plain sight. It will go viral. Let us hope.