This was on the radio on my way home tonight and I started thinking about my senior years rock music of the 60s class. Although this isnt an actual war protest song, it still got me thinking about the kind of time this song was written in. I find that I sometimes lose perspective of where my own problems lie in relation to the rest of the world, the majority of which spends most of their time trying to keep a roof over their heads and food on the table, and a large minority of which is spending most of their waking hours trying to find wood to burn. Along a similar vein, we as a group of collective thinkers, workers, educators, entrepreneurs, etc. tend to lose perspective of where our larger problems lie in relation to what large problems could really exist. This song was written during one of the most tumultuous times in our nations history. A year after this song was released, Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. Three years prior, our nations president was shot and killed. Thats not an experience I have ever experienced, the closest being the shock of September 11th, and even then, I was in 5th grade. Four years prior to this song, the Cuban missile crisis basically threatened the future of modern society (at best). Ive personally never, in my life, had to deal with that fear. And I think that very statement is a testament to the fact that, although we still face incredible tragedy such as the events in Paris or the Boston bombings, our day-to-day lives are undeniably set in a higher standard of living than our parents generation ever experienced. Steven Pinker had a great TED talk on where we stand in terms of peace and war time. He articulated very clearly (and as a Harvard experimental psychologist, hes an authority in my book) that, despite the tragedy and tumult that can still be found around the world today, all of the information thats been collected points to the same irrefutable, and for some of the more dramatic out there, inconvenient, fact suggested by my reference to the 60s: Were living in the most peaceful era experienced by our species - ever. And so Im feeling a little more grateful tonight, and simply want to provide a similar perspective to you as we wake up tomorrow and start seeing the latest headlines.
Posted on: Fri, 16 Jan 2015 01:59:41 +0000
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