California Expert Software

Introduction

In the process of becoming a curmudgeon, avoiding the wheelchair for a time, and, possibly, escaping death as well during the last year or so, I also seem to have undergone other personality changes.

This Fall, I am besieged with notices and pleadings from causes, asking for my involvement and money. I have not responded, as, finally and selfishly, I am pursuing what's left of my life for myself. I think that is consistent with views still evolving out of my writing GSQ ...

One thing pressing its full weight on me is the futility of my efforts. I have been a proverbial "voice in the wilderness" most of my life. There was a short time in the late 1960s when it seemed the world might be radically revised in a more humane way. There were revolutionary explosions of young people all over the world, demanding new and different orders of being. I became and remained deeply committed to those values and ideas. But, for most people, all that proved to be an excess of enthusiasm, a seasonal efflorescence of raging hormones. All too soon, people withdrew into themselves, becoming the "Me Generation." Community, sociability were lost in the winding of cocoons around mated parents and their offspring. The noise of youth was much louder than usual in the 1960s, but, retrospectively, that is all it was for most people.

A few of us were deluded in the 1960s that, this time, things would be different. I spent a life, and lost most of my earnings, hoping, over and over, that this time, things would be different. But, they never were. Looking back, I would have done better by turning my back on the demands of others long ago. I gained the key insight during the winter of 1965-66, sitting in my office at the Vietnam Day (anti-war movement) headquarters. It was that tall, unkempt, crazy fellow, the Progressive Labor Party (PLP) freak, waving the Little Red Book, saying over and over, "The Revolution is Coming," who convinced me it was not. And it did not, although I hoped deeply and earnestly that someday it would. I have great sympathy with Charlie Brown's waiting for the Great Pumpkin.

Writing GSQ brought me back to that central insight, learned and forgotten long ago. The United States had too much inertia to undergo a revolt. So, it was either get off the rocket or go along for the ride. I wanted to get off, but didn't. I regret that. In fact, I regret that lack of willpower more than any other decision or non-decision of my life. I made some half-hearted efforts to go elsewhere 30 years ago, but didn't follow through. That was a major mistake.

What's obvious is that things are as they are because people go along. Americans go along to get along, or so they think. The likelihood of systemic collapse within the lifetimes of those now young is ignored. Most people are unable to look beyond a few days or months in anticipation of events yet to happen. Of course, the improvement of modernity is exactly that far greater horizon - a few days or months more than the day-to-day existence of our ancestors. Maybe it is too much to ask to look years and decades ahead.

It is obvious to me that what happens is the result of collective non-decision making. People's unconsidered culture - their belief, habits and rituals - guide them throughout life. It should be just as obvious, given the vaunted intellectual abilities of Homo sapiens, that a considered decision could bring about completely different results. The old Russian saying starts, "a man is not a pig ..."

So I have become Odysseus, who preferred sowing salt in his plowed seashore furrows to fighting another bloody war. If you would have your honor avenged or defended, you do it.

Introduction
In the process of becoming a curmudgeon, avoiding the wheelchair for a time, and, possibly, escaping death as well during the last year or so, I also seem to have undergone other personality changes. This Fall, I am besieged with notices and pleadings from causes, asking for my involvement and money. I have not responded, as, finally and selfishly, I am pursuing what's left of my life for myself. I think that is consistent with views still evolving out of my writing GSQ ...

Matters of Interest