Life

Life, we go through it with blinders on

We see what we want not what is there

We don’t care

But my eyes are opening

I see a world where we spend billions of dollars on national sports

While our children are starving and homeless

I see a world where our technology is so advanced

Our twelve year olds can build bombs

I see a world where drugged up alcoholic entertainers are regarded as heroes

While our police officers are hated

I see a world where love is based on a sexual encounter

And not on how we make each other feel

I see a world where we are judged by our looks

And not instead by our knowledge

I see a world where a murder can gain pity from a jury

While the deformed are mocked and scorned

I see a world where people are stressed about money

While their children are committing crimes

I see a world where we can justify killing of an entire ecosystem

For fence posts

I see a world where we spend more on prisons and detention centres

Than on libraries and churches

I see a world where a child can graduate

Without knowing how to read

Where old cars last longer than new ones

Where prison is better than home

Where trust is but a novel idea

Where we’re better off alone

Now that the blinders are lifting

And I’m seeing the world as it is

I’m terribly scared and I’m frightened

This isn’t a life I can live

I find it disturbing how we as a society have fallen over the last few decades.  There was time where doors were never locked and children could play on the streets but that time is lost to us.  I can't trust that when I send my kid to school that he is safe.  I can't trust that when I go away for a weekend that my stuff will be there when I get back.  Infidelity is as common as breathing these days and so few marriages last.  I am getting married this fall and I would love to be sure that it will last forever but there is always that nagging thing telling me that people don't last anymore.  I hope that by the time my children are grown we have regressed as a society and can go back to being good to each other.  I doubt it.

 Did lovers really fall in love to stay
And stand beside each other come what may?
Was a promise really something people kept
Not just something they would say?
Did families really bow their heads to pray?
Did daddies really never go away?
Oh, Grandpa, tell me 'bout the good old days
- The Judds