Earlier today I received a quite heated and heat seeking albeit not very well guided missive. It came from a one-time member of one of the bands with which there is an interview with one or more members in the book. The individual was quite wroth with me for an off-handed comment I had made about them in a public forum to another band member. Said former member, amidst some weak attempts at personal slams, went to great lengths in proclaiming their stated value to said band as affirmed by its leader. The attempts at insults were embarrassing by schoolyard standards and warrant no reply. The claim of value, though… most interesting. Especially in light of how they are based on events of twenty years ago.
When the individual in question was fired from the band.
There’s a slogan on a t-shirt I often see for sale at assorted auto racing events I attend that reads “the older I get, the better I was.” It’s a natural tendency for us to, as the years accumulate between then and now, view then in an increasingly kinder light as far as our contribution to same. Boy, you should have seen and/or heard and/or read me then. I was young and on fire. You could feel the passion, everything awash in raw skill. I was king of the mountain. Nothing could get in my way. Which of course explains why we’re sitting around telling stories about what we once did as opposed to, oh, still doing whatever it was we once did.
Rewriting history is something of a cottage industry in this world. It’s a combination of insisting that 2+2=5 and turning a blind eye to what actually was in favor of what we wish would have been. While it creates a comfortable fantasy in which we can dwell, the problem with such revisionist tripe aside from how it consists of our believing our own lies is the denial of our having been where and who we were supposed to be at that time of our lives on this planet.
Let’s face facts. We weren’t that great. We weren’t that great, because if we were that great we’d be today where yesterday we thought we’d be today. We’re not. Now are we. And we never will be there. Now will we.
We can play the embittered regret woulda coulda shoulda game from now until we’re worm food. What will that gain us? Aside from reinforcing embittered regret or delusions of what and who we once were, that is. Why can’t we embrace the notion that despite our perception of not presently being who and where we ought to be meaning we have failed or been failed by others we are in fact precisely where God from eternity to eternity intended us to be at this moment in our lives?
I can come up with a dozen’s dozen reasons for tying myself to the whipping post for things I’ve done or haven’t done in my life without fear of repetition. What benefit will this be to anyone? Is it not far better for me to embrace the whole of reality about myself, good and bad? If I do so, I open myself to God working in my life at the only time where such work can be of benefit to myself and others. That time is now. Twenty years ago? Not so much.
If you’re going to tie yourself to the whipping post, let it be this one:
[video http://www.diecast-dude.com/gac/whipping_post_allman_bros.flv nolink]
