Meditation for March 9th
Traditionalists Versus Progressives
Some of us want to always be in the past. The idea of change is hard for us. We fight for old ways, even if we weren’t alive to live them. We take political documents and religious texts literally. We always say, “It ain’t like it used to be.” Others want change and lots of change. They believe that if we always move forward, we will be better off. They want to drastically change political documents and religious texts if they don’t want to get rid of them altogether. They are always heard saying, “I have an idea,” or “In Sweden…”
The traditionalist thinks that things were better in the past. They look at culture and life back then with envy or nostalgia. They miss a time when black people had different drinking fountains, and women were seen and not heard. They look fondly on how the military-industrial complex boosted the economy, and how the bad guys were so easy to spot: Russians and Chinese. Some even look at those two countries as still enemies.
They want things to stay the same. This really means that the person has no imagination or intelligence. This concept is like someone who listens only to music, watches only movies, and dresses in the fashion of a short period in the past. Wouldn’t that be ridiculous? To want to live in perpetual nostalgia? They need something like a constitution or a bible to tell them what to believe and what opinions to have. They need a sure thing that already happened to be their ideal.
A lot of people just won’t let go of that one to five-year period when things went pretty well and will do anything to make it like that again, or remind everyone they come into contact with that it was better than. They will compare what people are doing now with what people were doing then. They believe that if people saw how dumb things are now, they would all see that it would be a better way to do everything. Again, this would be like saying that music and movies from a past period are perfect and that nothing will ever be good again.
Then there are the progressives. They can’t stand anything standing still for a minute without changing it or making it move. While the traditionalists might be reimagining history, the progressives won’t even look at it. Nothing should be like it was or is, but what it should be like in the future. They won’t accept anything from the past as fine; it needs to change, all of it.
Progressives are scared of sitting still. They think the world should move at their speed. Nature doesn’t have a single speed. Cheetahs and tortoises don’t even hang out in the same ecosystem. Even if nothing is broken, nobody is getting hurt, and everyone is more or less happy, the progressive will find the drama between the lines and try to change everything.
Progressives like to compare how other people and groups do it. Like the traditionalists who compare eras to now, progressives see things that are really different and complicated to add to our lives here, especially if they’re from Scandinavia, where they originated.
Progressives are just idiots who are scared of looking stupid by not saying anything. They make up for their lack of intelligence by always proposing change. They find something wrong with everything that is done now and how it’s done, and try to change it to an unproven method or one that doesn’t fit the demographic. They can’t leave well enough alone.
Then there are the traditionalists who think they are being progressive and the progressives who think they are traditionalists. Leave these idiots alone because they have no idea who they are, let alone how to do politics or what’s good for society. Usually, they post anything that seems important to Facebook without doing any real research. You’ll see the fake news, contradicting politics and social commentary. They also seem to post a lot, like they think it is important.
Prayer
Simon the Zealot,
why can’t people know that it used to be done differently?
Was it done better?
Things were better back then.
The city was better before all these people moved here.
This music scene was better than; no one plays their own instruments anymore.
Everyone was prosperous in the 50s.
Society was better when everyone went to church.
Before the thugs showed up and ruined the NBA.
Before everyone got all PC.
Before the government started taking things from us.
Before rap.
Things were so much better when no one was freaking out about gluten,
building condos,
driving wrong,
interpreting the Constitution wrong, and ignoring Supreme Court rulings that interpret those laws.
Why do people ignore history?
Why do people not respect what was already here?
Why do we have to talk differently?
Why are people always complaining?
Things used to be ok.
I should know, I’m 22 years old.
Janus,
Give me the strength to change this,
to fight this,
start a revolution!
People who don’t want change are stuck in the mud, man.
In Iceland, they do it the best way –
Although comparing a tiny island of 40,000 square miles with the population of under 400,000 of primarily one kind of person to a nation of ethno and racial diversity and a population of 318.9 million people on 3.8 million square feet of land might be the reason it might not work here, but hey, progress is all about making mistakes.
I need people to stop saying that,
start saying this,
wait! can’t say this anymore,
now you have to say this other thing – until it’s wrong too because it’s hard to fight on fifty to a hundred different fronts.
I know things are fine, but why be stagnant?
Add this.
Take this away.
Need more of this,
need less of that.
Even though all of this is theory,
I’m an expert.
If I can think it,
it can work in reality.
Because it works for other people,
it’ll work for us.
I can never leave anything be.
Give me the power to change other people’s lives forever.
Amen.
Craft
For the Progressive:
Get rid of every music you have and keep these three albums: Gin Blossom’s New Miserable Experience, Foghat’s Live, and New Edition’s self-titled second album. You cannot listen to anything but those three albums. You can shuffle those three albums, play one for a long time until you want to beat yourself with a keytar, then play the next album, but that’s all you can listen to.
Only watch the TV shows Taxi, Dear John, and Benson. Watch all the episodes in a row, shuffle them, or watch them out of order; it doesn’t matter, for you can only watch those three shows.
Wear unlabeled grey and black clothing. Keep hair clean but unstyled. Be unimpressed with anything that isn’t the three albums you listen to or the three TV shows you watch. If someone happens to bring any of those up, jump for joy and gloat about how much you love those bands and shows and how they don’t make shows or music like that anymore.
For the traditionalist:
When anyone says anything about anything, you have to say, “I love that!” even if you’ve never heard of it.
Goal
Progressives need to learn to settle down, watch, and listen before jumping into something with a list of changes. Not everything needs to be changed. Sometimes things need to change at the pace it is already going, so butting in with your big ideas is actually going to ruin everything. Stop ruining everything. Things can be good enough.
Traditionalists need to realize that, as time seems linear, things will keep getting newer and changing. It will never be like it was before. So many factors go into making things change over time. It doesn’t mean it’s not bad, just different. The literal meaning of anything is something that is stuck in time and cannot grow with time. Traditionalists need to remember that things sucked back then, too. It was more racist, more violent, fewer rights, fewer money, fewer comforts, fewer freedoms, fewer technologies, fewer sexy undergarments, fewer free porn, fewer serious music, more decadence, fewer people being real, more war, death, and famine. The only thing that used to be that really is missed today is 120 Minutes.
Traditionalists might want to keep things as they used to be, and progressives might want to change them to something they think could be; either way, they want to keep capitalism, and that, my friends, is what ails us.