Something's Rotten in the State of Denmark. And elsewhere...
What if we've been stressing over all the wrong things?
Sometimes something comes to my mind that I haven’t thought of in years. I remember sitting on my patio reading the Sunday paper, back when there were Sunday papers. It was a beautiful morning in spring. My yard is nestled in among numerous mature trees all around. It’s a wonderful, tranquil place to be on a Sunday morning.
So, I’ve got my face in the paper on this terrific spring morning on the patio that looks out onto my yard with mature trees all around, when I heard a loud crack. I looked up just in time to see one of these tall trees fall down into my yard. It only took a few seconds, from upright to lying in my yard.
How did it happen? The tree was rotted out on the inside. On the outside, the tree had always appeared healthy. Leaves were growing and everything seemed fine. And then CRACK! and in a few seconds it was on the ground.
Yes, this is a metaphor. It was an actual event then but today it’s a metaphor. And chances are you have already guessed what it’s a metaphor for. Why would you know? Is there rot going on that is so evident that we all know? Is it not hidden? It does seems that some don’t see it, or at least don’t want to see it.
But let’s leave that thought for a moment and consider more wood. I am a woodworker. I’ve made many different sorts of things from various woods, and I’ve gotten up close and personal with the work of others, spanning back centuries. And I know rot. Rot is interesting. It always comes from the inside. A house can look to be in good shape, but be in very bad shape structurally, where you can’t see it. A fresh coat of paint can make a house seem nearly new even as it is disintegrating structurally.
Rot hates the sun. More properly, the sun hates rot. Rot cannot grow on the outside where the sun shines. It only grows where the wood is moist, need not be wet, just moist. And there it can slowly, not suddenly, decay the wood, making it weaker and weaker and structurally unsound.
But on the outside, everything looks as good as ever. I’ve seen individual pieces of wood that appear to be in absolutely perfect shape, yet you can poke your finger right through it. That’s because the only place the wood didn’t rot was on the outside. The outer eighth of an inch stayed solid because it remained dryer and was exposed to the sun, but everything inside of that had all the solidity of a wet sponge.
There are people living in houses today that think their house is sound, but it’s not. I’ve had it happen to me. Over the years a major section of our sunroom was taking on water from a leak in the roof. Nothing showed, inside or out. I didn’t know there was a leak. It must have been at least ten years before I noticed paint ‘blowing off’ of the siding outside. That’s a sure sign of water where it shouldn’t be. Once I got into it, I found I needed to make major structural repairs.
Fortunately, I know how to do such things. But if only I’d known about that leak earlier. I would only have had to repair a leak, not rebuild a major portion of my house. Live and learn, right?
Yes, this is a metaphor. This is not a lesson on woodworking and construction. Nobody doesn’t know that our culture is rotting. We argue over whose fault it is and what to do about it, but we know the rot is there. It’s been there a long time, but some are only just now seeing it. We argue over who should fix it, and how much it will cost. We hire ‘experts’, but increasingly we see that the ‘experts’ aren’t really fixing anything. Yet, they keep sending us bills.
This is the point at which I tell you the solution. And I would, if I had one. I have, at best, some observations. The solution will involve letting the sun shine everywhere, inside and out. The solution will involve firing the charlatans. A charlatan is a person who finds people’s weaknesses and finds a way to monetize those weaknesses. Charlatans do not solve problems, they create them. Fire the charletans. Denounce them. Ban them. Turn away from them. THEY are the rot.
But who are they? How do you recognize them? Perhaps the commonality to all charlatans is that they must, in order to pull off the scam, get people to have implicit faith in them. They must get people to suspend disbelief and have absolute faith that the charlatan is the answer to their problems. Because then the charlatan can milk them for all they’ve got.
But charlatans know they can’t fool just anybody. They can only fool those who have too little trust in themselves, or who are too mentally lazy to make their own inspection of the situation. Salesmen fascinate me. Not all salesmen are charlatans, but some are. Yes, I’ve been fooled, in the past. But you can’t sell me anything these days. I will make my own assessments, and buy in accordance with my assessments. But you can’t sell me anything.
But the selling is going on, all day, every day. The house is rotting, and we’ve got siding salesmen telling us their siding will solve the problem. We’ve got roofing salesmen selling us roofing. Maybe new windows would help. How about a fresh coat of paint? The salesmen we are dealing with in our metaphor can not stop the rot, they ARE the rot. It is our house, we must repair it. And we must maintain it. What, really does that consist of? I would suggest that we must each decide for ourselves what that consists of. But make those decisions based on a rational, compassionate observation of the reality, not on what the salesmen are selling.
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I was going to end it there, but I have this nagging feeling. I have this nagging feeling that many people will read this and conclude that they were right all along. That they were right to hate politician xxxxxxx and hate party xxxxxxx, and to revere politician xxxxxxx and revere party xxxxxxx. Also, they will think such and such media are the ones you can trust, but that OTHER media is full of lies.
If you really believe any of that, boy have I got a DEAL for you on SIDING!
This song is only marginally related to this post, but it’s a great song!
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