Youth to Adult

 

I had just turned 16 years of age when I became interested in politics...  the year was 1963 and Kennedy had been shot and killed right before Thanksgiving...  I was living in Cairo, Egypt as my Father had accepted a position with the US Embassy there as the Agricultural Attache.  In 1966, when I graduated from high school and left Egypt to attend college in North Carolina, Vietnam War Protests were in full swing along with Civil Rights Marches led by Martin Luther King Jr as well as other prominent racial leaders of that time.

I was on the verge of outgrowing my teenage years and becoming a young adult who theoretically was mature and responsible but I was far from that transition I later realized, and it would be years before I actually became mature and responsible even after getting married and enlisting in the US Navy.

Because of President Kennedy and what he stood for and represented, I became a DEMOCRAT in my political beliefs and was strongly opposed to "the man" who for me was represented by wealthy businessmen and Republicans who were using war as a means of generating economic wealth for themselves and their companies at the expense of their workers and the soldiers who were being killed overseas fighting someone else's battles all because we were convinced that the rest of the world had to be like US...

I am now 72 years of age and its been 56 years since I first became interested in politics and I am NO LONGER a Kennedy DEMOCRAT but I am not a Republican either...  I suppose that you might say that I am a Conservative Liberal, but not so liberal that I am Socialist.  I am conservative because I basically do not believe GOING INTO DEBT to get what ONE THINKS ONE NEEDS...  I also realize that one needs very little to enjoy what life offers and that MONEY does not always provide one with HAPPINESS.

HAPPINESS IS AN INTERNAL CONSTRUCT to use a phrase from The Matrix... and, it is not about taking the red or the blue pill but about a state of mind that comes from an awareness of acceptance concerning life and one's purpose in that life.

Once one understands this, politics and everything else around you becomes sort of irrelevant... and rather meaningless relative to that awareness...

QUESTION:  Doesn't it seem rather pointless that we only live for 80 to 100 years?

Personally, I imagine that many people probably don't give a shit about that question but if you did...  think about it for a minute?

What is the point?

What are we supposed to accomplish?

Why is our life that long or that short?

By the time we discover how to live longer, we'll be dead.

Not everyone will become a billionaire.

Not everyone will become a millionaire.

Not everyone will be successful.

Not everyone will leave behind a legacy.

Most of us will accomplish very little.