The definition of insanity is, doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome.
We all do it, of course.
It is human nature.
However, as Katharine Hepburn tells Humphrey Bogart in “The African Queen,” “Nature, Mr. Allnut, is what we are put in this world to rise above.”
As we approach a new year, we will be tempted, once again, to follow human nature, to fall into the old habits, to keep doing the same thing over and over again, and to expect a different outcome.
We certainly will experience this from our “leaders” as they spend more and more of our tax money to accomplish less and less. As they continue to tell us obvious, outright lies that we will accept, based on their popularity with the boob tube talking heads.
For example, as you have seen expressed on this page in recent editions, they will continue to attempt to tell Senior Citizens that they don’t need any improvement in Social Security payments — not because of fiscal realities, which these citizens might accept — no, they will make the argument that there is no need for a cost of living adjustment because there is no such thing as inflation in our nation.
Bull!
But if enough of us accept the bull, then its perpetrators can get away with substituting it for the truth.
It has happened plenty in the past and the bull machine is in high gear, presently.
That is the status quo that we are expected to just accept in 2011, and if we sit back, stare at the tube, continue to stop thinking and let things go, then we will get what we deserve.
If we want real change, then we need to do some things differently in 2011.
Turn off the TV.
Seriously.
Try turning it off.
Read.
Visit with your neighbors.
Attend a local government meeting.
Read some more.
Learn something new.
It’s worth a try.
We have been lulled into sleep-walking and it is time to wake up, step out and start educating ourselves again.
It’s also time that we start communicating with each other and working together.
The national movement to convince Americans to “cocoon” has been far too successful, because we lazily allowed it to succeed.
As we approach a new year, we need to ask ourselves if we really want to see something change in our culture.
If we do, then we will have to make it happen by changing ourselves.
Or we can just sit back, do the same thing and see where we end up as we approach 2012.
But we’d have to be crazy to expect anything to be different.
— Chuck Smith