Love thy neighbor

Love the show Newsroom but Will McEvoy is wrong inasmuch as we are still the greatest country on Earth. Have we lost our way? Yes, to a large degree we have. Unfortunately we have degenerated into a race baiting, ill informed, amoral, greedy, selfish country. Be that as it may we still lead the worlds charge against its greatest ills (cancer, HIV, etc), we still lead the world in humanitarian outreach to speak nothing of the fact that we are , and I mean this literally, the last best hope of man on Earth. We still shine as the beacon of freedom, or that "city upon a hill" Winthrop professed 400 years ago. Where we have gone wrong, in my humble opinion, is we forgot one simple thing ....love thy neighbor. Simple.  Perfect. Beautiful.  America used to be a place where we loved thy neighbor. He was next to us on bunker hill fighting off the red coats and declaring freedom; our neighbor was next to us on the beaches of Normandy and Okinawa restoring the world to liberty and ridding it of tyranny. Our neighbor was someone we knew by full name, and entire family history. Even when most people didnt lock their doors at night, their neighbor had a spare key lest they accidentally get locked and bc we trusted and loved our neighbor. Our kids went to school together, played together and were raised to value the same things. Values that were passed on generationally. Words like honesty, integrity, pride, loyalty, diligence, perseverance, and opportunity defined us. We didnt use them as throw away lines for some commercial during ratings month, caught between busty bikini beer models and boner ads. No. Absolutely not. We loved our neighbor bc we knew them. When they struggled, we helped. We often entrusted them with the care of our children, and help raise each others kids. There was a time when your neighbor would discipline your child no different than you would when it was called for. And now we have ignorant little fuckheads running around the grocery store screaming and throwing anything they want in the shopping the cart as if they were trying to prepare one of my Sunday meals, while the morbidly obese parent does absolutely nothing. However, when little Johnny develops diabetes and ADD at the age  of 10 everyone will look and shake their head but no one , NO ONE, will accept blame. It takes a village to raise a child, and when we loved our neighbor we knew that. 

Now our neighbors are nameless faces. Cursory glances exchanged when passing in the street in gas guzzling SUVs, where before hand shakes and hugs were exchanged on front lawns during real conversations. If I could offer one piece of advice to fixing this cluster fuck of confrontation we call a society (not that anyone would freakin listen) it would be LOVE THY NEIGHBOR. 

America, as messed up as it is, is still the greatest country on earth. I honestly believe if we followed that one commandment 90% of the problems would disappear. America is and always has been the most benevolent country in this history of man. No country has ever sacrificed as much for total strangers as America has. God willing no country will ever have to again and it will be because America stands at the ready to defend freedom. We are not the war mongering,  cold hearted devil the Hollywood and liberal moon bats would have us believe we are; nor are we the too big to fail nanny welfare state the right would have us believe. 

We are the land of opportunity. There's a reason it's called the American Dream. It's not the French dream (i surrender) ; the Irish dream (praise a land that makes us refugees), it's not the English dream bc we threw those bastards out. The world over its called the American Dream and what could be more flattering than that? Seriously. Don't tell me for one second we're not the best country on Earth. You are promised more here than anywhere else ever! Where we have gone too far is trying to promise equal outcome. You need to earn that, like tomorrow , that isn't promised to anyone. All we need to do is get back to those values of 

honesty, integrity, pride, loyalty, diligence, perseverance, opportunity and love our neighbor. 

We must never forget freedom and opportunity  are never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass them on to our children in the bloodstream. They m must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.

Then we will fight them in the shade

Why are we so afraid of failure? We hide it from our friends and family, often times only disclosing it in an alcohol induced text message as if that were an appropriate way to break bad news. And why? Is it because we honestly our friends will think less of us when they find out we failed or that something in our life went bad? Your marriage fell apart through no fault of your own, and you're afraid to tell people bc you think what? That we will think less of you? That your true friends will get some amount of schadenfreude out of it? You lost your job but keep it to yourself nc you think anyone who truly loves you will measures your quality by your employment status? Truth be told, success is over rated; failure is far more valuable, even though is it infinitely more painful. I've learned more about myself and life in general through abject failure and dark times than I ever did through success. Life's biggest failures are out biggest learning opportunities.

 

I am reminded of King Leonidas' now famous reply upon hearing that Xerxes army would launch so many arrows that it would block out the sun...."then we will fight them in the shade", he said, and while I think I would have made a great Spartan, I can't help but recognize the fact that most of the important battles we all go through in life take place in the shade; by that I mean out of the sight of most people. Life isn't always sunshine , rainbows and bacon. It rains, and sometimes it absolutely fucking pours. I've been down, I've been out, I've had my head and my heart kicked around and I tell you like this: False friends are like our shadow, keeping close to us while we walk in the sunshine, but leaving us when we cross into the shade. However, in the shade is the only place we can find, not only ourselves, but the ones who truly love us. The ones who not only don't mindmkwhen you text them at 4:30AM, but actually reply; the ones who reach out a hand after you've been knocked down, even, and especially, when it surprises them to see you on the ground.

 

One can only measure their value as a friend/parent/spouse etc in the tough times. Anyone can punch the clock when things are great, but when you, or a loved one, is battered and broken....that's when you learn the most about people, including yourself. By and large success is useless. It is nice and appeals to those who waste their lives chasing the accolades of pride, but failure is far more valuable. You learn more when you miss a lift, than you make it.....you learn more from missing the target than hitting it.....you only learn how to stand up after you've been knocked down and as Confucius said our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in getting up every time we fall.

 

I fell down, down , down into this dark and lonely hole, and there was no one there to care about me anymore. I needed a way, to climb a grab ahold, at the edge you were sitting there holding a rope.