Blog 195 – 12.29.15

Both TCM, Turner Classic Movies,and the Annual Oscars do a tribute to those in the entertainment field who have passed in the last year. I am a lifelong fan of the movies so I recognize many of the faces and say my own personal “See you later” to those whose talents have touched my life. I think all of us hope our light, our love, our talents have touched others and that we will be mourned, that we will be missed when in that great Lottery that no one is in a hurry to win, our number comes up.

Those of us in the Baby Boomer Generation, born between 1946 and 1964, are starting to see our numbers rapidly dwindle. Our parents, the Great Generation, have mostly all departed, most all of the men at any rate. We have been called by many critics a selfish and self absorbed generation. Our parents sick of the sacrifices of the Depression, World War II, and Korea were determined to spoil us and beginning with the sixties we rebelled, turned on, tune out, then disco-ed through the seventies, and sold our souls to the highest bidder in the greedy eighties. Or so goes the critics picture of my generation goes.

But each generation retiring from active service seems to always under rate the new generation. Many start out hopeful of positive change and somewhere along the line give up, give in and become a part of the status quo and become heavily invested in protecting it.

When all that really matters in words of Paul McCartney, one of the great poets and song writers of my generation, in one of his Wings songs says, “And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.” Yet, another poet song writer Elton John says, in Circle of Life from the Lion King, “You should never take more than you give.” These wonderful truths seem almost lost in the “profit motive” that seems to have so completely taken over my generation.”

Still those history honors most are not the venture capitalists, the hedge fund managers, the millionaires and billionaires, but those who made us laugh and cry, those who gave more that they took. Those we mourn and miss the most are those who made us love them because their love made us see ourselves as worthy of them, deserving of their love and attention. See you later all you lovelies.

Your friend and fellow traveler,
David White