Please remember that you are choosing to read my opinions.

"The good ol' days."


These statements and so many others imply that today is worse than yesterday. It is an attitude that seeps into our consciousness and corrodes our common sense. Does it not seem odd to anyone that people as young as myself feel that the days we grew up in were better than the days we are living in? I mean, 10 years ago I was 11 and still watching Saturday morning cartoons. Does that sound bad to you? Forget about it!

Do you think that maybe we are just nostalgic for the days we don't have to live again? Do we some how glorify the past in some way to make it seem better, or was the world really better?

I think that today is definitely different than it used to be, but beyond that, I don't know. There are more bad things, more good things, less of some things, more of others. Yet, it is harder to decide if, overall it is better or worse. For some people, these are most likely the best days ever, while to others it is the worst. That is the nature of our society, the beast in question. A lot of people, in almost every era felt a tug of grief that the world was going to the crapper. Why is that?

When we are growing up, we are taught to basically idolize our country. We are told half-truths about our country that inspires us to love the way we live. In the United States, we pledge allegiance to the flag, sing the national anthem. We are taught to resent the various enemies of our country from our past, like Germany for two world wars, and Cuba, and Russia for the Cold War. We disliked Iraq for various reasons and so it continues. A certain degree of animosity reserved for those who aren't us, to emphasize how well off we are.

. We are taught the bad things of life, that crime exist even though everything is coming up roses in our glorious country. Most children, of course, never learn the gravity of the situation while still in the nest, never experiencing worse than a scraped knee. Children are mostly protected from the reality of money, drugs, crime, guns, etc, even when they live right in the middle of it all. This can be emphasized well in school-aged children whose life shattering event is a heckler or a bad hair day.

As we continue to grow up, however, most people start to realize some things we are told aren't true, and those things that we felt were so far away from us were, in actuality, right around the corner all along. In a sense, you could say that as we are growing up, our rose colored glasses gradually lose their deceptive tint and we start to see things differently. This is when I think that we start feeling that the past was better..

Anyway. 'm not advocating any changes in the way we live (this time), just a little post on one of life's little contradictory quriks that may or may not have basis in reality.

What do you think?