Sunday, August 21, 2011

Yesterday is gone

I don't even want to talk about this. You know, it just seems like one of those things. Adding anger to a broken heart is all that it might bring. But it is time to focus on the future and leave the past behind. So let's talk about tomorrow, because yesterday is gone.

I was seventeen until I was thirty, and thirty-three until forty-two. I was fifty-five until I was sixty, now I'm aging daily, just like you. You might have clung to your past also, marking decades with your songs, or maybe your achievements or something that went wrong. But this is not about our ages, we are all now, in the same place. Has our identity been stolen or are there just some hard facts we have to face?

Have we really been paying attention, or did we let the politicians lull us asleep. Times always seem much harder, when there is so much more stuff you want to keep. But our economy is broken and our debt continues to rise. Running faster on the treadmill, will not save our lives. Sadly I speak as one with experience who has wasted too much for far too long. It is time to plan for a new future, because yesterday is gone.

Every government is corrupt as unlimited power is apt to do. They have always been there to protect the corporations and never worry about me and you. But is that really what we wanted, certainly not when we were young. Hell we never paid attention, we just went out and got things done. We measured success with our hard earned dollars or our status with our fame and wrote off our moral responsibilities and just continued to play the game.

But now faced with the failure of this self serving consumerism, I watch in disgust as our government tries to redefine our nationalism. We can no longer afford to assist the weak or the poor, we will close our borders and prepare for a new war. The environment continues to be damed, as we mine more tar and pump the now ethical profits into our cars. New prisons will be built to keep the unreported crimes off our streets and we'll all measure the health of our country with the bloated corporate balance sheets.

Now there are probably some lies in what I have said, at least as it applies to you. You might be very successful and enjoying all the things that you do. But if you had the opportunity to start all over again today, would your choices be the same, would you live your life the same way.

Well, I have that chance again for the third time in my life, and this time I only have to care for two dogs and my wife. Although it may sound like I'm just singing a new song, believe me this time.

All my yesterdays are gone.


h/t Jimmy McCracklin here & here