Awhile back I was at a family get together talking to this dude we’ll call Uncle Bob. Uncle Bob’s a good man, and as usual I enjoyed catching up with him. He raised two daughters who are both married with kids of their own. Both daughters are well adjusted, successful, and seem to be raising their own kids well. As a fledgling parent, I’ve become in awe of such accomplishments, and I’m always trying to pick Uncle Bob’s brain about how he pulled it off. This time stuff took an interesting turn though.
Uncle Bob and I were talking about books and somehow we got to our general view of the world. Bob had been born in the sixties, and he told me that he grew up watching protests stop the vietnam war. As he grew older, he watched as freedom’s greatest threat, the soviet union, crumble along with the Berlin wall. From these events, along with witnessing great advances in technology, he assumed that humanity was on a hockey stick curve of progress, where war, poverty, and violence would become history. He then confided this view had been destroyed recently by current events, and now he felt unsure of humanity’s future. It was clear that this uncertainty had eroded his faith in people, and the foundation of his world view.
Uncle Bob’s previous perception struck me as odd because it ran in the opposite direction of my own. My father had been in law enforcement and the military, and while he didn’t speak doom and gloom nonstop, the reality that occasionally bad things happened to good people was just a given due to the occasional shop talk over dinner. Shortly after I learned to drive, he taught me how to do surveillance detection if I thought someone was following me, as due to the nature of his work there was a minor chance the people he’d put cases on might seek retribution against his family. Learning a proper knife disarm and hip throw were typical after dinner activities. Looking back, this was totally weird, but seemed normal to me growing up.
When I turned 18, 9/11 happened. Though tragic, it was not unsurprising to me due to this world view. After the planes hit, I dutifully served in a similar manner as my father, in keeping with the unspoken tradition of my patrilineage. It was hard to lose faith in humanity as it started at zero. If anything, I was occasionally surprised by the amazing things I saw one human do for another, which slowly converted me from cynical asshole to a pragmatic realist with a data backed glimmer of hope for the future. If anything, my faith in the overall upper trend of human betterment keeps growing. Having stumbled on some deeper history of how far we’ve come since the dawn of people, it’s easy to zoom out and put events in the past few years in perspective. From that view, they’re just a blip on the near constant upward progress of humankind.
Don’t mistake me for some pollyanna. I’ve seen people do some horrible shit to each other, and cleaned up the wreckage such violence causes. I recall riding in the back of a SWAT armored vehicle, racing from one barricaded gunman situation to another, and one of my fellow cops brought up how messed up this next suspect was. The suspect had killed a 12 year old kid during a drive by; always a shitty situation, but unfortunately not rare. I replied to my partner’s lamenting with “you know right now in Africa there’s probably some 12 year old hacking the arm off another 12 year old as a part of some screwed up war no one over here seems to give a shit about. This suspect we’re going to get is a fucking dickhole, but I’m glad he’s the worst we have to worry about in this city.” Perspective and shit yo.
Yeah, things are messed up, but they could be, and have been, way worse. This view helped me keep my sanity, and grew my belief that humanity is kinda like the stock market. Things trend upwards, but it can be a rough ride.
Back to Uncle Bob. Like I said, good dude in my opinion. Made his family a priority, worked hard, and helps people when he can. Honest, and doesn’t take himself too seriously. Generally happy. In twenty or so years, I hope I’m as good a guy as he is. And I know correlation isn’t causation, but I can’t help but wondering-is he fundamentally good because he spent much of his life with a belief that everything was all rainbows and unicorns? And what’s going to happen to him now that he’s come around to the realization that the world is sort of fucked up? I don’t think his shattered worldview will cause him to descend into a fatalism driven decision to go dark side and start robbing banks or whatever. Decades of habit, and fear of consequences will likely keep him moored. But with his new worldview, I fear that he’ll be less positive. Less happy. Less content. That would be sad.
I hope I’m wrong.
I don’t know how it will pan out with Uncle Bob. What I am is thankful. Thankful that I started at zero. Thankful that I’ve got low expectations, and everything else is gravy. I’m thankful I started out knowing that the world was a messed up place.
I didn’t think I’d raise my kids like I was, but in talking with Uncle Bob I’m questioning that conviction. One of my primary reasons for working so hard to retire early was so my kids wouldn’t have to grow up while I was working as a cop. I distinctly remember worrying if my dad was still alive on the nights my dad had to work late. I don’t want my kids to suffer through that. My father’s role in law enforcement was a little more vanilla than mine; he saw less crazy first hand. But through his stories around the dinner table I never doubted that bad stuff happened, and the world was imperfect. Looking back, I now see the positive aspect of this; I followed his example of rejecting fatalism and trying to do my part to mitigate the effect the bad crap has on the innocent. Yes, I was given fear at a young age of my dad being killed on the Job, along with a fear of my own death. Fear that the world would get worse if bad actors prevailed. But I also saw a great example of what to do with that fear-don’t let it slow you down. Fight to make things better.
I hold back on sharing my experiences with my kids, especially as they’re so young. But now I think I’ll slowly open up more as they grow. It might be good if they know the imperfections of the world so they can appreciate the good. I guess that’s another role of this blog. As the years pass, my recollection of events will fade. I should probably get some of this stuff down before my memory is so skewed all value is lost. This means it may be story time around here more often.
I hope you’re cool with that.
