I'm not young any more. If you subtract a quarter century from the number that's my age, that's about how old I feel. My health is still quite good. But when I look in the mirror it's a reminder of how fast time slips by.
Many of the people I grew up with were very anti-conservative in their youth, protesting the war and fighting the Man, experimenting with free love and chemical enhancement. Some still are. But a surprising number have gotten married, gotten property, had children, cleaned up, and are heavily invested in the existing system. I see their pictures on social media: hair stiff and colored, lawn mowed perfectly, house neat as a pin; and I see their opinions. The President is destroying America through Socialism. He might be a secret Muslim who wasn't really born here. I don't like him. I hate him. He's dangerous. Let's go back to the way things were.
In the 1960s while my peers were protesting for a better world I was a conservative, resisting the threat I thought they posed to my country. Now everything has turned around. I see their desperate clinging to the past as a threat to the world I want my grandchildren to be able to live in. What changed?
This diary isn't about politics so much as it is about change, internal and external, and what effect those changes have on the politics of the people experiencing them.
And how I, and you, can deal with those changes.
Ch-ch-ch-changes.
It's a fact, whether you love it or hate it, that the entire universe is in a constant state of irreversible flux every single moment of its existence.
On a human time scale those changes can seem slow at times. But nothing really stays the same for very long. Not the earth or the sky. Certainly not you, or the things you love, or the world you live in. Humanity itself has only existed for the blink of a gnat's eye in cosmic time, and we will not exist forever. Everyone and everything you know will end and be forgotten.
This is a very tough fact to face, when you really think about it.
It's quite easy to ignore this when you're young. The world is new and exciting and full of possibility. Death is a far away thing that's easily ignored. It's hard to really even believe it's real. Often, no one we're close to has left us permanently (some are not so lucky, of course.) Frequently the death of a beloved pet is the first encounter we have with mortality.
I was born in a period of prosperity ruled exclusively by silver-haired white Anglo-Saxon protestant males who had just emerged from the world's most destructive war in triumph over their enemies - enemies who none could doubt were genuinely evil and had to be destroyed. These ruling men looked about at their position and their accomplishments and considered themselves as God's own people and culture.
They had grown up in struggle, but their children grew up without want, and those children grew up and looked around at that same world and saw the cracks in the facade, the rampant injustice and misery. They had the luxury of not having to scramble just to exist, and they fought bitterly to change the old way of doing things, armed with the exuberance and optimism of youth and inexperience.
That's so easy to do when you have plenty to eat and few responsibilities.
Roughly four decades later, my generation has seen dreams and hopes dashed on the rocks of reality over and over. Life just isn't so simple. When you acquire things, you have to protect them or that nasty change monster called entropy will take them away from you. When you have kids you have to protect them from a world that suddenly looks very dangerous.
Those things you played with in your youth - maybe they didn't work out so well. Maybe you recovered from addiction, and certainly had friends who did -- or didn't. That free love thing was nice, but dangerous to hearts and bodies.
Those things you wanted changed - those changes had unanticipated side effects. The world is a complex place, and there's no guarantee that things will magically work out right. Quite the opposite.
You have lost friends, relatives over time - to accidents and disease, maybe even violence. The world is changing, and full of surprises. And now those surprises are quite often nasty ones involving pain and death and loss.
It's hard not to wish that things would just stay the same. You worked long and hard to build what you have but the world and the universe and the constant changes threaten all you've built. The Reaper isn't so far away now that you can ignore him. He's casting glances in your direction every once in a while. A deep cold chill runs down your spine.
Is it any wonder that, given all this, people turn to the comfort of religion?
Religious dogmas may not make much sense when you think about them, but if you can just skip the thinking part and just believe then there's structure and certainty there for an uncertain and dangerous world. There's an all-powerful personal God to take care of you. To assure you that everything is going to be all right. And the comforting society of people who feel just like you do and are there for the same reasons. And most of all, there's a way out of the death and loss thing. In the end, if you follow the rules, everything will be made right for all eternity.
Religions are a society of the fearful. In many ways they exist to cope with the uncomfortable fact of entropy. So of course they are the bastions of conservative, change-resisting forces and are used by those most invested in the system to protect it.
Conservatism, as a philosophy, is resistance to change. Since change brings death and loss, who would not want to resist it? Why is anyone not a conservative?
Why am I not a conservative?
Because it's a fact, whether you love it or hate it, that the entire universe is in a constant state of flux and change every single moment of its existence, and I have learned over the years that denial is not a very effective strategy.
If conservatism were just a means to manage change I could accept that label easily. I never think it's a good idea to simply change things just for the sake of doing it, to see what happens. That so often leads to disaster. I know change needs to be managed and thought out carefully.
But modern conservatism has morphed into a cult of denial. In reaction to the rapid revolutions and evolutions of society brought on mostly by the advance of technology, those fearful of change are simply panicking. It's too much, too quick, and they just can't stand it any more. Desperation has set in and nothing they can do seems to stop the whirlwind.
So now they are just flailing about, inventing enemies, blaming their fears on the plots of evil men and woman called liberals - so that they will have something to fight against. They are in combat mode now, most of them.
In the mind of 21st century conservatism, it's the War of the Rings and Sauron and his orcs are marching in vast numbers against the few remaining good people of middle-earth. And they can't see to find their Aragorn. If a Frodo exists he's definitely not conservative enough.
The ones most invested are the ones most fearful. They have the money and power and means to whip up ever greater fear in their followers and they don't waste a moment or spare a dollar to do just that. It's a vicious circle dropping ever deeper into madness.
I can't join this crazy crusade of panicked desperation.
If things must change, let's change them towards freedom, justice, and a better world.
In my own journey, I've learned that the secret to inner peace and the management of fear is acceptance.
There's a saying with a lot of truth to it:
"If you are depressed, you are living in the past. If you are fearful, you are living in the future. If you are at peace, you are living in the present."
I accept the universe of constant change and my own tiny place in it. I accept my limitations and realize I can't change the world, either to save or destroy it. I accept that Reaper over there and that I will die, and that everyone I know will too. And that while I can hope for a better deal, it's probable that simple non-existence is our likely fate.
But I will do what I can, right now, in the present. The past can't be changed and the future doesn't exist yet.
Right now, this moment, dear reader, is all we have or ever will have. All those things you think you have -- love, money, stuff -- they are an illusion. Neither they nor you will last very long. You're only borrowing them.
Once you realize this, take it into your heart, you will begin to be free of fear.
And without that fear, there's no reason to be called a Conservative.