Saturday, April 21, 2007
Along the Path of History We Stumble
While walking the dog this morning, I tried to decide if Israel was a young country or an old one. And what I was left with was that we are a child wrapped in an ancient ancestors blanket.
We stumble through life expecting all things to be perfect for us and get frustrated when many parts of our government, infrastructure, and internal political doctrine acts immature.
Yet we have somehow made it here, but we are only now reaching the 59th birthday that by the sound of it from critics one would suspect that we have been around for much longer.
And yes we have. We are a nation of Jewish people, but one with a vast array of baggage and including achievement and despair.
Their is a particular mindset today because of the technology that has been invented the past 100 years that has led us to look at time in a way that is probably much different than that from the past.
We know all things almost as they are happening, we are not waiting for a tall ship to arrive with letters from a distant continent, or messengers of whom have galloped across the countryside to bring us tidings. In fact we try to be philosophical without any hindsight often.
It is this communication revolution which profoundly alters the way we look at our daily lives and the history that has created each of us. There is a large equation which is frequently unbalanced between our own illusions and a factual reality.
We tend to be myopic in our viewpoints never really looking at events which are happening at a great distance and seemingly with nothing to do with us - yet given room to grow find their way to bring on a close encounter understanding.
Thus, I have been in this tiny country for nine years now with all the papers that makes one a citizen. And I have spent an even larger amount of time here before deciding to move here permanently.
Israel is small and it really needs to be understand that one can travel the entire country in with a leisurely drive. Because of this, it is easy to believe that you know the people and geography when in fact behind the doors and hidden beneath the soil lurks so much more.
I hesitate to make predictions for Israel on its 59 birthday.
We stumble through life expecting all things to be perfect for us and get frustrated when many parts of our government, infrastructure, and internal political doctrine acts immature.
Yet we have somehow made it here, but we are only now reaching the 59th birthday that by the sound of it from critics one would suspect that we have been around for much longer.
And yes we have. We are a nation of Jewish people, but one with a vast array of baggage and including achievement and despair.
Their is a particular mindset today because of the technology that has been invented the past 100 years that has led us to look at time in a way that is probably much different than that from the past.
We know all things almost as they are happening, we are not waiting for a tall ship to arrive with letters from a distant continent, or messengers of whom have galloped across the countryside to bring us tidings. In fact we try to be philosophical without any hindsight often.
It is this communication revolution which profoundly alters the way we look at our daily lives and the history that has created each of us. There is a large equation which is frequently unbalanced between our own illusions and a factual reality.
We tend to be myopic in our viewpoints never really looking at events which are happening at a great distance and seemingly with nothing to do with us - yet given room to grow find their way to bring on a close encounter understanding.
Thus, I have been in this tiny country for nine years now with all the papers that makes one a citizen. And I have spent an even larger amount of time here before deciding to move here permanently.
Israel is small and it really needs to be understand that one can travel the entire country in with a leisurely drive. Because of this, it is easy to believe that you know the people and geography when in fact behind the doors and hidden beneath the soil lurks so much more.
I hesitate to make predictions for Israel on its 59 birthday.
Labels: illusion, isreali independence day, reality, ultimate time
