Saturday, November 27, 2004
The Wave may have Broke, but the Tide Is High and I'm Holding On
Here's an interesting article on Salon.com (you might need a membership to read it). According to this commentator, the demographic trends in the
Like W.R. Clement wrote in his masterful book Quantum Jump, the people who are pushing the old ways know they are losing. The last gasp is the loudest scream. The cornered rat fights the hardest. This period we are seeing is really the end of the fight, the last vicious gasp of a dying monster who's 'morals' and 'values' are based in the mindset of the previous millennium.
I think Hunter S. Thompson was on to something when he was at his most elegant, insightful and tragic:
"And that, I think, was the handle -- that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn't need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting -- on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave....
So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look west, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark -- that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back."
- Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
Perhaps that 'high and beautiful wave' indeed 'broke and rolled back' those 35 treagic years ago, but the tide was slowly rising and that energy did have all the momentum. Such large change is slow, probably too slow to have satisfied that single, impatient generation.
...and so now, 30 years later, one can probably go up on that same steep hill in Las Vegas and look around, and with the right kind of eyes see that the beautiful sea-tide of change has come in and risen all over...
