It may have been a fortunate thing. To have had at least a bit of a temper, since some of the youngest days I can recall.

Might have been worthwhile to feel totally hopeless, here and there, as well. Within that past. Mostly, naturally, towards the end of my educational years. Though the truth being I never really was. Hopeless, that is. But to feel it, might garner some acclimated perspective. Even if slightly synthesized. Or, truth be told, entirely so.

Might be a plague of yours, as well. This digging back for past experience in order to emote something lacking in this life. Particularly, at this point in the timeline that most of us seem to agree we are currently upon. Not much going on, so to speak. In terms of how individuals and smaller groups might be getting on, behavior-wise. No bars. No concerts. Lots of pacing, these days. I say.

But I suppose there is plenty going on. Massive events or non-events that history might remember forever. Or we’re just full of ourselves and high on our ideals. Both are likely along the lines of truth, in one place or another. But trust seems to be in short supply. Which is a damn shame, as that might be the most useful tool in such times as these.

It’s not irrational, either. Lots of the mistrust we all seem to have in all shapes and forms. Plenty of reasons to not trust bureaucrats and oligarchs, I’d say. History both long reaching, up to and including the recent could easily provide a plethora of examples of why caution must be taken in many a thing in order to be a useful citizen. Especially in this rather new idea of a ‘free world’ (when measuring against the length of known human history, and more so, when measuring against the age of rocks).

And we disagree. You and I.

I’m sure of it. In something, somewhere, within our philosophical and ideological selves, there exists a schism far too wide to possibly receive breaching. And perhaps, no matter what attempts are made, these primitive forms we hold can never reach a close enough perspective aligned with another to find ground for common standing. Not in terms of single lifetimes, I mean.

I know this, because I have been in arguments over certain musicians/bands with folks whom I myself have made wonderfully cohesive and organic music with. I can immediately think on an example, just about a year old, over a five second clip of video. With a fellow musician I personally have had some of the best songwriting and improvisational chemistry, when it comes to our own playing. That being said, we ended up drunkenly hollering at each other over what ultimately meant, more or less, nothing.

So, I get it. Not seeing eye to eye.

And, of course, you are saying, to yourself, as you read- but there are certainly things which the lack of communal perspective is not only detrimental towards our functioning as a society as a whole, but quite possibly holds at least hints of catastrophic detail.

And hell yeah, that’s true. But, in my unsolicited and amateur opinion, I would have to say that if you were to start in a sense more vague than all the specifics in which we seem to be entangled- that we can agree upon so much more when we allow ourselves to think in broader terms. To get the same vibe, as the kids say.

Take this, for example.

Kindness.

Wild concept, I know. And I myself find regular failure within this realm. For real. Not even a few hours ago, I was muttering angrily to myself over a communication, with which I found myself engaged. That temper, the kid’s still got it.

And without getting into whether it was justified or not, I admit that something more towards the antithesis of kindness swelled up in my heart and mind since the sun came up this morning. But I managed. The transfiguration occurred. The emotions, mined and exerted, otherwise. Trust me, I used to do amateur theater in college. I was pretty good, too.

So just apply it to larger scale, right?

RiGhT?

We have plenty of reason to distrust the kindness of each other. Or lack thereof. Because we regularly associate kindness with weakness. Because, sometimes what is done in attempts of kindness is weak. And sometimes what is weakness (morally, physically, meta-physically, cosmically, and/or ethically), is attempted or feigned as kindness.

But trust, is not cowardice, is it? Quite the opposite, really. To trust each other, to those without telepathy, is a risk of the utmost caliber. And humans, especially those of prominence in times of turmoil, have proven for most of the past to not be worthy of such trusts. Betrayals and power accumulation. Empires and cultures rising and falling. And mistakes made with too much gusto to ever be reversed. It is the litter of the overall human experience. And stories of such, fiction or otherwise, fill up our modern culture. It is all there, and yet it is all different depending on ‘who’ might be seeing ‘what’.

No answers, from me, though. Not tonight. Not really. Maybe, not ever. But we can all take a deep breath, while the breathing is still good. And we can all think a bit beyond ourselves, just beyond that which we can normally tolerate. And maybe, if we all try to get on with that, each day we are graced with existence, then maybe, we might get along better today than yesterday.

And tomorrow? Forget about it. If every tomorrow was filled with folks who swear they might be better, and invest as much as they’ve got to give in the effort, to others as well as themselves-

Well then, shit. We might just make a better world, after all.