ENGAGING WORLD NEEDS A BOOSTER

Does an engaging world need help reaching people? Isn’t is supposed to be the other way around?

Besides, you’d think engaging with others would be easier with so much going on, so much to do.

Especially during this time of year. Call it engagement time.

So let’s take a minute to scratch around for more than a busy time story, maybe get a shovel and dig in. But not too deep.

I found this story during an idea-harvesting scroll, and it stuck.

“Jason Isbell Is Tired Of Country’s Love Affair With White Nostalgia“

But this story is only a little bit about Jason Isbell. If Isbell does his job right, it’s not about him at all. It’s about what happens when white men attempt to unhook themselves from the tentacles of nostalgia and engage with the world as it is, not as they’ve been told it is. 

Jason who? This is Jason Isbell on twitter:

“friend to children, the vaccinated, and those with certain underlying medical conditions”

Just another guy? I’d say not.

Isbell started playing in a garage band and a country cover band when he was 14 or 15 years old with his friend, songwriter Chris Tompkins. They played at the Grand Ole Opry when Isbell was 16.

Isbell attended the University of Memphis, studying English and creative writing. He did not graduate, still requiring one physical education credit.

Sounds like our kind of guy.

But he grew up in North Alabama, not North Bend, so who knows the brand of tentacles that hold such powerful nostalgia from there.

It’s probably just me, but when I think about Southern nostalgia I see an image of a regal plantation house with crops in the fields as far as the eye can see.

Like I said, probably just me.

You are all but transported back in time, as you walk up the drive to your destination. There, nestled in the arms of giant magnolias and lush gardens, is historic Brumby Hall. Built in 1851, the historic dwelling is also the home of the Marietta Gone with the Wind Museum.

You should go to a regal planation house in the South to see how it feels.

Or visit the LSU Rural Life Museum for a better understanding of the world as it was, not as it’s been told. This is where the term ‘after doing my research’ comes in.

What I saw was the engaging world of slave life, their houses, their church.

If your guts aren’t wrenched you’re doing it wrong.

Independent Thinkers

“The only thing you have to kill is something that never existed in the first place.“

Remember the song ‘Maybe It’s Time’ from Star Is Born?

That was a Jason Isbell song.

Maybe it’s time to let the old ways die
Maybe it’s time to let the old ways die
It takes a lot to change a man
Hell, it takes a lot to try
Maybe it’s time to let the old ways die

Maybe it’s time, but not right now, not after watching masses of people still gathering to worship an unworthy former president.

The important thing to remember is who answers the call from a disgraced real estate peddler, why, and offer help.

This isn’t about things promised to happen, and the things that happened. Understanding the needy allure is the point.

It could be this:

Don’t we all yearn to celebrate our under-educated, uneducated, we don’t need no education, selves? The part of us that is okay with being wrong, and so what, because we believe what we want to believe and fuuuuuuuuuck uuuuuuuuu.

Sure, but we don’t do that. Why? Because we fucking know better, that’s why. Big steal? Good one.

There is a sensitive nerve that responds to, “If you don’t fight like hell you won’t have a country.”

Was it Eisenhower before D-Day? Harry Truman to South Korea? Nixon to South Vietnam? Bush to Iraq? Biden to Afghanistan? Give up?

‘Maybe it’s time to let the old ways die’ applies when a soft old desk-man sends younger men and women to fight for him, convincing them they’re fighting for their country, at least his luxury version, which they’re seen pictures of.

And they believe it.

Now they see how the country that didn’t invite them into the Capitol to run amok does its business on them the way they did on it.

Does anyone ever want to see the engaging world of a federal penitentiary?

Changing Ways For An Engaging World

“I think it’s possible to change your ways without feeling guilty or ashamed,” he (Isbell) said.

That’s been a common refrain in these parts.

“What do I/we have to clean up now,” is a common refrain, sometimes with extra words.

Then there are the other things to clean up, the hard things, the sort of things that don’t take to brooms or brushes, hot water or soap.

You change your mind. 

You thought this, then learned it was that. So you changed your mind, cleaned up the raggedy edges of understanding, and took a weight off.

This happens when education, experience, and evidence supplied at the eighth grade level starts to make sense.

Go ahead and change your ways. If you need permission, this is it: You have BoomerPdx Permission to change your ways.

We have Change Your Ways Passports ready for the check-out basket.

They come with one question:

Have you changed your ways so people treat you like you treat them?

Right answer: Yes, I have.

Wrong answer: Why would I do that? I treat people like shit.

If you answered wrong, you best change your ways, son.

Now get busy.