Life on the rim of a retired mine pit is relatively calm. No Eucs’ hauling overburden or ore. No ground-shaking blasts. No shift whistles. On a lively day I might turn up an interesting ore node, bit of coal from the nearby boiler or, rare and wonderful, a piece of Gilsonite. 

Wow! In the calm of this moment it is possible to gander back at glorious progress. Which past civilization was first, best or worst? Our worthy political prognosticators sure have the prior five thousand years figured and determined. Don’t they? 

If civilization was a bad idea, who gets blamed? Asia, Africa or Mesopotamia? Or if a fine idea who is credited? I’m sure the current patch of political visionaries has, if not the answer, at least the personal conviction the rest of us should be ever grateful they’ve figured everything out for us. Twas easy. They don’t even have to know much to succeed in contemporary politics, a no-winner game like tic-tac-toe going back beyond sight.

Let me point at the past century of gruesomely pointless invasions and wars over economics. Capitalist versus socialist, a joke. A hideously sad sorry joke making the ugly mistake of seeing money as the definitional value of being human. Who made that up? What idiot looks at a loyal mother or father than sees monetary value? 

The economic views are the most materialist and least humanitarian ways to see people. Economics has a place or role, but not as the be-all, end-all of being human. So if I reject economics as my model, what do I use? 

Some of you might expect God. Sorry. Not my slant, not for civil government. The course I take follows centralized versus decentralized. In part because centralization favors accumulated power, I normally smile upon the decentralized. Good for me, huh? 

Not so fast. Favoring decentralization and smaller is a cure. At best, a minor and temporary fix. Easy enough to point at the big-bad anything. A billionaire wolf will do, but the corrupt or incompetent sheep are out there, too. 

I tend to think a miserable leader of a small enterprise is potentially less harmful, but likewise an effective leader might do proud her entire unambiguous group, whatever that may be. Among us marvelous thinkers are those stuck to the notion that new ideas come from teenage minds. Really? Take that seriously and you might as well plant your hopes on a hydroponic miracle using volcanic ether distributed by saviors circling the globe on flying guppies. 

Neither innovation nor understanding arise from ignorance and inexperience. In my view (two examples of many) neither Machiavelli nor Marx came up with anything particularly useful or well grounded. 
Sure, we can do lifetime studies of either or both, but neither results in practical practice. You’ll get as much result praying to butterflies as you’ll get following the teeny-teen preachings of basically useless authorities. 

Scrape away the stuff an expert touts and either you accept their authority or you don’t. At least in my view human happiness isn’t rooted in obedience to an outside authority, especially ones claiming knowledge they can’t possibly have.

Between Machiavelli and God, I’d pick God for being far away and no threat unless represented by power seeking followers. Same is true for Machiavelli or any political bent. It’s the followers do damage, more or less depending on the nastiness of the creed they exalt.

Progress and/or advancement, for all the praise and attention given those things, is seen more in material than social ways. A motor can be made more efficiently OR efficient. Raising a child still takes roughly the same long while to go from self-pooping to functional independence. Why’s that do you think? 

A part, possibly big, of the issue is progress being a popular construct of limited duration. Not the same as but not entirely removed from fashion or music trends. Do you like the same pop stuff as you couldn’t once go without? 

Being fickle is a full-fledged part of being human. And yet, some remnants of the old, unprogressive past have a strange way of lingering. You may well recognize a tune (Irish or Scottish, I’m uncertain) that shows up in movies with Civil War content. Might surprise you to know its name, “The Minstrel Boy.”

More surprising yet, lyrics holding fast to tradition and personal resolve. (M’be next week I’ll relate the Minstrel Boy to Emily Dickinson’s “divine majority,” and won’t that be fun?)

Human quirks are endearing and infuriating. How can a person not be touched or inspired by hopeless devotion or blind trust while at the same time thinking “What in hell’s wrong with your eyes?” An awful lot of us get both kicks and purpose from being exasperating. It is tiring beyond fatigue to plod along with someone seriously wondering if the tenth time they plunge a hand in boiling water will prove the exception. 

The notion of “average comfort” won’t hold up with one foot in a cauldron and the other in liquid nitrogen. Worth remembering, ‘specially now, clever words and snappy retorts aren’t all that good at addressing (and even less at solving) problems. A witticism about brake pads is no use on the road.

Addressing problems with blame and accusation and belittling works on whom, ‘xactly? I’ll do a small wager that those using the tactic wouldn’t like it used on them, would they? I’m reasonably accustomed to being called a dumb Polack, which isn’t helpful when comes to identifying an issue or complaint. If I know what the problem is I might be able to help. 

But I’ll bet you know folks with a complaining problem. There’s always something out there that ain’t right and needs fixing. Not that they will do anything. Taking the time to state what the problem is and what might be done are useful steps that give a complaint some substance. But, I ‘spect that as long as complaint remains easier than problem solving we’ll see more of one than the other. What’s your guess?