A Brief Pause in Time

The art of losing isn’t hard to master;

so many things seem filled with the intent

to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster

of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.

The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:

places, and names, and where it was you meant

to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or

next-to-last, of three loved houses went.

The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,

some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.

I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.

—Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture

I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident

the art of losing’s not too hard to master

though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

“One Art” – poem by Elizabeth Bishop, 1979

I am finishing up “Time, Part 3” and the plan is to finish it today or tomorrow.  Two posts in one week.  Unheard of, I know.  J  But right now, I feel compelled to post something I wrote almost two years ago.  I wrote it in the midst of very different life circumstances, but it feels very true to me today, and in the midst of change and upheaval, truth is all we can cling to.  My twenties have brought me many challenges and joys and I have learned from every one of them, but this time in life has taught me one lesson more than any other: very few things will live up to the expectations I’ve created.  And while that may seem like a disaster, it’s not.  So, without further ado…an old piece of writing that takes on new meaning for me.  Maybe it will ring true for some of you, too.

At what age is it too early to talk about the benefit of loss?  Most children don’t sit around pint-sized tables, molding Play-Dough, sharing graham crackers, and waxing poetic about no longer being in diapers and what they’ve learned from potty training.  Most teenagers don’t Facebook post each other, agonizing over saying goodbye to dress-up and imaginary friends while trying to find meaning in how they’ve changed since their dollhouse and toy gun days.  Young humans charge into the thick of life so confident, so sure, and so ready to leave the past behind.  The fear of getting in too deep doesn’t really exist, and this brings with it an excitement to taste life and all it has to offer.  The untainted young sprint toward change because most of those life shifts mean growth, and stronger than any other craving at this age is the desire to “grow up.”  But somewhere along the way, that visceral delight in change and loss transforms into a palpable fear of change and loss.  Suddenly, change isn’t about growth anymore; it’s just a sign that things are starting to get out of control.  When that shift happens, the young-and-slightly-nervous slow down.  Still-young-but-now-suspicious humans move forward more tentatively, guarding those precious parts of themselves they aren’t willing to leave behind or sacrifice.  And in this process of changing from fearless to fearful, instinctive to cerebral, all humans start to try to avoid and rationalize loss.

I know now that the intersection point of fearless and fearful happened for me when I was about nine years old.  My family moved a lot when I was a child, and because of that, I think I was forced to learn how to deal with loss at an early age.  I’ve always prided myself on my ability to keep in touch with people from all areas of my life, and I believe this was my earliest way of rationalizing loss – “If we keep in touch, it will be like we’ve never parted!”  Leaving friends behind was something I could control by writing letters and making phone calls, so while the loss was great, it was manageable.  However, pulling out the map of my past and re-tracing my steps only shows me that as a young girl, I was fooled into believing that all loss was manageable.  Social problems, fights with my parents, and a frustrating lack of dates as I continued my journey through grade school and high school harshly rearranged my ideas about loss, and no amount of emotional alchemy was able to transform what life was teaching me.  So, I dealt with it by not dealing with it at all.  By the time I hit about sixteen, I was a champion loss-avoider, while still believing firmly that I had control over all areas of my life, lost or not.

It wasn’t until my sophomore year of college that the stark truth grew to be unavoidable: I wasn’t as in control as I imagined.  I believe my story is just a version of everyone else’s – it’s almost fodder for a fill-in-the-blank statement.  “I was only _______ years old when ______________________ hurt me so badly that I was no longer able to cope, and for the first time, I realized I wasn’t completely in control of my own life.”  For just about every adult I’ve ever met, what fills those blanks is nowhere near as interesting as what comes after that completed sentence.  The real question is not “What happened to you that made you come face-to-face with loss?” but “What did you do when you realized you couldn’t avoid loss any longer?”  To me, the answer to this question is what gauges whether or not you’ll survive your own life.

After sophomore year, my sprint toward “grown up” slowed to a variety of speeds as I realized I couldn’t always control the losses in my life.  Life has been a walk, a jog, even a “stop because I have to barf,” and as I’ve searched for the speed that is most comfortable, I’ve also struggled with what to do with the things I find myself dropping along the way.  Necessary losses are able to be rationalized away, and the pain from those losses subsides more quickly than not.  But what’s a girl to do when the loss is not only painful but doesn’t seem so imperative?  How is it possible that unnecessary losses can hurt just as badly as necessary ones?  And how do I deal with the loss of an expectation -- when nothing has been lost except for my castle in the sky?  It’s questions like these that, I believe, have crippled me into believing that change and loss are only vehicles for pain.  It’s questions like these that have prevented me from making important decisions, and have sent me into a series of mental gymnastics in an attempt to find meaning in my own losses.

It’s really only been in the last six months that I’ve started to discover how God fits into my weak and human attempts to work through my loss and pain.  While I’ve always had faith that God is Who He says He is, and I’ve always believed that Jesus saved me and sent the Holy Spirit to live in my heart, I can’t say that I’ve always looked to this same Trinity to help me deal with life when I can’t handle it.  The supernatural strength that my Savior imbues in me far supersedes any strength I could ever hope to find inside myself.  And in my attempts to control my own life and its losses, I’ve often been blind to the people that God has sent me to help me cope.  I may never completely understand my own losses, my own pain, my own past.  But I am learning that it is the other loss-avoiding, pain-filled, past-rationalizing human beings who populate my world who are part of the answer to the questions I spend so much of my time contemplating.  God shows me His grace through the grace that the people who love me show me every day.  And it is my privilege to do the same for them.  Is there too early an age to attempt to find some benefits from the losses I’ve suffered?  I don’t think so, because as life continues on – painful or not – I am learning to live a life where I believe that “all things work together for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose.”  May my life – suffering and all – be a testament to that fact and a light to those who are looking for answers in their own loss.

It's About Time, Part 2

“You may delay, but time will not.”

Benjamin Franklin

Oh, those Romans.  They really got a whole bunch of things going in this world.  In the case of the calendar, they moved the world down the current path on which we reside.

Last we discussed things, we had a variety of cultures who had all developed their own version of the calendar: the Sumerians, the Babylonians, the Egyptians, the Asians, and the Mayans.  The Romans, too, had a calendar they followed, and it was a lunar calendar.  This early Roman calendar had only ten months.  Before 700 BC, the year began in March and went through December.  Because of this, the words “September”, “October”, “November”, and “December” mean “seventh”, “eighth”, “ninth”, and “tenth” – a fact that seems rather strange now since those are the ninth, tenth, eleventh, and twelfth months in our modern calendar.  In 700 BC, the king of Rome, a guy named Numa, added two months (January and February) and added fifty-six days to the calendar, splitting those fifty-six days between the two new months.  As if things weren’t confusing enough already, priests would sometimes add or take away days to lengthen or shorten the length of a particular leader’s term of office.  Obviously, even though the Romans had a calendar, it was a pretty arbitrary method of keeping time records.

By the time the first century rolled around, along with all these other inconsistencies, everything time-wise was pretty messed up because the Roman calendar was a lunar calendar.  (Remember, lunar calendars mean that eventually the seasons move backwards through the year.)  Julius Caesar decided that the only way to fix the calendar was to bring in an Egyptian named Sosigenes.  Just as a review, the Egyptians knew that a calendar year was more accurate when it was 365 days long.  They also figured out that a day was twenty-four hours, and they even began doing a leap year.  Obviously, the Egyptians had it going on when it came to the calendar.  Therefore, Sosigenes insisted on a 365 day year.

Because the Romans weren’t currently using a 365 day calendar, pandemonium ensued.  In order to fix the mess, the Romans added twenty-three days to February and sixty-seven days between November and December.  In 45 BC, the year had a total of 445 days; this year became known as “The Year of Confusion.”  Appropriate.  J  The extra time created a huge problem with taxes, farming, and just about every other facet of society.  However, once the confusion was over, the Julian calendar went into effect on January 1, 46 BC and was a success for many, many years.  In fact, the Julian calendar is still the official calendar for the Eastern Orthodox Church (Greek, Russian, Ukrainian churches).

Despite all the work that went into developing it, the Julian calendar eventually began to show signs of wear.  In 710 AD, Bede (what a smarty pants) figured out that the seasons were starting earlier than they had 400 years before.  Some countries and towns used different systems than the Julian calendar, which of course led to a haphazard understanding of days and weeks.  But what really exposed the flaws of the Julian calendar were two factors: leap year and Easter.

Julius Caesar had instituted a leap year into his calendar – an extra day in February every four years.  However, after his death, the Romans sometimes did the extra day every three years instead.  Caesar Augustus tried to fix this in 8 BC by re-ordering and adding days to certain months, but it was still not an iron-clad system.  Then in the early 300s AD, Constantine began searching for a more reliable way to figure out when Easter would be.  The Council of Nicea decided it would fall on the first Sunday after the first full moon after March 21.  (I know.  Re-read that sentence.  This is actually still how Easter is calculated.)  This seemed to work pretty well, but in 1582, Pope Gregory XIII realized that Easter was happening later and later every year.  At this time, only the Pope could commission calendar reform, so Pope Gregory found two men to begin the Herculean task of working out the kinks.  Aloysius Lilius and Christopher Clavius were hired to figure out how the calendar needed to be reformed to keep the Easter problem from continuing to happen.  These two men were scientists and scholars, and spent a great deal of time calculating and re-calculating days and weeks and months.  Finally, they figured out that the only way the European people could truly develop an accurate calendar was if they made some changes to the way they understood numbers.  Without Arabic numerals, zero as a number, and the decimal point, the calendar was doomed to always be a little off.  (Why, you ask?  It’s because of the leap year problem.  Refer back to the last post and how an actual year is calculated.)  Lilius and Clavius are the ones who decided that the leap year needed to happen without fail every four years, in years divisible by four.  (The one exception is that years which end in two zeros that cannot be divided by 400 are not leap years.  So, 1700, 1800, and 1900 all avoided the leap year rule, even though they technically were the fourth year after the last leap year.)  In order to get his people onto what became known as the Gregorian calendar, the Pope removed ten days from October of 1582.  However, the catch is that only Catholic countries went along with this change.  It wasn’t until 1752 that Great Britain and the United States fell into line with the Gregorian calendar.  In both countries, the 1752 calendar went from September 2 to September 14 and New Year’s Day was moved to January from March.  What’s funny is that people in England rioted when this change happened because they believed their lives would be shorter.

For the most part, the Gregorian calendar has been the standard since the 18^th century.  There are some countries who have been slow to adopt it as their official calendar – and the United States still has no official calendar – but by and large, the Gregorian is where it’s at.  Along the way, some countries have thrown calendar temper tantrums, but they have been few and far between.  One such hissy fit occurred in 1792 in France.  The French government attempted to institute an entirely new calendar, one called “The Calendar of Reason” which was a metric calendar.  This meant twelve months per year, thirty days per month, five days left over at the end of the year for feasting and celebrating, ten day weeks (!), ten hour days, 100 minute hours, and 100 second minutes.  1792 was considered Year 1 and the system stuck around until 1806!  Some countries and ethnicities still keep their own calendar (as we’ve previously discussed), but for the most part, the Gregorian calendar is the old standard.

Having done all this research, I guess what I find to be so interesting is that the calendar is one more thing that we take for granted in this modern world.  Until I researched this blog, I can’t really say that I’ve ever thought about why we follow the calendar we do or why it’s 2013 and not 34 or 23,631.  It’s just something that’s always been.  Even things like leap years haven’t given me pause.  As a child, I can’t remember ever being like, “Um…why are we adding an extra day this year that we didn’t have last year and we won’t have next year?  That makes no sense.”  Like so many things in life, the crossing-out of little day-boxes is something we do quite without thinking.  We assume that some benevolent person has created the order of days with our best interest in mind and so we follow that order with nary a question in our minds as to why it is the way it is.  Time seems to be a pretty rock-solid concept these days.

Or, it did until post-modernism rolled around.  Let me give you a little background.  In 525 AD, Pope John I asked a man named Dionysius Exiguus (a monk and scholar) to do some work with the Easter calendar and write out when Easter would fall through 626 AD.  While he was doing his work, Dionysius changed the way that the years had been numbered since Diocletian’s rule.  Before this time, years weren’t numbered chronologically; rather, they were numbered based on kingly dynasties and periods of rule.  In an attempt to create some continuity with how the years were numbered, Dionysius calculated Jesus’s birthday and then numbered the years leading up to Jesus’s birthday by counting down to 1 and then numbered everything since Jesus’s birthday by counting up from 1.  Everything “Before Christ” was labeled “B.C.”  Everything after Christ’s birth was labeled “A.D.”, meaning “Anno Domini” or “In the year of our Lord.”  We know now that Dionysius miscalculated Jesus’s birthday as Jesus was most likely born somewhere in the ballpark of 4 B.C.  However, this has been the standard way of labeling years for close to 1500 years.

In the last few years, a push has been started by scholars and historians to eliminate the Jesus aspect of labeling years.  They want to change “B.C.” to “B.C.E.” for “Before Common Era” and “C.E.” for “Common Era.”  The last time I was at the Detroit Institute of Arts, I noticed that some artifact was dated using this system instead of B.C. and A.D.  It’s starting to pop up in textbooks and other historically-minded books, as well.  Clearly, post-modern thinkers are really trying to make it so that something that has been for a long time is no longer the norm.  And more specifically, they are trying to make it so that any reference to Christ and when He came to earth is eliminated from our understanding of time.

But I guess what I love is this: they can’t completely eliminate it.  Unless some person is willing to start over and re-number all the years that have ever been, whether the year is labeled “B.C.” or “B.C.E.”, our year numbering system is still based on the birth of Christ, and any informational book about the calendar will tell you exactly that.  Plus, if someone really wanted to re-number all the years that have ever been, how would they know when or where to start?  There has to be some kind of event or watershed moment that a year-numberer would use to create structure.  That, or there has to be a specific moment when time began, and post-modernists aren’t really willing to go there since that would mean something (or Someone) got the clock ticking.  The way time has been organized is not a relative thing, despite the post-modernists’ attempts to make it so.  Maybe this doesn't seem like that big of a deal, but I find great comfort in knowing that our calendars are organized around the moment when time was forever altered.  And no matter how our years are labeled or how people make changes to the calendar in the future, nothing can change that fact.

That’s all for now.  I do have some more thoughts on this topic, and I'd also really like to pass along some information about the Mayans.  I've been doing some reading about their calendar and how it's connected to their belief system and it's pretty interesting stuff.  I don't think the media or your average American knew why the Mayans thought the world would end in 2012...they were just told the Mayan calendar ended.  So I'd like to educate my readers about that a bit (if I can get through the book).  The amount of free time I enjoy each day has been severely limited as I’ve taken on a long-term substitute position.  However, I am teaching a writing class, and it’s given me a stronger motivation to keep up with my own writing schedule.  Check in again next week!

It's About Time, Part 1

“Do not squander time for that is the stuff life is made of.”

Benjamin Franklin

"I've got too much (clap, clap) time on my hands / and it's ticking away, ticking away from me."

"Too Much Time on My Hands" -- song by Styx, 1981

Given that it is the beginning of another year, I figured it would be appropriate to write my newest blog post about the development of the calendar.  I put this on my list of topics a while ago when all the public furor began regarding our fiery death as predicted by the Mayans.  Since we dodged that bullet, I figured I would take full advantage of being alive and do some research about how we arrived at the calendar the western world follows.  I can’t say that I knew the majority of what I’ve learned, and I found a lot of interesting tidbits about how the months were named, how leap years came to be, and why this is not 2013 in the eyes of some people.

Beyond those historical and technical elements of the calendar, I think time itself is a fascinating topic.  The language of time is commonplace in English.  Some well-known idioms with regards to time include:

• Better late than never
• Once in a blue moon
• Living on borrowed time
• Have the time of your life
• Time is money

But we also say things like, “I don’t have enough time” or “If I had the time, I would” or “I’ve got all the time in the world.”  Quite often, we use the word "time" in sentences with the verb “have.”  Looking at it from that perspective, time is not just something that is, it’s something we own and control.  We see time as a resource to be used, wasted, or spent in a particular way.  Along with that consideration comes many other implications and pick-apart-able ideas.  J  I think Franklin’s quote above gives a pretty good idea of why we think so much about time – it truly is the stuff life is made of, and how we use our time also is a clear commentary on who we are.  The events, activities, and work that fill all those little boxes of the calendar every year make up the substance of our lives.  And while no one wants to say they’ve used their time poorly, so often, we are guilty of doing just that.

What is it that makes wasting time so easy and using it wisely so much more difficult?  When did the concept of "time management" emerge and why?  Why are we so obsessed with the world’s end and how much time we have left?  How have our lives changed for better or worse because of the development of the calendar?  These are all questions to contemplate as I start by giving you some background on how we keep track of how much time we have each year.  (And maybe start thinking of some of your own – I love new questions I’ve never thought of!)

The Basic Set-Up of the Calendar

There are three types of calendars in the world: lunar, solar, and lunisolar.  Lunar years – years based on the cycles of the moon – have 354 days, and solar years – those based on the sun – have 365 days.  The majority of the world uses what is known as the Gregorian calendar and it is a solar calendar.  Despite the fact that we follow a solar calendar, we don’t follow the definition of a solar year to a T.  We actually use something called “tropical years”: 365.24219 days equal one year.  The fact that each year is 365.25 days long is why we do a leap year every four years.  Let me show you what I mean in math language.

[.25 of a day + .25 of a day + .25 of a day + .25 of a day = 1 whole day]

The long process of developing this precise number will be discussed throughout this series of blog posts.  So, we continue on.  J   Islamic cultures use a lunar calendar.  Because the lunar calendar falls short eleven days every year (and twelve days in leap years), lunar calendars eventually end up moving backwards through the seasons.  (I know that sounds weird, but think about it for a moment: over time, eleven days can add up.)  Lunisolar calendars are based on…can you guess?...the sun and the moon.  The major contributor to a lunisolar calendar is the moon and its cycles, but every two or three years, cultures who use the lunisolar calendar add a month, thus giving a nod to the solar calendar.  The Chinese and Hebrew calendars are lunisolar.  (If this seems like a lot of calendars to keep straight, just wait until you read the next sentence.)  In all, there are approximately forty different types of calendars in use today all over the world.

Now, if you’re anything like I am, you may be saying this to yourself: “Besides those mildly entertaining placemats at my favorite Chinese restaurant that tell me it’s the Year of the Dog or the Year of the Dragon or whatever, I didn’t know that different cultures still used different calendars.”  I was really surprised to learn that even though the Gregorian calendar is used world-wide for business and major world holidays, the Muslims, Jews, and Chinese still follow their own yearly calendars.  Some people still follow the precursor of the Gregorian calendar, the Julian calendar.  What this means is that depending on which calendar you’re looking at, January 3 might not be January 3 and 2013 might not be 2013.  Check out this chart I found in one of my books:

Which calendar?	What year?	Based on what?	When is 2005’s New Year’s Day on this calendar?
Gregorian	2005	Birth of Christ	January 1, 2005
Julian	2005	Birth of Christ	January 14, 2005
Islamic	1426	Flight of Muhammad	February 10, 2005
Chinese	4703	Legend	February 9, 2005
Hebrew	5766	Year of creation	October 4, 2005

Maybe now you’re wondering where all these calendars came from and how they were developed.  Well, shucks…I’m so glad you asked.

Early “Calendars”

Before people chose whether they wanted gamboling puppies or Maxim pinups gracing their monthly collection of numbered boxes, they simply ordered their days based on their observations of the sun, moon, and stars.  These celestial bodies all follow clear patterns.  The sun rises in a new place every day over a period of a year; the moon waxes and wanes every thirty days (give or take); and there are certain stars that show up on the horizon pre-sunrise or post-sunset at particular times of the year.  All of these patterns are a direct result of the Earth spinning on its axis.  (Just as a quick review, the Earth spinning once on its axis is the equivalent of a day, and the Earth traveling once around the sun is the equivalent of a year.)  Paying attention to these natural repetitions in the sky – as well as the yearly progression of seasons – helped early people figure out the best times to plant and reap crops.  Once people realized that the same thing happened every year, they tried to create a tangible record of the progression of days.  Archaeologists have found evidence of many types of early calendars:  carved animal bones, stones arranged in a particular pattern, clay tablets full of markings, and records of flood patterns.

How Early Civilizations Dealt with the Calendar Issue

The Sumerians were the first to create a calendar over 5000 years ago.  They divided the year into days and the days into hours and they were able to do this by using the moon and its cycles.  One year was the equivalent of twelve lunar months of thirty days apiece.  (Using your quick math skills, you can see that they only accounted for 360 days.)  The Sumerians knew there was an error somewhere because they recorded that the seasons were happening later and later with each passing year.

According to my research, the Sumerians are considered an older civilization than the Egyptians, but not by much.  In approximately 4000 BC, the Egyptians contributed to the development of the calendar by creating a 365 day year.  However, they based the calendar on the seasons and the flooding of the Nile rather than the moon.  Their calendar had twelve thirty-day months and they spent the last five days of the year feasting and celebrating.

By 2000 BC, the Babylonians had improved on the Sumerian calendar by making each month twenty-nine or thirty days and then throwing in another thirty-day month every three years to compensate for the lost days.  This calendar continued for fifteen centuries!

The peoples of Asia dealt with lost days in a similar manner.  By 1000 BC, the Hindu calendar had twelve months and 360 days with an added leap month every five years.

Finally, on another continent altogether, between the years of 2000 BC and 1500 AD, those pesky Mayans went a direction that no one else did.  Their year had eighteen months with twenty days each.  This still left an extra five days, but the Mayans believed they were full of evil omens.  I’m not exactly sure what that means or how the Mayans dealt with the evil omens.  Obviously, they were a people who assumed the worst about things like extra days and calendars in general.

*** 

As you might have guessed, it was the Romans who really got things rolling in terms of a specific and empire-wide calendar.  When you can find the time, come on back to hear the continued story of the calendar.  There will be more to chew on next week!

I Know, I Know

I have to apologize for my absence.  My summer was a bit tumultuous and I got off my writing schedule.  I'm sure everyone out there can appreciate what happens when schedule patterns are broken.  It's usually bad.  So, I just help to prove that point.  I have not stopped having writing ideas, though, so there are good blog posts in the works!  I wanted to be sure that the four people who check this blog regularly know I'm alive and, more importantly, that my mind is still alive.

Come back again soon!

Jazz Hands (and Spirit Fingers)

Before I quit teaching, I was lucky enough to be able to teach a class that I feel truly passionate about -- American Literature.  One piece of American literature that really moves me is the Declaration of Independence.  I used to tell the kiddos in my class that it was probably one of my top ten favorite pieces of literature to teach because once everyone understands what is being said, the brilliance and beauty of the document starts to emerge more clearly.  I had a student tell me last year that he learned more about American history from my forty-five minute Declaration of Independence lecture than he did in his history class.  Always a good day when you hear that.  Anyways, in honor of America's birthday, I figured what better way to celebrate than to re-visit this magical piece of Americana.  Hopefully it gives you jazz hands (and spirit fingers) the way it does me.  My teachable moments (and helpful definitions) are in [brackets].  Enjoy!
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When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel [push] them to the separation.

[Right off the bat, notice that the Founding Fathers (from here on out: FF) didn't beat around the bush.  They say that this separation is necessary, not just desired.  This is not just a political temper tantrum.  (More about that later.)  They also clarify that by getting rid of these political ties, they are taking on a new role as a group of people -- a separate but equal role.  This suggests they were under England before this Declaration was declared.]

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, they they are endowed by their Creator [the Christian God] with certain unalienable Rights [that is, they can't be taken away], that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving [obtaining] their just powers from the consent of the governed,--That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter [change] or abolish [get rid of] it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect [achieve] their Safety and Happiness.

[A couple meaty sentences, for sure.  First of all, notice that the FF clearly stated that the Rights which make us equal were given to us by our Creator.  Government is not the last word on Rights; God is.  Now, in order for those Rights to be protected, governments are put into place and the powers (even more, the "just powers") of those governments come directly from the people.  I can remember a student asked me once if what the Colonists did was actually wrong since they weren't respecting and fearing the government, like the Bible says we should.  I told him that part of what makes the Declaration of Independence so brilliant is that it was the last resort for the Colonies.  They did what they could to try to change how they were being treated in the form of petitions, letters, boycotts, and peaceful demonstrations.  After they were rebuffed enough times, it was time to take action since the Rights they knew were given to them by God were being violated.  However, instead of just saying, "Screw it, let's just shoot some guns," the Colonies decided to let King George know exactly why they were doing what they were doing.  They had tried to "alter" the government before they chose to "abolish" it.  And their central goal was simply to be protected!  It wasn't just that they didn't feel like following the rules.  The king was not holding up his end of the government bargain by treating them unfairly.]

Prudence [caution], indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient [fleeting] causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn [has shown] that mankind are more disposed [apt] to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.  But when a long train of abuses and usurpations [seizures of power], pursuing invariably [always] the same Object evinces [reveals] a design [plan] to reduce them under absolute Despotism [tyranny], it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains [forces] them to alter their former Systems of Government.

[Just a side note: every time I read "it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government and to provide new Guards for their future security"...I get chills.  Nerdy teacher, I know.  But think about how this document changed the course of history!  It's incredible when you really stop to contemplate it.]


[In this section, I so appreciate that the FF noted that most people are willing to put up with being treated badly as long as being treated badly is bearable.  They were using a basic understanding of human nature to strengthen their cause.  People will often complain about things, but they, more often than not, won't attempt to make a change for the better.  So, in essence, the FF are saying, "Even we--with our human tendency to 'put up' with abuse--can't take this anymore and demand to be treated more justly."  The Declaration says here that the FF believed King George's eventual goal was Absolutism.  Obviously, that was (and is) a conflict with the Rights they believed God had given every person, and, thus, they were declaring it their "right" and "duty" to create a new government that would protect them from tyranny.]

The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations [you already know what this means!], all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States.  To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

[In the following section, the FF literally make a list of all the ways King George has violated them and their freedom.  I am going to summarize in my own words to make it go a little faster.  I usually skipped this part when I was teaching it...But what makes it important is that, again, the FF wanted to make it clear that they weren't just throwing a political temper tantrum.  They had very specific reasons for declaring a separation from England.  You could probably skim it and still get the major gist of why America did what she did.]

1.  He won't approve laws that would uphold the public good.
2.  He won't allow his governors (in the Colonies) to pass important laws because he wants to approve them himself, except he ignores the laws once he receives them.
3.  He won't pass laws to help large districts unless they agree to no longer be represented in the legislature.
4.  He has made legislation difficult in an attempt to bully people into doing what he wants.
5.  He has gotten rid of representative houses who oppose his invasions on the rights of the people.
6.  He has stalled elections and left states without anyone in charge.
7.  He has tried to keep people from migrating to America through unfair laws.
8.  He has obstructed justice by not passing laws to create judiciary powers in the Colonies.
9.  He has made it so judges' length of tenure and payment of salary depend on him.
10.  He has created offices (and sent officers) to harass the people and cause them problems.
11.  He has kept standing armies in times of peace.
12.  He has made it so the military is independent of (and superior to) the civil powers in the Colonies.
13.  He's tried to force his legislation on the states, even legislation that contradicts state constitutions.
14.  He is housing large groups of soldiers in our midst.
15.  He's protecting those soldiers from being prosecuted for murdering colonists.
16.  He has cut off our trade from the rest of the world.
17.  He has taxed us without consent.
18.  He has deprived us of trials by jury.
19.  He has taken people away from the Colonies to be tried for fake crimes.
20.  He has established an arbitrary government by getting rid of English law in a nearby Province and then has used this Province as an example of what will happen to the Colonies after he takes over completely.
21.  He has taken away our charters and laws and has changed our forms of government.
22.  He has suspended our legislatures and used them to his own ends.
23.  He has said we are no longer under his protection and has waged war against us.
24.  "He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people."  [I didn't feel I could summarize that any better...]
25.  He is sending large armies and mercenaries to carry out his acts of death, destruction, tyranny, and cruelty which don't line up with his station as the head of a modern nation.
26.  He has taken captives on the sea and forced them to fight in his army against their own countrymen.
27.  He has caused uprisings among us and has incited the "merciless Indian Savages" against us. [What's in quotes is a direct quote from the Declaration.]


[I think most of these are pretty self-explanatory.  Like I said, they are summaries, so if you want to read the real wording, check out the Declaration yourself!]

In every state of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress [remedy] in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury.  A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

[Again, we see that the FF wanted to confirm the fact that they weren't just kicking and screaming about having a ruler over them.  They had tried the calm approach through their "petitions", but those had been completely disregarded.  Not only was it disregarded, but the problems they were trying to deal with in the first place actually got worse.  They were fighting against oppression and tyranny in its most palpable form.]

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren [brothers].  We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction [unfounded power] over us.  We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here.  We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity [generosity], and we have conjured [influenced] them by ties of our common kindred to disavow [reject] these usurpations [they really liked this word], which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence.  They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity [common ancestry].  We must, therefore, acquiesce [give in] in the necessity, which denounces [speaks out against] our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

[Part of what I think is so smart about this Declaration is how all-encompassing the FF were.  They covered all their bases, including how to deal with the people in their midst who certainly wouldn't be okay with separating from Britain.  And they even have the beginnings of a foreign policy here: "we...hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends."  Nice work, FF.]

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world [the Christian God] for the rectitude [right-ness] of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; they they are Absolved [freed] from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy [start] War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do.  And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence [the Christian God], we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

[I love that the FF came full circle with their Declaration.  They acknowledge at the beginning of it that God is one Who gave them their rights.  So, it's only fitting that here at the end, they also check in with Him to be sure that what they're doing has a moral basis.  Furthermore, they ask for His protection as they send this little mail-bomb.  However, they don't take themselves out of the equation and just hope that God will protect them.  They pledge each other their lives, knowing that some of them would likely lose their lives in the conflict that was to come.  For them, it was an all-or-nothing kind of thing.  But so were their Rights!]

I am reading Democracy in America with a couple friends of mine, and one point Alexis de Tocqueville makes in his intro is that you can see what a nation will become by going back to see how it started.  I've thought a lot about that this past week for a variety of reasons.  There are times where I fear that our country has strayed so far from the place it started that it will eventually become unrecognizable.  Perhaps that will happen.  But I find a great amount of comfort when I read documents like the Declaration of Independence because I know that this nation started as a place where an Idea can triumph over tyranny.  Might does not make right.  No matter what happens, where we come from is solid.  Buildings can crumble but still stand the test of time when they have strong foundations.  You've just read one small part of ours.

For more pieces of the foundation (or just good stuff to know), I challenge you to read some of the following:

The United States Constitution
Daniel Hannan, The New Road to Serfdom
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, & John Jay, The Federalist Papers
Thomas Paine, Common Sense
John Locke, Two Treatises of Government

Happy Fourth of July!

Tonight, Part 2

“Now therefore, while the youthful hue

Sits on thy skin like morning dew,

And while thy willing soul transpires

At every pore with instant fires,

Now let us sport us while we may,

And now, like amorous birds of prey,

Rather at once our time devour

Than languish in his slow-chapped power.”

“To His Coy Mistress” – poem by Andrew Marvell, 1681

tonight (n): the present or coming night

Okay, so a quick review of the last post (the teacher in me cannot be suppressed…review is necessary!) before we move on to this new one.  So far, tonight has been split into two categories:  tonight as possibility and tonight as an end unto itself.  Both views of tonight are motivated by fear of what might happen tomorrow and, therefore, those who see tonight this way are banking on the fact that the benefits of tonight will provide something solid that will help to quell their fear.

Got it?  Good.  J  Then we move on.

#3 – Tonight as contradiction

This is the category that I went back and forth on in terms of how to label it.  I’m still not sure “contradiction” is the right name, so if you think of a better one while reading the lyrics and explanations I provide, please leave a comment with your idea.  Part of my dilemma stemmed from the fact that some of the contradictory lyrical ideas in these songs lead the singers into category #2 (tonight as an end in and of itself).  I believe categories #2 and #3 go hand-in-hand because contradictions tend to lead to quick solutions.  We are rational human beings and people (often?  usually?) know when they are being inconsistent.  Once we become aware of that contradiction we either (A) want to avert attention away from it as soon as possible or (B) want to use that contradiction to achieve a desired outcome.  In the case of tonight, I think (B) is the more popular choice.  Take a look at what I mean.

“We’ve Got Tonight” by Bob Seger

I actually laughed out loud while I was reading these lyrics (despite the fact that they are pretty pathetic-sounding) because of the blatant flaw in the singer’s argument to his lady friend:

“Deep in my soul, I’ve been so lonely / All of my hopes fading away / I’ve longed for love, like everyone else does / I know I’ll keep searching, even after today / So there it is, girl, I’ve said it all now / And here we are, babe, what do you say? / We’ve got tonight, who needs tomorrow? / We’ve got tonight, babe, / Why don’t you stay?”

First, the singer claims, “I know I’ll keep searching [for love], even after today.”  Then he asks, “We’ve got tonight, who needs tomorrow?”  Um…hate to break it to you, dude, but as a matter of fact YOU need tomorrow.  You’ve just shared that you’re going to keep looking for love “after today”!  But, the contradiction is necessary in order to get what he wants right now – the girl to stay.  His desire is to push the loneliness aside for a night so he can pretend to forget about it, and if he has to be illogical to get that, by golly, he’s going to be.  This is where category #3 meshes with category #2.  In order to create the pathway to treating tonight as an end in and of itself, the singer presents a contradiction about tonight that helps pave the way.

Just as a side note, I don’t know about you ladies out there, but if I was hearing this presentation about why I should stay, the most offensive part would probably be the fact that this guy is basically saying, “Well, you seem great and all, so you can help me with my loneliness problem tonight, but clearly you aren’t future love material, so I’m going to keep searching after our adult sleepover.  Thanks!”  Nothing like a boost of confidence to make you want to stay the night.

“Will You Love Me Tomorrow” by The Shirelles

I am glad that I was able to find a song from a little while back to draw into this conversation.  This song by The Shirelles presents a similar contradiction that Bob Seger’s song does, but I think it’s a little sneakier.  Here’s what the ladies have to say:

“Tonight you’re mine completely / You give your love so sweetly / Tonight the light of love is in your eyes / But will you love me tomorrow? / … / I’d like to know that your love / Is love I can be sure of / So tell me now, and I won’t ask again / Will you still love me tomorrow?”

I think that in the first part of the lyrics, the question makes the singer seem unsure of the situation (and herself in the situation), so the question makes her appear to be cautious and smart.  She seems to realize that in “tonight land” love is easy to give.  However, as the song continues, it turns out she is asking the question for the same reason Bob Seger was: she wants to be able to justify later what it is she wants to do now.  If she isn’t sure her man will love her tomorrow, maybe she should think twice about what she’s doing now.  I give the lady some credit for even thinking about tomorrow, but she wants an answer about tomorrow right now so that what’s happening right now can continue.  Tonight is still the ultimate goal.

#4 – Tonight as respite and strength for what’s coming tomorrow.

This was the category that surprised me.  I didn’t go into this expecting to find songs with a positive view of tonight, but it happened anyways.  I suppose I really shouldn’t be surprised since not everyone is obsessed with the right-now-in-the-moment lifestyle.  And therefore it’s possible to find healthy views of life in songs, as I did with these two.  In both cases, tonight is presented as a sort of hideaway.  It’s that place that we can always go when things are bad to be rejuvenated.  This makes a ton of sense since night time is when we sleep (usually), and sleep is such a renewing activity for human beings.  These singers see the positive function of night time, too.

“The Way You Look Tonight” by Frank Sinatra (and about a bajillion other great singers)

I’ve always wanted to dance to this song at my wedding.  It’s such a beautiful commentary on how a moment can last for much longer than a moment.  Furthermore, it is one of the first songs I found that suggests tonight has a function beyond just pleasure or killing loneliness:

“Someday when I’m awfully low / When the world is cold / I will feel a glow just thinking of you / And the way you look tonight.”

So many other artists seem to want to bask in the quick solution that tonight can provide.  They encourage listeners to snatch the moment and enjoy it while it lasts, but they forget to consider the fact that life goes on after tonight.  Even the singers who do recognize that tomorrow will eventually arrive seem to deal with it in unrealistic ways.  West Side Story suggests that tonight’s love can change tomorrow into a “star” of a world and that the “just an address” world of today will be gone.  Bob Seger doesn’t even really want to acknowledge tomorrow – he pretends like it’s not necessary!  The Shirelles use tomorrow as a tool to get what they want tonight and avoid really considering what tomorrow might bring if tonight happens the way they want it to.

For the singer of “The Way You Look Tonight”, it’s about embracing a moment while recognizing that he cannot live in it.  He knows life goes on – and it’s going to be hard – but tonight helps.  Tonight is worth enjoying even if it is a moment that will pass.  The awareness of that fact is part of what gives this song a healthier view of tonight.

“Can You Feel the Love Tonight?” by Elton John

One of my favorite things about music is the marriage of words and sounds.  A songwriter can take the most calming and serene words in the world and completely change their meaning by introducing high-energy music to go along with them.  This Elton John song, however, creates a whole picture of peace with words and music.  If you’ve never heard this song (because you live in a box), check it out.  I think you’ll see what I mean.  For now, here are the important lyrics:

“There’s a calm surrender to the rush of day / When the heat of the rolling wind can be turned away / An enchanted moment and it sees me through / It’s enough for this restless warrior just to be with you / And can you feel the love tonight / It is where we are / It’s enough for this wide-eyed wanderer that we’ve got this far / … / There’s a rhyme and reason to the wild outdoors / When the heart of this star-crossed voyager beats in time with yours.”

Much like “The Way You Look Tonight”, the singer here sees tonight as an escape.  Unlike the previous singer, who is seeing tonight for its future escapism, this singer sees tonight as a way to escape the day that has just occurred.  Tonight is a respite from the “heat of the rolling wind” and the “rush of day.”  This is the first song I have examined that really sees tonight as a small part of a big today.  So many other singers have seen tonight as the biggest, most important part of a day.  Here, there is an acknowledgement that tonight is part of it, but not all of it.  Furthermore, what happens tonight helps to make sense of the bigger world (“There’s a rhyme and reason to the wild outdoors / When the heart of this star-crossed voyager beats in time with yours”).  I appreciate that this song recognizes there is a bigger world and that tomorrow is coming.  Tonight gives this singer strength for tomorrow because tonight is not the end – it’s simply the end before the start.

So, you may be asking yourself, “What about the Fun song?  That’s how this whole post started.”  I’ve thought a lot about “We Are Young” and where it might fit in.  The problem I’ve encountered with this song (besides the disgusting number of times it is still being played) is that the song can’t make up its mind.  Let’s pick this last set of lyrics apart.

Exhibit A:

“Give me a second I / I need to get my story straight / My friends are in the bathroom / Getting higher than the Empire State/ My lover she’s waiting for me / Just across the bar / My seat’s been taken by some sunglasses / Asking ‘bout a scar / And I know I gave it to you months ago / I know you’re trying to forget / But between the drinks and subtle things / The holes in my apologies / You know I’m trying hard to take it back / So if by the time the bar closes / And you feel like falling down / I’ll carry you home / Tonight / We are young / So let’s set this world on fire / We can burn brighter than the sun.”

Here, we have two types of “tonight as possibility”, a smaller version and a more grandiose version: (1) perhaps his offer to carry her home when she feels like falling down will do something to fix their relationship or (2) because we’re young, we have the ability to change the world (at least that’s what it sounds like…).  So far, not so bad.  In fact, for the 2.2 seconds I liked this song, I totally appreciated the "set the world on fire" concept.

We continue…

Exhibit B:

“Now I know that I’m not / All that you got / I guess that I / I just thought maybe we could find new ways to fall apart / But our friends are back / So let’s raise a cup / Cause I found someone to carry me home / Tonight / We are young / So let’s set the world on fire / We can burn brighter than the sun.”

Here come the problems.  All of a sudden, tonight is “a contradiction” and it’s also “an end in and of itself.”  The previous set of lyrics suggested that one of the benefits of tonight would be that it might fix the future of this couple's relationship (no matter how unrealistic that might be).  Except now he’s saying that they could find “new ways to fall apart.”  Oh, and now wait…the friends are back!  So forget all the stuff he just said about apologizing and fixing things because he really just wants to drink.  And in the midst of all of that, apparently he’s found someone to carry HIM home.  What happened to carrying your lady friend home?  And is it your lady friend carrying you home or someone we haven't met yet?

(Don’t forget that somehow the possibility still stands that they will set the world on fire simply because they are young.)

It gets worse…

Exhibit C:

“The world is on my side / I have no reason to run / So will someone come and carry me home tonight / The angels never arrived / But I can hear the choir / So will someone come and carry me home / Tonight we are young / So let’s set the world on fire / We can burn brighter than the sun / So if by the time the bar closes and you feel like falling down / I’ll carry you home tonight.”

More of “tonight as an end in itself”, more phony “possibility”, and even more “contradiction.”  This is what I mean about the song not being able to make up its mind.  I know that many songs could be placed into multiple categories, but I think that this particular song’s schizophrenia is a current reflection of the average person’s attitude toward the “tonight” of life.  My guess is that most people see tonight a variety of different ways depending on how it benefits them the most.

I really think people want to believe that what happens tonight will help them “set the world on fire,” and the possibility of that sounds wonderful.  (And that imagery can mean many things to many people.)  But when you actually read the lyrics, this singer isn’t setting the world on fire because he is young enough to make positive change in the world.  He’s setting it on fire so that he and his friends can be seen more clearly (“We can burn brighter than the sun”).  It’s a scorched earth policy when you look at it that way.  It’s pure selfishness.

Here’s what I want to know.  How many people are embracing what tonight has to offer because they believe that tonight will help them to ignite something warm, bright, and powerful in their lives without realizing that keeping that fire going takes work, sacrifice, and fuel?  And how many other people are getting a fire going for a night but letting it die out by the time morning rolls around?  These are the questions that “We Are Young” leaves knocking around my brain (which might, in fact, suggest that I’m not very young...ha!).  I can't really say that I know the answer to those questions, either.  It's just something to think about, I suppose.

You can see up above that I included the definition of “tonight.”  What struck me most about this dictionary entry was that tonight can only be defined in terms of today.  There is no tomorrow in the definition of tonight.  However, that doesn’t mean that tomorrow doesn’t exist.  It’s still there…waiting to arrive.  And while it’s a separate entity from “tonight”, it cannot be ignored.  So, in the end, while we can always find benefits in living a "Carpe Diem" sort of lifestyle, it's pretty short-sighted.  Much like I said in the last post, living only for tonight makes us unable to see the wonderful possibilities that tomorrow might bring.  I believe we have to find the middle ground between embracing the now in case we don't get tomorrow and expecting that tomorrow will always bring better things that what we see now.

For me, tomorrow will bring a new topic!  I've had a request from my friend Noah to discuss traffic.  He and I have already hashed it out a bit, and I'm excited about it.

Until then!

Tonight, Part 1

“Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,

Old time is still a-flying;

And this same flower that smiles today,

Tomorrow will be dying.

The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun,

The higher he’s a-getting,

The sooner will his race be run,

And nearer he’s to setting.”

“To the Virgins to Make Much of Time” -- poem by Robert Herrick, 1599

“Tonight, we are young.”

“We Are Young” -- song by Fun, 2011

One of the things I always loved (and now miss) about being a high school English teacher was having the daily opportunity to show high schoolers that no matter what weird order the words are in or what ancient type of vocabulary is being used, the messages in literature have remained (largely) the same throughout time.  Another lesson that I emphasized in my classroom was that literature is all around us.  Sure, it’s usually found in books, poems, short stories, and essays; however, it can also be found in music.  Music was often a central part of my lesson plans, and I still find myself listening to songs muttering, “How can I apply that?”  (Just as an example, I once used a 50 Cent song to help teach the pastoral poem “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love”.  J)

So, after hearing the song “We Are Young” by Fun adnauseam on just about every genre of radio station here in the Metro Detroit area, I started to think about the concept of “tonight”.  Fun says that word a whole lot of times in their song, but I learned a long time ago that just because someone says something a few times doesn’t mean they always know what it means.  I looked up the lyrics, and then started to think about other songs that use the word “tonight”.

Here are the song lyrics I read for this series of posts (besides the Fun lyrics):

“Give Me Everything” by Pitbull

“Tonight” from West Side Story

“Tonight, Tonight” by The Smashing Pumpkins

“We’ve Got Tonight” by Bob Seger

“Can You Feel the Love Tonight” by Elton John

“Will You Love Me Tomorrow” by The Shirelles

“Take Me Home Tonight” by Eddie Money

“The Way You Look Tonight” by Frank Sinatra

(F.Y.I…I’ll not be including the lyrics in their entirety during my discussion, so if you’d like to see the full lyrics, just click on each song name.  If you’d like to see the video, click on the artist’s name.) (F.Y.I. #2...the Elton John video is so cheesy that it's fantastic.  And The Shirelles video is a live performance from 1964!  Check it out!)

After reading all these songs and mulling over it for a bit, I decided that the idea of "tonight" is presented in four different ways.  I’ll deal with two in this post and two in the next.  Let’s go!

#1 – Tonight as possibility.

To me, this is the romantic version of “tonight.”  Possibility is a cloudy concept, and that leaves room for the anticipation of what’s to come.  The night is full of questions – What’s going to happen?  Where will I go?  Who will I meet? – and, as such, it’s a time of day that’s riddled with uncertainty.  Instead of that uncertainty bringing these singers to their knees, it brings them to a place where they grab onto the possibility of the night and use that as their certainty.  Tonight is exciting and it brings exciting things along with it.

“Tonight” – West Side Story

For those who have never seen the musical (and, I must confess, I’ve only seen parts of it), this is an updated version of Romeo and Juliet, set in New York and centering around two young people whose association with rival gangs makes their love seem impossible.  Not long after they see each other for the first time (and immediately fall in love), they sing “Tonight” to one another.  Neither one knows how they will make this love they’ve found work out.  But here are a few things they do know:

“Today the world was just an address / A place for me to live in / No better than all right / But here you are / And what was just a world is a star / Tonight.”

However it will all come together, Tony and Maria realize that the world before they met each other was ordinary.  Now that they have seen what the world could be, they want that world all the time.  The potential for more seems to become a reality in the middle of a tonight that is not a reflection of normal life.  Tony and Maria believe in the possibility of getting more than what they have already, and tonight’s new love is how they’ll achieve those bigger things, no matter how unrealistic it might be.

“Tonight, Tonight” by The Smashing Pumpkins

Apparently, this song has been compared to Robert Herrick’s poem “To the Virgins to Make Much of Time” (quoted way up top).  The part of the song that stuck out to me includes:

“Tonight, so bright / Tonight / And you know you’re never sure / But you’re sure you could be right / If you held yourself up to the light / … / We’ll crucify the insincere tonight, / We’ll make things right, we’ll feel it all tonight, / We’ll find a way to offer up the night tonight, / The indescribable moments of your life tonight, / The impossible is possible tonight, / Believe in me as I believe in you, tonight.”

This one might seem obvious since the lyrics mention possibility, but look around that mention at what exactly is possible: getting rid of insincerity, making things right, offering up the night, believing in “me”.  These things are labeled impossible, but yet The Smashing Pumpkins suggest they are possible because of what tonight means:  a beginning.  It is a launching point for what’s going to happen in the future, and that future includes achieving the impossible.  Even amidst uncertainty (“You know you’re never sure / But you’re sure you could be right”), there's a chance for something great to happen.

#2 – Tonight as an end in and of itself.

I’m pretty sure this type of tonight centers around casual sex and/or partying.  It’s sort of an “eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die” attitude.  And it’s pretty dangerous!  I think of all the types, this tonight is the one that can cause the most regret and destruction because it’s completely focused on wanting a specific thing – healthy or not – without stopping to consider the fallout or the consequences.  In order to think of tonight as an end in and of itself, the idea that there might be some kind of negative result from living for the now cannot even be brought to the table.  Now is all there is, so who cares what the result might be?

“Give Me Everything” by Pitbull

I have to be honest: this song was not on my original list.  However, as I was cruising north on I-75 going 80 mph today, my radio flipping brought me to this song.  I felt like it was a sign since the lyrics fit perfectly with this category.  The lyrics that made me think that?  Here:

“Tonight, I will love, love you tonight / Give me everything tonight / For all we know, we might not get tomorrow / Let’s do it tonight / … / I want you tonight / I want you to stay / I want you tonight.”

Part of the big problem with this “tonight as an end in itself” thinking is that it doesn’t take into consideration what happens if you DO get tomorrow.  If you’ve used up all the good stuff tonight, what will you have left over for tomorrow?  I think this ties in with the current acronym of choice with the young folks: “YOLO” (which means “you only live once”).  I just read an article that talked about how this little abbreviation is being used to sanction all kinds of stupidity.  I don’t have a problem with taking risks or living on the edge of glory.  But I do have a problem with the idea that whatever happens in the now can’t possibly be better than what might happen tomorrow so grab all the good stuff you can in the moment.  Pitbull really isn’t helping the little ankle biters of the world make better choices.

“Take Me Home Tonight” by Eddie Money

I have to be honest…again: I love this song.  While I totally and completely disagree with Mr. Money’s ideology, I cannot help but blare the song every time it comes on the radio.  (Plus, it makes a great karaoke tune to “sing” with my pals Natalie and Greg!)  But I’m not here to spout my particular loves for a particular song.  I’m here to pick it apart!  The lyrics’ greatest offenders include:

“I get frightened in all this darkness / I get nightmares, I hate to sleep alone / I need some company / A guardian angel to keep me warm when the cold winds blow / Take me home tonight / I don’t want to let you go till you see the light / Take me home tonight.”

For this singer, tonight is about getting what he needs.  The goal is to avoid being alone.  Since darkness is coming no matter what happens, the tonight he is personally seeking is an end in itself.  However, seeing tonight this way is completely subjective, and I think it leads to framing everything that happens in terms of how it well it satisfies (or doesn’t satisfy) a person's need for what tonight might have to offer.  Just count how many times he says “I” or “me”.  It's clear that this singer's desires are front and center, but once the night is over, he puts those away until they rear their ugly heads.  On to the next night.

So those are the first two categories.  I guess what strikes me the most about these two is how alike they are.  In both scenarios, the person who is embracing tonight is unsure of what tomorrow might bring.  Therefore, tonight seems like a pretty solid rock.  Fear is really the motivator for these tonights, and the people populating them are going to do whatever it takes to overcome that fear.  I think what sets these two categories apart is that in the first, the fear of the future never completely negates the future, it just looks at it unrealistically.  (So, I suppose you could argue that fear, in fact, does negate any future because it creates a false tomorrow rather than accepting what's real.)  In the second, the future doesn't matter because the only thing that could possibly matter is what goes on tonight.

Either way you slice it, both tonights carry with them the possibility of something happening.  But the darkness that comes with night also makes people myopic.  There's a sense of people working hard to get what they need (to believe the impossible, to avoid being alone) or want (a less ordinary world, a lover for the night) because nighttime is dark, quiet, and lonely.  The world is smaller at night (which sort of contradicts the idea of possibility...but onto contradiction with the next post).  Smaller is more manageable and it's easier to predict what might happen.  If you know you're going home with someone tonight, you can at least feel sure about what's going on in your love life right now even if you have no idea what's going on in your love life in the future.

But the question I ask is this:  are we short-changing ourselves into believing that the possibility of tonight is more satisfying than the possibility of tomorrow?  Things seen in dim light are more attractive, but it's an illusion.  Have we welcomed nighttime possibility and convinced ourselves that it's just as good as big, morning, bright light possibility?

I'll work through this more in the next post, but I really wanted to get that question out there for people to think about.

More tonights soon…