Desperation is dangerous. It limits the search for solutions. The desperate take ill-advised chances. You can see desperation’s effects in children abandoned at borders during the current Great Migration that historians generations from now will be able to assess. You can see its effects in the United States as millions surge toward Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California. You can see its effects in Georgia, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, and even South Korea, where Russians have fled to avoid conscription into Putin’s increasingly more desperate battle that initially drove millions of desperate Ukrainians to migrate. You can see it in the diaspora of Venezuela, Syria, and Northern Africa. You can see it in Iran and in China, where oppressive governments impose the most restrictive laws. Just about everywhere you look, you can see desperation and its effects.
Individuals have long painted themselves into corners from which they see no hope for extrication. Nowadays, whole populations multiply what individuals have done: Take ill-advised chances. You can hear the desperation of Russian soldiers in intercepted phone calls to their loved ones at home; you can see how desperation has driven Russian soldiers to revolt and risk summary execution; you can hear it in the voices of Russian pundits that keep broaching the subject of nuclear war, the most ill-advised of all desperate acts humans have ever contemplated. Desperate times, indeed!
It’s now a world fraught with desperation, but it might be no more so than in centuries prior to the pandemic, World War I, and World War II. There have always been wars, have always been people conscripted into military engagements that held no personal value for them, and there have always been evil leaders running bad governments that suppressed their own people as all could witness even in the “free world” during the pandemic and as a constant in socialist and communist countries since their inception.
Desperation has long been a personal and social malady. Prior to its widespread proliferation through media, desperation spread by word of mouth. Today, it spreads its shadow overnight as social and mainstream media convince more people that they are desperate, that they have either backed themselves into an inextricable corner or been backed into that corner by some group or movement. Even governments enhance desperation’s spread. Take Putin’s gathering a soccer stadium full of Russians to announce in a televised speech Russia’s “special operation” to protect itself from supposed Nazis in Ukraine and from evil NATO members that seek to destroy the “motherland.” The cheering crowd in that stadium did not seem to recognize that they were backing themselves into a corner of desperation until months after the event, when body bags began showing up in villages and young men, conscripted to become cannon fodder, began calling home from the Front. Now, almost a year after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the world hears desperate Russian spokesmen talking about a greater likelihood of “going nuclear.”
Commonsense advises us to plan every paint job. Commonsense tells us to anticipate a way out before we paint a floor. And commonsense reveals that how we begin a project determines how we end it.*
Every family and every teacher who has encountered desperate people doing desperate acts should be motivated to include one very important lesson in every child’s curriculum: How to paint a floor from wall to door.
*Those who vote into power people who favor socialist and Marxist governments fail to plan their “paint jobs.” One need only look at the desperation of those who allowed socialist and communist governments to dictate how to paint their “floors.” One need only look at the historical migrations from “rooms” painted from door to corner.
From Inside Out
I painted the floor from outside in,
Not knowing how I should begin.
And now I find myself quite trapped
Because my future was not mapped.
If there’s a lesson all should know
As they live and as they grow,
It’s that for all the downcast mourners
The world comprises many corners,
And none provide an easy respite,
They make, instead, the cornered desperate.
“If I were you,” the wiseman said,
“It’s best when people plan ahead
“And paint the room from inside out,
“Escape is then beyond a doubt.”
Individuals have long painted themselves into corners from which they see no hope for extrication. Nowadays, whole populations multiply what individuals have done: Take ill-advised chances. You can hear the desperation of Russian soldiers in intercepted phone calls to their loved ones at home; you can see how desperation has driven Russian soldiers to revolt and risk summary execution; you can hear it in the voices of Russian pundits that keep broaching the subject of nuclear war, the most ill-advised of all desperate acts humans have ever contemplated. Desperate times, indeed!
It’s now a world fraught with desperation, but it might be no more so than in centuries prior to the pandemic, World War I, and World War II. There have always been wars, have always been people conscripted into military engagements that held no personal value for them, and there have always been evil leaders running bad governments that suppressed their own people as all could witness even in the “free world” during the pandemic and as a constant in socialist and communist countries since their inception.
Desperation has long been a personal and social malady. Prior to its widespread proliferation through media, desperation spread by word of mouth. Today, it spreads its shadow overnight as social and mainstream media convince more people that they are desperate, that they have either backed themselves into an inextricable corner or been backed into that corner by some group or movement. Even governments enhance desperation’s spread. Take Putin’s gathering a soccer stadium full of Russians to announce in a televised speech Russia’s “special operation” to protect itself from supposed Nazis in Ukraine and from evil NATO members that seek to destroy the “motherland.” The cheering crowd in that stadium did not seem to recognize that they were backing themselves into a corner of desperation until months after the event, when body bags began showing up in villages and young men, conscripted to become cannon fodder, began calling home from the Front. Now, almost a year after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the world hears desperate Russian spokesmen talking about a greater likelihood of “going nuclear.”
Commonsense advises us to plan every paint job. Commonsense tells us to anticipate a way out before we paint a floor. And commonsense reveals that how we begin a project determines how we end it.*
Every family and every teacher who has encountered desperate people doing desperate acts should be motivated to include one very important lesson in every child’s curriculum: How to paint a floor from wall to door.
*Those who vote into power people who favor socialist and Marxist governments fail to plan their “paint jobs.” One need only look at the desperation of those who allowed socialist and communist governments to dictate how to paint their “floors.” One need only look at the historical migrations from “rooms” painted from door to corner.
From Inside Out
I painted the floor from outside in,
Not knowing how I should begin.
And now I find myself quite trapped
Because my future was not mapped.
If there’s a lesson all should know
As they live and as they grow,
It’s that for all the downcast mourners
The world comprises many corners,
And none provide an easy respite,
They make, instead, the cornered desperate.
“If I were you,” the wiseman said,
“It’s best when people plan ahead
“And paint the room from inside out,
“Escape is then beyond a doubt.”
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