Idealism...Bought & Paid For

Me, back in the boho days of the 70's

I'm an idealist.  An idealist in the way that only the child of pragmatists can afford to be. 

In the same way our parents' prosperity was bought & paid for with the unfathomable-by-today's -standards toil & even blood of their parents, the luxury of outrage I enjoy today is the direct result of the practical application of my parents' talents to the non-glamorous workaday world they inherited.  When their parents strove to reach the benchmark of providing a better way of life for their kids, I don't think they wanted them to stray too far from the norm, to be dissatisfied with the status quo, or to constantly question authority.

By the time my parents had me, I think that may have been exactly what they pictured for my future.  They did what was expected so I could afford not to.

So every time the comfortable blanket of ennui engulfs me & I think this is comfortable--this is enough, I'm going to try to confound my own expectations.  To get up & change what I see that is wrong, to question what I'm fed, & to try to leave this place better than when I found it, in as many little & big ways as I can. 

It isn't enough, but it is something.