Human Intellect

As I sit in front of an age old TV, a Sony Trinitron from the mid 1990's, watching David Byrne sing in his film "Stop Making Sense," I had a fleeting thought.  Why am I concerned with the well being of America?  Why do I care about childrens' education?  Why do the neighborhood kids seem important to me?  Perhaps it is because I myself missed this boat.  No children for me.  No wife.  No immediate family, and yet I am not unhappy.  Why?  I was fortunate enough to have experienced love at an early age.  I was privileged to have reaped the fruit of physical love at age fifteen.  It lasted seven years, long enough to learn about relationships.  I don't miss not being married, although with the current pandemic life has become challenging.  I have learned to be self sufficient, but people cannot live alone, can they?  My fleeting thought, which was comforting, was I spent four years at the University of North Carolina studying to become a school teacher.  I am certified to teach K-12 music in the state of North Carolina.  Let me say that again.  I studied at the collegiate level to be a school teacher, and school teachers' major responsibility is ensuring the proper education of America's youth.  It is logical that I would care about children, and yet I have none of my own.  That is comforting knowing that homosexual pedofiles are abundant.  It seems they can be traced back to ancient Greece.  I have no interest in the exploits of Jerry Sandusky, Michael Jackson, or Reed Lallier.  I do for some reason care about neighborhood children.  Perhaps it is because with no children of my own, I vicariously can absorb some of the essence, beauty, and inspiration of youth.  It is quite different than adulthood.  There is very much appealing about naive innocence.  It is not jaded.  It does not hate men.  It is not selfish.  It still has the capacity of altruistic love.  My experience is most of these things are absent from our immediate society.  Fayetteville is full of man hating lesbians.  It is full of white hating African Americans.  Most places I go I elicit a strong and antagonistic response from people, probably because I have been off the sauce for about a month.  When there is no alcohol for diversion, your inclinations become condensed.  I am not much for B.S.  If you are to become a successful musical artist, composer, or jazz improviser it takes serious commitment.  I will admit that in recent years, as I have assumed the responsibility of caring for my aging mother, my musical priorities have changed.  My life priorities have changed as well.  It is a different ball of wax.  I still strive for excellence, but instead of seeking it in composition I seek it in keyboard instruments.  They give me an immediate and gratifying reward for my due diligence, like a good wife.  For me they are necessary.  Maybe it is unusual substituting musical instruments for human flesh.  Musical instruments don't criticize.  They don't sass.  They don't abandon you.  No human being over the age of fifty deserves to be abandoned.  By this age you all ready know yourself, your strengths and weaknesses, and your capabilities.  You must to survive life's often cruel journey.  Your self worth is not based upon someone else's opinion.  Screw them.  We are all we have.  Ourselves.  This is not to say were are narcissistic like our president.  It just means we must look out for number one.  Caring about local children and their future makes me feel good.  It helps me transcend my own meager and seemingly meaningless musical existence.  While I strive to create musical beauty and excellence, I realize I myself am living in an extreme vacuum.  The world around me is deteriorating.  The things that inspire me, move my feelings, and give me spiritual fulfillment not readily are recognized by America as a whole.  I am an anachronism.  I assume there are millions of others in the same boat.  The priorities of America have changed drastically, and this pandemic is calling our bluff.  Money can't save humanity, only human intellect can.