Recently I saw a Russian lady being interviewed and she was talking about Stalin and how much she loved him and she wishes that he was back to rule the mother country. Putin was also good because he was a bit like Stalin.
She obviously turned a blind eye to what Stalin got up to. I mean after all he headed up a murderous regime that killed countless millions of his own citizens. So why do these people love these tyrants? Well Stalin would have been around when she was a teenager. She was looking back to the past when she was young and she was having a good ol’ time. So the best expression of herself and her life was in an era of great repression which she managed to ignore – obviously.
We all have our favourite times, our favourite decade when we felt the most energetic or settled or wealthy or healthy. Some people get stuck in an era – stuck in a decade. I did for a bit. My favourite decades for creativity and wild times were the 70’s and 90’s (I’m sure I would have loved the 60’s but wasn’t around much).
When the turn of the century came around it took me many many years to get into the new vibe of the new decade – the noughties. I just felt so disappointed that the 90’s was over. To me the planetary spirit moved from a glorious flowering of positive expression to a more inward cautious phase. I had to change my ways. I just had to accept that there was a new energy because I couldn’t go on rejecting this new evolution the planet is on. I found it a bit tough actually. I’m sure that many people felt that the noughties was the best decade and that the ninety’s was woeful – the great Buddha help them out please.
So with the ebb and flow of life, we must not get stuck in a past. I’m not saying you don’t celebrate certain times of your life, or that you don’t gather those things around you that you love from an era. Stepping into my parents house is like stepping into the 50’s but they have a modernish (that should be an official word surely) look on life (well my mother does, my father is not from another decade but known to be from another planet really).
We must always be mindful that we accept the present for what it has to offer. Otherwise it clouds our judgement about what is actually going on right here right now and what the past was really like. We can even become bitter and resentful and we never move on.
So cheers for the twenty tens.
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Categories: Culture