Mhall46184@aol.com
The All-Seeing I
When, Gentle Reader, you open a newspaper or a conversational site on the InterGossip and note that a column, article, poem, or letter-to-the editor begins with that first-person “I,” skipping that item and going on to something else is almost always a good call.
When a written piece of work includes the phrase “When I was in graduate school…” skipping that is always the right thing to do. That one has been in a classroom is irrelevant; we have all sat in classrooms, usually looking at the clock and in silent prayer pleading with the Divinity, “How long, O Lord, how long?!”
Recently your ‘umble scrivener noted on a news site from far away a report about a young man who had spent some time in prison but had now redeemed himself with the gift of music. While he was in prison he rented a guitar for a nominal sum and taught himself to play it.
The redeemed was pleased to talk about himself, his tattoo celebrating his release from prison, his progress in making himself a better person now, his feelings, his soul, and his music.
And then the viewer was treated to him singing one of his original compositions celebrating himself.
Once upon a time your ‘umble scrivener watched in fascinated horror as a king snake fought and then devoured a rattlesnake while the rattlesnake was still alive.
The purported musician’s performance was rather like that, so whiney-nasal in the vocalization, so self-obsessed in the lyrics, and so brutal in the abuse of the chords and the poor guitar that the interest was in how awful (not awesome) an exhibition of narcissism could be.
But, hey, there were thousands of InterGossip hits (sic), so the music was aesthetically pleasing to some.
When the unhappy noises were ended and the segment was closed with the usually filler-language praising this, oh, experience, the thoughtful observer could only note that the redeemed never expressed any concern about those whom he had hurt.
There was a too-common catalogue of crimes in this young person’s life, according to the interviewer, one of which including breaking into an elderly woman’s house and robbing her.
The inspirational singer-songwriter never mentioned her or any of his victims. He made no apologies, he never expressed any regret, he never suggested in any way that he had broken the norms of civilized behavior. He never mentioned having a job
All he discussed was his therapy, his redemption, his music, his vision, his feelings in the incessant I, I, I, me, me, me that so often constitutes public discourse.
Common generational snobbery would dismiss this self-obsessed young person as a millennial, ignoring the salient fact that the good a man does, or the evil that a person does, is not connected with the date of birth. The reality is that most folks born between 1983 and 2001 – the much maligned millennials – now form the core of this nation’s military, police and fire services, medical professionals, and work force. Passing on clichés about millennials is a disservice to our concepts of honor and honesty – after all, almost all our fine young men and women fighting in the deserts are (gasp) millennials.
And, after all, self-obsession is not defined by date of birth; a individual chooses to grow up and kinda / sorta try to act like a man, or he can just sit around and feel sorry for himself.
The first-person voice is sometimes necessary for advancing a narrative, but it is a risky thing to do.
Even so, one would like to hear more first-person voices from those who have done hard time in Afghanistan or with the police or fire services, and not from those who have enjoyed the leisure to learn the guitar on the taxes and labor of those in Afghanistan (did you know that a soldier’s combat pay is taxed?), the fire and police services, and in the sweat of honest work.
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