Little gap in the blog there. But again - after years of writing on deadlines, it's kind of nice to not 'have' to write. Not sure why it comes and goes, but it does. For roughly 30 years, I didn't have the luxury of allowing it to 'come and go,' even when sometimes it was obvious (at least to me) that "it" - whatever 'it' is - had gone.
Even so, a lot has happened.
The case of Casey Anthony certainly captured a lot of attention. And while I'm not commenting on the verdict because I do believe in the America justice system (flaws and all), it seems apparent that Ms. Anthony should share a rather large responsibility for the death of her daughter.
As people, we know the verdict was flawed when it comes to common sense; even as we have learned that the law is about rules and order, not appearances and even, at times, common sense.
The legalities were followed and protected Ms. Anthony from being held publicly responsible. Sometimes the system works; sometimes it doesn't, but that's the price we pay for a system that is about law and trial by jury.
That being said, this is how my brain works: as I drove along thinking about the Anthony situation, for some reason the phrase "with great power comes great responsibility" popped into my mind.
RABBIT TRAIL: I learned that phrase from Uncle Ben in Spiderman, so maybe the credit goes to Spiderman creator Stan Lee. But the thought - if not the actual words - go back to at least French philosopher Voltaire, if not all the way back to Greek philosopher Socrates (see "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure"), who said something like, "Rule worthy of might."
We humans have great power, and perhaps the greatest is the power to create life.
Now I understand and recognize that all life comes from God, but let's not pick nits here. Two people - a man and a woman - come together to create life. Even in a test tube, currently it takes part of a man and part of a woman to create life.
And with that great power comes great responsibility.
It is a responsibility that Ms. Anthony, in her selfishness, didn't want. She's hardly alone in that. But she's a prime example of a culture that believes that first and foremost, the rights of the individual are preeminent. We even argue, "How can I expect my children to be happy if I'm not happy?" And it sounds good, because we want it to sound good.
And if it took this extensive fantasy life created in the warped mind of Ms. Anthony to make her feel happy - a life populated by fictional friends, fictional jobs, fictional child care - well, her fantasy life is extreme, but is it really that far from the fantasy life that many embrace through the internet or other forms of escapism that we embrace as more real than reality, because it's more fun and makes us happy?
It's wrong, of course - at least in the way popular culture would mean it. Being consumed with satisfying our own selfish desire - which sometimes includes the selfish desire to have a child - does not make us happy. We don't have to look far to see the miserable lives of the self-consumed, compared to the apparent satisfied lives of those who understand sacrifice (would anyone really argue that Mother Theresa didn't feel fulfilled? And what if she'd rejected the notion of self-sacrifice and going to India to serve those that could give nothing material in return, but remained comfortable in her first job, that of well-cared for Swiss-based tutor to the children of the wealthiest families of Europe?)
Or, as it says in a country song I just heard with Jimmy Buffet, "Losing yourself is the key to paradise."
As soon as the Anthony verdict was announced, I knew she'd got what she wanted. The offers of money began to pour in. I told a co-worker that, at the very least, she'll earn a fortune posing for Playboy, and almost immediately word came that she had been offered a lucrative contract to become pornography's newest "star."
There is no indication that she's accepted that offer or any other, and I do hope she takes this time to look at her life and accept some responsibility, particularly before she embraces that great power again.
We all have a lot more power than we realize, just by being alive. We exercise it every day.
The question is, are we willing to accept the responsibility?
I was going to hit a bunch of topics here, to catch up. But that's enough for now.
If there is anything I learned in all those years of deadline writing, it's not to use up too much material in one writing when you hope to have more.
Until then....
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