In-between times



To live between a rock
And a hard place
In between time —
Cruising in prime time —
Soaking up the cathode rays

To live between the wars
In our time —
Living in real time —
Holding the good time —
Holding on to yesterdays…

You know how that rabbit feels
Going under your speeding wheels
Bright images flashing by
Like windshields towards a fly
Frozen in the fatal climb —
But the wheels of time —
Just pass you by…

Some of the lyrics from "Between the wheels", by Rush, during Spring of '84.

Here it is being performed live  (copy and paste if link doesn't work - https://youtu.be/fm3lEo2awzQ?si=1LnU2Cj6zAKUTrxh)

It's okay if you don't like it - it was written it a way to express the sentiment of the words, etc. They're the same guys who wrote Tom Sawyer.

__________

Back then it was the Cold War, Carter and Reagan, the roaring, exponential opening up of culture - music,  media, movies, and more.

The promise of so many good things ahead were balanced with the real threats of Russia's nuclear power, AIDS, religious tensions in the US and abroad, and more.

Every generation has those tensions they feel are unique and "worse" than previous generations.  

And in some ways, they are - they are new, different, and unknown, which always feels worse than the tensions of the previous generations which have been dealt with, to some degree, and now seem "normal".

A lot of people feel tension and anxiousness in waves, over time.  

It comes and goes with different circumstances, different levels of exposure to mass communication, level of education, and so on.

Each generation has what seem like extremes and extreme personalities.  

People who appear to take things too far.  People who set new records for "too far".  

People who react and pull back further from what used to be considered safe and normal - trying to make new safe space by overstating what is the new acceptable and righteous way of being.

__________

Both extremes know how the rabbit feels going under those speeding wheels.  They live it all the time. 

Tied to some kind of media and worldview that takes on the whole big picture of life and filters everything so all they see, pretty much, is people who agree with them, people who disagree with them, and ignorant people who ought to wake up and join them.

That is a hard place to live.  For some, it's genuine frustration and anger over felt connections and relationships with people who are perceived to be harassed and treated unjustly. For others, it appears as a twisted, off balanced worldview that lets people off the hook who should be not be.

Each side has determined the other to be uninformed at minimum or possibly evil.

In-between those extremes is a large middle ground - sometimes blissfully unaware, sometimes purposefully ignorant, often simply doing whatever works and whatever gets them by.

__________

Lately, it has seemed to be the case that the extremes and the middle ground has entered an in-between time again.

Power has shifted, momentum has built, fears have been exacerbated, and yet people seem to be kind of okay with it because they don't know what it means or which way things will go or if they can trust anyone anymore.

I'm very hesitant to forecast anything anymore, because who knows anything?

So, for the time being - the in-between times - it's a good time to watch.  

And be.  

And always do the next good thing you have available in front of you to do.

In the end, we'll look back and know that it was all that mattered.

Peace and goodwill.

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