Writer’s Cramp and the Future

By: George Wallace

Writer’s cramp, block, or an onset of fear of writing happens to all of us, even me, the loquacious one. The big mouth, the ever churning idea factory is temporarily stilled.

Sometimes the turning point is internal and due to ill health, nutritional problems, or just being “off your stride”. Not this time.

Sometimes it is external: the world becoming too much with us, or a series of events that suddenly greatly impose themselves upon you. These may be very personal: the death of a friend or a relative, or more distant events, and yet they can be very troubling.

This time, for me it was the run up and the let down afterwards of the 2006 mid-term elections that led me to joust with writer’s cramp. Let there be no error, I am delighted with the election results as I happen to think divided government is the best for the country as it forces compromise and allows differing ideas to walk out into the light of day and be seen and heard. Some of these ideas will wither and die, under the onslaught of competing ideas and argument, and that is AOK by me.

Some ideas, fewer perhaps, will thrive, and grow and flourish in this climate as they come to be seen by the competing factions as good for the country. These are the important ideas that generate our economy and that has made America the strong country that it is.

I make no secret of the fact that I have little admiration for politicians of any stripe, but even this lower life form has its place in our world. It takes a very special, and not always a “good”, person to walk into the maelstrom of the political arena and survive and thrive. What politicians do is essential to the democratic process, much as decay bacteria are essential for the furtherance of all other life. We might not like the sight and smell of the process, but it is essential. We must simply be watchful as citizens that they do not transform into flesh eating bacteria and go after the body politic.

Our country faces some immense challenges: we must do something about bringing health care costs under control and make them available to everyone. This is only good business, good for business, and good form the country as a whole. The cost is immaterial to the need. If you gotta do it, you gotta do it. We are losing, if it is not already lost, our national competitive edge in the world market place of ideas and products. Part of the reason is that citizens of other countries are healthier than the citizens of the United States.

Our educational system from Kindergarten to a high school diploma is so bad that the only realistic path I see that really makes real sense is to totally shut it all down, and enter into a national debate as to what has to be done to fix the mess, and then do it on a national basis. Education is simply too important to our country’s future to be left to the limited ability of local resources to fund it. No one realistically expects us to run bake sales to support air craft carrier fleets. No one should expect a similar funding plan for basic education.

As for college education, either we get the costs under control, probably through application of technology, or our country will definitely loose the world wide race to economic superiority through higher education.

The problem of national security is complex and must be solved. We must secure our borders by wall, fences, armed personnel, or whatever it takes. After that, when we as a nation know who is coming across our borders, I am actually quite liberal and open minded about immigration. Immigrants have always taught us one extremely valuable lesson: the importance of hard work. For that lesson to be learned, they must be here in sufficient numbers to be visible. They supply the sharp edge to the cutting force in our economy. To exclude a broad river’s flow of new immigrants to America is to prepare for our own economic demise.

America is an empty country. If you don’t believe this, drive across it without exceeding the speed limit. We have not even begun to exploit the spaces and resources of our continent. We are to new of a country to have done this. We need more immigrant s to help us see the real potentialities of our own country.

My personal experience with visitors to America from other places is their common reaction to our vast open spaces with a sense of agoraphobia. “I had no idea that America was so huge!” is a common comment. One visitor, upon being conducted in a walk into our then one acre back pasture asked, “Are you rich?” Obviously anyone who could own an acre lot and not be using it for anything more important than allowing an old horse to graze it in retirement must be filthy rich.

Too many of our fellow American citizens are complacent, lazy, and non competitive. They are also extremely stupid, ill informed, and very, very provincial. We are country bumpkins of the worst sort. Stupid and loving it. We have been sheltered and protected here behind our wide oceans for far too long. No longer. The world is coming knocking. They are going to be in the game with us. They are in the world game now. They are also eating our lunch, right now.

It will only get worse until we get our collective acts together and work together to solve our internal problems so that we can be better competitors on the world economic stage.

All of this could not come at a worse time for the United States. We are just entering into, the real effects of the trailing shadow of the baby boomers generation. As a country we desperately need a healthy, well educated, smart, intelligent, aggressive work force earning fantastic wages and salaries to support our swelling retired population. Right now we have neither. That must change.

As a retired person I have a strong interest in all these areas of concern. As a writer, the last week or so of working my way through a case of writer’s cramp has been a time of reflection and recharging of batteries.

I think I am now past my personal period of writer’s cramp and I am starting to look forward to monitoring the struggles to come around the ideas mentioned above. There exists in these struggles great opportunities for legions of writers to ply their trade. There are also many opportunities for retired folk to throw their two bits into the pot. We should at least try to flavor the soup.

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(c) Copyright 2006: George Wallace recently published a book on religion which lashes out at nearly all of the comfortable ideas about God, the trappings of organized religion, and the priesthood. His pithy comments and suggestions for a return to a God-centered personal religion will interest everyone. This article may be freely reprinted so long as all copyright attributions, and the full content of this resource box are included. www.OhGodIsThatYou.com

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