Too Many Bridges Being Burnt

It’s clear what’s going around blogdom right now sure ain’t love, but despite that the lines from this Tracy Chapman song keep running through my mind as I read all the vitrolic statements being made out of frustration and more than a little despair.

BRIDGES

All the bridges that you burn
Come back one day to haunt you
One day you’ll find you’re walking
Lonely
Baby I
Never meant to hurt you
Sometimes the best intentions
Still don’t make things right

But all my ghosts they find me
Like my past they think they own me
In dreams and dark corners they surround me
Till I cry I cry

Let me take this time to set the record straight
Let me take this time to take it all back
Let me take this time to tell you how I felt
Let me take this time to try and make it right

But you can
Walk away
Be all alone
Spend all your time
Thinking about the way things used to be
If love feels right
You work it out
You don’t give it up
Baby

Anybody tell you that
Anybody tell you that
Anybody tell you that

You should take some time maybe sleep on it tonight
You should take some time baby heed the words I said
You should take some time think about your life
You should take some time before you throw it all away

I ain’t got the time
To sit here and wait around
But I got the time
If you say I’m what you want

Personally, I don’t think I’m going to change my basic principles, but I’m not going to give up hope that the majority of people really share most of those principles, even if they don’t see the world the same way I do right now.

I do have a hard time, though, seeing what can possibly be gained from going around calling others stupid or, worse yet, stupid idiots. Which of course is not to say that there weren’t times in my life when I yelled such comments at people talking on the radio or on television. It’s one thing to think that, but something quite different about posting it to your web site, leaving a permanent trail of what may well be a passing emotion.

2 thoughts on “Too Many Bridges Being Burnt”

  1. Thanks for the reminder, Loren. I’m usually the person who doesn’t like to discuss controversial issues in public for fear of offending a random stranger. And yet this past week I’ve been rather rancorous on my blog.

    Earlier today I posted an “explanation” for why so many democrats are seething. I don’t know if it was all that insightful, but I think it gets to the source of my anger. But, it’s not anger, really, it’s fear. The fear of realizing that democracy works, even when it works against us. The fear that we’re losing the country we love.

    Fear is perhaps the most potent emotion. Hardwired in. And perhaps the hardest to control. But if we can control it, we can use it to fight, not with insults, but with tolerance. As Gandhi said, “We must become the change we want to see.”

  2. Ok. Some I’m still getting the hang of trackbacks. The URL I included in the trackback is not to the post — it’s to my trackback page. Guess you just have to follow the link to my main page.

Comments are closed.