As the mariner thinks about it, the mariner and his wife raised good children. In retrospect, we could not genuinely empathize with their lives. They were growing in their own existential space just as we had experienced the world into which we were born.

Physiologically, the growth patterns were the same as they are for every generation. What blocks our empathy is they are growing in a different world. Our children have a different social environment, a different national impact on their lives, a different interpretation of jobs, a different lifestyle.

When the mariner was 8 years old, he carried furnace ashes to the yard; his mother was bedridden so he washed clothes in a laundry tub with a washboard. The mariner’s public education had no electronics. He was taught cursive writing in two elementary grades. He accepted these things as the world that he had to encompass in some way.

The mariner’s children did not have to carry ashes but the burdens were different. Public schools had a more complex environment. Children were moved around, had pressure to participate in ancillary programs in music, sports, hobby clubs, etc. The mariner’s elementary and middle school had no pressures similar to those of the mariner’s children. The children’s school model was socially more difficult than for the mariner.

The mariner learned the principals of economic ethics at the age of ten. There was a summer reading program at the public Library. He received a headband made of construction paper. For each book he read, he would receive a feather stapled to the headband. If he read enough books, he would receive a strip of paper that would hang down his back like an Indian headdress. Additional feathers were stapled to the strip.

The mariner took a couple of books home to read. About a week later, when he had finished reading them, he returned to the library to find a girl in his class had feathers almost to the floor. He noticed that she was checking very thin children books ten at a time that were returned promptly for more feathers. To the mariner, the principle was to encourage reading – how altruistic. The feathers, a construction paper symbol of personal aggrandizement rather than progress in reading, were more important than actually reading good books. The mariner links this example of ignoring virtue and manipulating a process totally for personal gain to the economic manipulation by banks that caused the recession and the collapse of the housing market.

How did the mariner’s children see this collapse? He learned their worldview is extremely skeptical, even cynical about every element of society. They assume they are on their own; the government, business, banks, whatever, were vultures waiting to pick their bones. The mariner’s children do not believe that Social Security will be around when they are old. the mariner’s children feel they owe nothing to the institutions of our society. To them, it is a make it on your own environment; the social infrastructure is of no use to them.

How different is this experience from the early days of the mariner’s life. There was comfort that institutions would provide jobs and security. The government was not in turmoil as it is today. The government was where one acquired a driver’s license, a marriage license, a Social Security card or joined the armed services. The government was a stable, somewhat helpful entity during the mariner’s younger years. How different the existential experience is for our children compared to the mariner’s experience.

Washing clothes with a washboard doesn’t seem so bad in comparison to the life challenging world of the mariner’s children. Would we old codgers be able to handle the pace of life and the eclectic manner in which jobs are found, or surviving without our pensions?

Ancient Mariner

Do not become excited, these are not government resolutions. It is that time of year, amid Christmastide, when many determine that they have not served themselves well in 2013. Perhaps it is time to feign purpose and motivation that they will be a better model of themselves than in the past. The mariner, it goes without saying, was as fine a model of himself as he will ever be in 2013. At a certain age, older folks get a pass on resolutions.

In lieu of trying to make himself finer than he can be, the mariner looked about to see what resolutions others should make – if not to be finer, at least to be prepared.

Government is easy. Just say “government.” We’ll all understand. The Country is closer to revolution than resolution. The mariner supposes we should make a resolution to stand our ground not against people wearing hoodies or walking in public places but against further damage by compromised and incompetent Federal, State and Local governments.

The other day, a friend of the mariner resolved to assist the South in seceding a second time. Several years ago, another friend said the US would be better off if the northern boundary of the western United States (49^th parallel) just continued straight on to the Atlantic Ocean, implying that such a solution would lop off most of New England. As accepting as he always is, the mariner agreed it would be a good move – not only would the US not lose any territory, it would gain a great chunk of Canada including the mouth of the St. Lawrence River and half of Newfoundland. The mariner received little gratitude for helping. Another friend actually sent emails to all her Federal, State and Local representatives asking them to pass one-term limits for all elected officials.

How does one construct a resolution for government? Probing rational solutions requires walking through a dark wood as frightening as any horror film. Every kind of lurking and vicious creature lies in wait for one who dares tread this mindless darkness of elected creatures and citizen creatures. Some, like lobbyist creatures, are more like the Sirens of Greek mythology who lured sailors to their death on the rocky shore. In Government Land, however, one dies of depression and hopelessness.

The mariner’s recommended resolution: Have your passport ready and your duffel packed. The ship sails any day for better ports.

One is not supposed to talk about politics so we’ll talk about religion. One just as easily could say “religion.” We’ll all understand. There’s little difference. The dark wood is replaced by a wood invisible in dense fog. Some nasty creatures lie in wait – especially those that also lie in wait in the dark wood of politics.

It is more difficult to suggest a resolution about religion. Politics has boundaries similar to a twenty-ton boulder coming down the mountainside to visit you. For many, perhaps the boulder already has arrived. Either way, one can see the shape of the boulder. Religion, on the other hand, is like being lost in an endless swamp in Louisiana. There are so many circular paths that one will never leave the swamp.

Over the centuries, the integration of the Old and New Testament into one Bible at Nicaea has caused the most confusion. The Jews have a special place for the first five books of the Bible (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy – the Pentateuch). The mariner doesn’t intend to be too skeptical but he suspects that’s as far as most Jewish children are taught in religion class – at least that’s the case with Christian children who are taught the Jewish Pentateuch in religion class (on Sundays). Except for the Christmas and Easter stories, the New Testament is unknown to Christian children until they are forced to take a world religions class in college.

Meanwhile, debates about the origin of our species have raged endlessly for more than 150 years. The Christian part, the New Testament, never mentions the issue. Adult Christians should read all of the Pentateuch, which promotes a few severe practices reminiscent of other Middle East religions. One is to stone rebellious children to death but I will not say more in fear of giving away the plot. It is widely known that one cannot eat pig, but gecko? That’s going too far.

Perhaps the resolution for Christians is to start reading the Bible at Luke or Matthew instead of starting at Genesis. There is some important stuff in the New Testament that has nothing to do with creation or stoning children or not eating geckos.

If one cannot talk about politics or religion, then one might try talking about sexual practices or, if the reader is a US citizen, talk about one’s annual income or net worth. The mariner doubts any of these conversations will last long enough to formulate a resolution.

What’s left is gossip. The reader can always resolve to gossip better than in 2013.

Ancient Mariner

The mariner wants to believe that in the distant future knowledge about all things will be available instantly – so that the wisest decisions about life, religion, politics, health, philosophy, science, music, sociology, mathematics, and the world of all arts, will contribute to a better experience for all humanity.

However, for at least the next one hundred years, he has a decreasing belief that knowledge will be important to the person on the street. Many situations raise doubt:

Allowing governments and corporations to think “for” the reader. Personal preferences – not only credit card and banking data but presumptive knowledge about what we will wear, buy, move, die, marry, even when we will divorce – all are in databases owned by others who will leverage that knowledge to limit a reader’s personal choices. Already Google, Microsoft, Amazon.com and most online retailers shape what the reader sees, reducing the reader’s free choice to make informed decisions. Google reads your email to improve product placement.

The government no longer depends on any reader’s unique, single vote. The reader is a quantifiable entity, a mark on a standard deviation table, a phone number. The reader is grouped into a set of opinions that will be dealt with by targeted advertising and speech making all the while passing legislation that will never be vetted by the public.

The public is sated by the easy life. That is the message promoted by those who will own the reader. Who wants to read books? Who wants to dig underneath the surface to see why governments and corporations hide their intent? It takes time and intellectual energy to learn things one is not supposed to know.

Perhaps The Matrix is more revealing about future deception through intellectual repression. The reader unknowingly will lose free will. The mariner sees no urgency on the part of the government to repair the education system that has dropped the nation to twenty-seventh on the list of most educated countries. Knowledge is not as important as greed and power.

Libraries are under duress to find a new role that replaces the old one of rich collections of literature, science, and meaningful fiction. Today, many folks go to libraries to play Internet games (or as the mariner has witnessed, look for jobs). The desire to enrich one’s knowledge of reality or informative fiction is failing – easier to pick from Netflix.

True, there are many who are devoted to their calling, many which will excel in their field. The many are becoming the few. Turn on the Kindle. Highly trained fields often are controlled to keep the demand and expense high for those who leverage education (think medical doctors, sport coaches, CEO’s and tenured professors).

Something has happened to natural inquisitiveness. Do children still look for salamanders or collect tree leaves, spend a part of each day reading, experiment with how the world and its people work? Do adults maintain an informed consciousness about prices, inflation, value for the dollar spent or the dollar saved? Do adults know that salaries have not risen since Reagan while profits have climbed far beyond expectations?

Goodbye, knowledge.

Ancient Mariner