Under the Green Desk Lamp…

The following post is part of ‘The Evocation Series’. Click Here for more information about the project, and how to get involved yourself!

Bruce Springsteen- ‘The Ghost of Tom Joad’

 Song Link

 I started this blog in 2012, over five years ago now. At the time, I had several reasons for doing so—the undeniable trendiness of blogs in 2012 notwithstanding. First, I wanted to hone and perfect my craft, and weekly writing was good for that. Second, I wanted to establish some online presence to support my nascent writing career. The third goal was a bit less humble than the others. I wanted to change the world.

Well, there can be no doubt about it, the world has changed indeed. Even as I and many other have done our best to warn the masses of old fears and new disasters alike, the course of history has turned about once more, and again we flirt with the tired mistakes of the past.

‘The highway is alive tonight,
But nobody’s kiddin’ nobody about where it goes.’

‘Fight the good fight’, that’s what they tell you. It falls upon every man and woman to live as the model they want for the world; to call out injustice from the dark corners it hides and to uproot hatred wherever it takes seed.

A better world has been the outstanding promise we have all waited for. From the cradle to the grave, we’ve heard the stories of good prevailing, and the reward of the righteous. No good actions are ever done for hope of reward to be sure, and yet as time draws on and the hold of decency wavers on a razor’s edge, hope itself begins to diminish.

‘Waitin’ for when the last shall be first and the first shall be last,
In a cardboard box ‘neath the underpass.
Got a one-way ticket to the promised land,
You got a hole in your belly and gun in your hand.’

It’s easy to begin wondering what it’s all for. One might close their eyes for just a moment, and find the world has grown so dim that to open them again makes little difference. It’s easy to get lost, to doubt, and to fear.

This must never stand. For the final death-knell of decency will surely be when the last decent person loses their will to fight. When common concessions like ‘good-enough’ or ‘the lesser of two evils’ become acceptable mantras for those capable of dreaming bigger and better.

‘Now Tom said, “Mom, wherever there’s a cop beatin’ a guy,
Wherever a hungry newborn baby cries.
Where there’s a fight ‘gainst the blood and hatred in the air,
Look for me Mom I’ll be there.
Wherever there’s somebody fightin’ for a place to stand,
Or decent job or a helpin’ hand.
Wherever somebody’s strugglin’ to be free,
Look in their eyes Mom you’ll see me.”’

We are what we are. Further, we are when we are, and where we are. The why of it is irrelevant—we must only serve as we are able.

-Brad OH Inc.