Do we have long beards?

America is young enough to learn from its past, but not old enough to know any better. For years we told ourselves and the rest of the world a story, mesmerizing in the simplicity of it’s allure. We were one of a kind. We invented the lightbulb, skyscrapers, airplanes, motion pictures, and on and on and on. 

Now we are not so special. Talk with a young person in Southeast Asia these days and they will shrug their shoulders if you ask them what’s so special about America. Everyone has skyscrapers now.  

Our political system, called revolutionary in 1776, was in fact a mash-up of systems borrowed from Europe, and which Europe had borrowed from China together with ideas from the Iroquois Indians and their confederation. We are the inheritors of the world’s political destiny, gathered from the disinherited pioneers of other revolutions in other parts of the world. 

We are also the forgotten slaves of political regime change, who paid the price to control the old world with a promise of labor to build a new one. We come from forgotten people, so it makes sense that we have a sore spot when it comes to remembering the voices of our ancestors.

Some of us will tell you it doesn’t matter who our ancestors were, or what they did. Others will say that we should build monuments to remember a history that was never plainly acknowledged. We may face the loss of our ancestral lands, and the loss of our memory and connection to our family going back generations, or deny our roots altogether.

If America was the example of what was possible for the whole world, it would be easier to tell the younger generation that we should keep things the way they are. Now that the rest of the world has borrowed the spirit of innovation that we’ve been acting like we invented, it is time to rethink what we have to offer the future.  

Next year will be 415 years since the founding of the first colony of European settlers in Jamestown, 245 since the Declaration of Independence was signed in Philadelphia. In that time, the old European order collapsed entirely. The people of the books connected with the ancient tribes of Israel have been called to finally learn what they have in common with each other and join the rest of the world in creating the memories that will live on in the families of the future.

As a political entity, the US is old compared to many countries. Our culture is young, not thousands of years old, but mere centuries. Do we have long beards? The founding fathers could not agree on this topic. The debate still continues today. Who is to say whether or not a good father has a long beard? If we want to have an influence on future generations, do we show them what men are like in their natural state, or do we primp and preen and pinch our cheeks in the mirror to affect a certain rosiness, and then present the truth in the most pleasing fashion of the day? 

Notice what you remember about your own father, and if possible your father’s father. Did they have long beards? Were they aggressive?  What did they do that you do or do not want to remember? 

Recognize that we live in an age where the words “toxic masculinity” occupy a monolithic space in the museum of household words. Our sons and daughters are challenged with understanding the free man at the core of the American impulse.

Respond by reconstructing evidence of a hopeful story from the borrowed inventions of lies and fables using the strong adhesive glue of documented facts. Do your best. Swear to affirm there is at least one thing you will not do under any circumstances.  

As my one time father-in-law, now my beloved outlaw once said, “I don't know what I’m going to do, but I know what I’m not going to fucking do.” When you are responsible for your family, you either step and live and breathe for them with every beat of your heart or die trying. 

You’re going to die anyway.  You have nothing else to do, nowhere else to be that is more important than your children. You may fail. Don’t give up. Failure is not reality, it’s temporary. Your place in the world is to pass on what you learn from your failure, and do better. 

This is real. The beat of your heart will win its reward in time. Life doesn’t get any easier if you don’t do what you were put on this earth to do. It doesn’t get any easier to do the right thing. What gets easier is getting results. When you live for others, that changes everything. There is no wasted effort when every action is unconditional. Whatever happens, you learn something. Pass that on. 

 

* GODSPEED stands for “Gather Only Data in Sync with the Purpose of Every Excellent Deed.