Sacrificing Equality on the Alter of Equity

"And the trees are kept equal; by hatchet, ax, and saw."

RUSH 1978 Circumstances album. Click record to listen on the platform of your choosing.

The Trees

There is unrest in the Forest
There is trouble with the trees
For the Maples want more sunlight
And the Oaks ignore their pleas.

The trouble with the Maples
(And they’re quite convinced they’re right)
They say the Oaks are just too lofty
And they grab up all the light
But the Oaks can’t help their feelings
If they like the way they’re made
And they wonder why the Maples
Can’t be happy in their shade?

There is trouble in the Forest
And the creatures all have fled
As the Maples scream ‘Oppression!’
And the Oaks, just shake their heads

So the Maples formed a Union
And demanded equal rights
‘The Oaks are just too greedy
We will make them give us light’
Now there’s no more Oak oppression
For they passed a noble law
And the trees are all kept equal
By hatchet,
Axe,
And saw…

And we’re here. Now. Not. Normal.

Let me know if you like this playlist. I’ve been ramblin’ lately, and this is a good road tripper.

Joshua Tree in Victorville. Something noble about their solitude. Photo Credit: Ric Leczel

but we have potential. probably more PO than TENTIAL. Personally, I prefer chaos. I thrive in it. Do you? What’s your Jetstream? Mine is full-bore.

Obviously, that causes waves. But I grew up in the waves. In the Pacific and the Personal. There’s something to be said about growing up on the beach.

I’m a son o’ the beach, and she is the daughter of the waves.

Grandpa Smitty on Grandma Ces

My reflections on my grandpa are endless. And timeless. I crack myself up every time thinking about his possible reactions to the current state of affairs. He went ashore in Normandy three days after D-Day. As a Sea-Bee. He worked on oil rigs. He lived in Bakersfield in the 1940s. He worked every event as an Usher at the LA Coliseum, Pauly Pavilion, and Sports Arena from the 60s to the 80s. He worked 35 years for Shell Oil. He was a Geologist who built greenhouses to grow orchids in the 1950s. He traveled the world and told me about it. He was the greatest man in my life.

We’ve come to a reflection point. I think. I read a piece by one of my favorite writers and thinkers that provided a term for a feeling or something that I thought I felt. Does that make sense? Not sure.

Safetyism is the Water in Which We Swim

He talked about George Carlin so I bit. But "SAFETYISM” is exactly the same as “PARTICIPATION TROPHIES”. Same taco; different salsa. I wrote about such fluff here. I asked Is Comedy Safer Now? back in October 2021.

So when I get confused about life issues and concerns of internal struggle, I reach out to a treasured and trusted source of real talk. Valentina Petrova speaks straight up (personal experience) and is world-wise. She’s rambled around! I’m more than thankful to call her a friend.

Please check out her Substack to get a name for that thing about you that bugs others. Then you can stop doing it and be liked better. Is it working yet?

Safetyism

“Safetyism” kills spontaneity and creates anxiety. It makes the world a very dull and hostile place. Why do I say this? Because in an attempt to create a sterile society devoid of emotional discomfort and pandering to the grievances and insecurities of conflicting groups of people, we end up anxiously constrained in our humanity. Every day, we die a little forced to self-censor and worry that someone may get offended anyway and come for us with an angry hoard of virtue signaling zealots intent on destroying our reputation, career, and life. We forget that life is not supposed to be fair, easy, or comfortable. Life just is. And it is mostly what we each make it. What we do make it, depends on our abilities, resourcefulness, resilience, and creativity. Safetyism erodes all of these. Thus, in attempting to make life better for ourselves, we make it worse. 

Valentina Petrova

I’m more a believer in serendipity than coincidence, so reading her reply to my email requesting her take on this thing, I chuckled learning that she too had been kicking this topic around in her head.

As usual, her distillation is 90-proof. And it validates my thinking on this topic to a degree. And in doing so, it helps explain so much about Gen-X attitudes. We learned early on how unfair and painful life really is. I have a whole section on Gen-X.

This says not as much about meritocracy as resiliency. Perseverance is an age-old tale; The Tortoise and The Hare after all. What doesn’t kill us does indeed make us stronger. Living proof is all around us.

So is the opposite. I’m saddened by people I know that are debilitated by this most pernicious of all struggles. I don’t doubt the actual emotional pain that many Zs and Millennials feel. It’s all they’ve known.

Psychological Safety is probably the real talk on this. Mind you, my under-grad is a semester of Psych 101 at Saddleback CC and my over-grad is via Dr. Spencer Reid. So my CV and qualifications are in order. As they say.

What I value most, though, is my Ph.D. in getting my ass kicked. I grew up short, red-headed, wearing glasses, and my name is Ric. Did I ask my mom once if she ever rhymed my name with anything? Yeah. Just a few months ago. Nope.

Understandable. Her name doesn’t flip off the lip as a piece of the male anatomy. Mine does. True story: Sixteen-year-old Ric works at Hacienda Lumber Company in Farmington NM. Names are sticky-letter-labeled on our yellow construction helmets.

Working on a Sunday, Ric16 helps a couple of elderly sisters, loading a few cinder blocks into the trunk of their car. It was common to tip us back then, so as she handed me a dollar, she innocently asked, “Is that really your name on your hat?”

I knew instantly. I’m sure I blushed as the sisters snickered. YUP. Nothing like a P in front of RICK to bust a nut! It’s a good prank. It was almost closing time when the sisters alerted me to the name change. I saw the fuckers laughing.

They paid. In blood and dignity, of course. (The pranksters, not the sisters. Come’on man!) But that’s it. That’s not SAFETYISM. That’s punked and then get them back. It’s discomfort and embarrassment. On me right now. But soon enough, the sides were switched. You were punking someone else.

Caveat: this is where the writer says no one got hurt in the making of this story. Bullshit. We got our asses kicked. Everywhere we went.

• Home- Working Mom/Drunk Dad

• School - Homicidal Dean of Students, Dumbass Bully’s

• Work - Fanatical Franchisee Boss addicted to meth

• Social - Class-Clique Warfare - Jocks, Cheerleaders, Stoners, Nerds, Geeks, Cowboys

• School Bus - Bully's, Mean Girls, Nutbag Driver

• Mall - Rich Kids, Mall Rats, Mall Cops

You get the picture. I know, social media bullying is worse. Somehow, having the power to turn off a machine bullying me would have been a nice option when Jack Haley and Bobby Jackson were pantsing me in front of girls.

Just apply some common sense here. If a parent takes care of all of their children’s needs, never allowing the sting of disappointment, the child is stunted. Just as if a parent overfed a child. An imbalance is created, then habituated, and, eventually, it becomes the person.

And now that person is a whole lot of people getting their feelings hurt and scolding us for it. It’s all wound up in the same ball of wax. And it’s a sticky putrid ball of wax. It’s placing one’s emotional well-being in the hands of others. Some of them complete strangers. and holding them responsible for your well-being.

Forcing all around you to comply with every spoken, and even worse, unspoken, emotional need. Yeah. Ask a kid of a drunk what’s that called. In polite society, it’s walking on eggshells. In my house, it was called an ass whipping. When Dad woke up or got home. I never knew how or when I would piss him off. I just knew that I would.

Get the hell over yourself. Please. It’s not good for either of us.

The response was predicted by RUSH way back then. We will all be kept equal, by hatchet, axe, or saw.

It seems some of those survival skills I thought were emotionally obsolete I honed as a child may turn out to be a benefit after all. Either that or I’m just really good at taming demons.

Go on a ramble soon my friend,

Ric

Which way to ramble? It’s always your choice. Lake Arrowhead Photo Credit: Ric Leczel

There’s always a sign somewhere. The secret seems to be the ability to see it. Million Dollar Highway. Photo Credit: Ric Leczel

Silverwood Lake State Recreation Area There’s always a place to reflect. Photo Credit: Ric Leczel