Don't Dream. It's Over. (2022 Update)

Start here. 

What a difference a dot makes.

OK, Boomer, do you remember this MTV hit by the band Crowded House? 

That song, "Don't Dream It's Over," used the same words as those in the title of this post. Because we are speaking and writing in English, spacing and punctuation rules are less strict than many other languages. Unless we practice writing in Far Eastern or Cyrillic characters, we don't have to bother much with diacritical marks, where, for example, the French circonflexe (the little hat) means the difference between jeune (young) and jeûne (fast). More on foreign tongues later. For now, let's just agree there's a place in the world for old and slow.

One dot, one period, one space bar, one programmer's keystroke, and POOF!, meaning changes. A glitch occurs in the matrix, and hordes of weasels begin to libel and slander your character. What's worse is they openly criticize your hair color and tan lines.

Meaning is interpreted through a reader's preconceptions. So if a single dendrite misfires in the synapse between pen and paper, between thought and expression, the message is too often received bereft of the writer's intended meaning -- a variant of the writer's idea, if you will. One fat finger fault can lead to a divine comedy of misunderstanding. As the eminent writers Page & Plant once put it:

"Sometimes all of our thoughts are misgiven." 

Other times, fortunately, the reader or listener indeed "gets it." 

And the messenger lives.

The original song meaning, as I heard it, was one of uplifting encouragement, a hopeful message in the face of numerous and divisive intrusions. The artist is telling you in so many words, "Don't give up. Keep on going, even when you are surrounded by idiots trying to separate you from the bonding spirit of family and friends. Despite forces rending your true soul from your original self, despite day to day annoyances like fixing the hole in the wall, towing your car, rumors of war and waste, despite all that, they won't win. The world comes in, like a deluge to build a wall between us, but they won't win.  

There is Freedom within, there is Freedom without. 

Play.

 

But then --- one dot and one space --- and the message changes. Punctuation turns something once promising and hopeful into a sad anthem of disillusion and finality. We boomers, we've been there and done that.

IT'S OVER. 

Don't dream those dreams . . . of long-haired hippies . . . of chimeric Lennonist utopias. 

Get back. 

To life. 

Get back.

To what is real.

Put simply folks, in order for us boomers to mature gracefully, we must own our generational bias. Step up to your chronological demographic. Challenge the invaders, embrace your misanthropy, your latent liberal racism, your depleted sexism, and hilarious homophobia. Recognize those so-called social injustices of which you have been accused wrongfully, and sometimes, accurately. Pay them no heed. And if you are game, prepare yourself for an occasional slice of humble pie. 

Same goes for the kids out there. Romantic ideals are dead.  

Don't dream. It's over. 

Let Truth be your Master, not pixelated myths from the Reagan era. The Eisenhower era may be okay. Either way, past presidents become dead presidents, but your Time is always your Money. Isaiah 11:6

Remember the Hank Hill cult meme? 

The Liam Neeson warning?

It's over.

Face it. 

EVERYONE DISCRIMINATES. (but not everyone is prejudiced).

To discriminate is to select. Discrimination has been vilified, though merely an expression of intent.

Prejudice OTOH assumes facts not in evidence. It's an infantile state of mind, a sort an inverse Dunning-Kruger situation, where a person jumps to conclusions with faulty logic or false facts. Or narcisstic hubris. (Hello, CNN)

Well, the music break is done.

It's been so long since I'd seen the ocean, I thought I should come to California. As is so often the case, the best expression about my trip borrows from well-known lyrics. 

Watch the video (3:58) and see. We can ALL see through the corporate bullshit -- it's over.

You may let them in, but we won't let them win. 

Hey now. Hey now.

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 © 2022 by Roy Santonil