Ralph Waldo Emerson famously wrote:

“To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children . . . to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition, to know that even one life has breathed easier because you have lived – that is to have succeeded.”

Poor Ralph Waldo.  It’s clear no one was listening back in the late 1800s when he wrote his optimistic hope for future generations.

Twenty five years ago, I retired and passed to my children the following admonition: “The world is in good shape – no war and a good economy.  Don’t screw it up.”  That was 1993: The first Gulf War was behind us and the Reagan/Bush economy had the U.S. economy booming.

Sadly, their generation screwed it up, royally.

I suspect it all began with the modern-day perception of success, i.e.: the accumulation of great monetary wealth: things, not qualities. How many vacation homes? How many vintage cars? What color is your credit card? Even superficial things: How many followers do you have on Twitter? How many friends on Facebook?

Not healthy children, green garden patches or concern for folks unlike us.

‘Win at any cost’ is today’s mantra for raising children. Parents vaccinate their kids with distorted value serums, starting with the patronizing practice of handing out trophies for merely ‘showing up’ at community organized soccer practice.  Success to kids today means destroying the competition, as they do so avidly when playing video games. Example: A recent TV commercial for FIOS features a teen gamer responding to his father’s request to ‘take out the trash’ by responding: ‘Daaad, I already took out Brian’, meaning his video game opponent has been electronically killed. Welcome to millennial success!

Likewise, real war has become a video game in young minds. Distant conflicts seem like games with animated enemies, not ones who spill real blood.  Foreign combatants are nameless, uneducated ‘bots’. When the U.S. gets involved it employs young people with GEDs , not ‘successful’ PhDs or MBAs. These latter groups are busily writing position papers for government funded think tanks.

Since I first appeared in 1938 the country has been involved in seventeen major conflicts (Trust me, I Googled it.) around the globe, beginning with WWII through Afghanistan, Syria and Somalia. The last three are still ongoing.

Why has the modern world veered so sharply from Emerson’s vision of success?  Do we truly believe that success can be achieved by killing others as in video games? Maybe there is a primal need to conquer every perceived enemy at any cost.

Some would argue that we war with others for financial gain. Not so. If that were true, we’d simply bomb the crap out of the Middle East and take their oil as spoils of war. Instead we sell (or give) the Saudi, Jordanian and Turkish governments arms to protect their ‘God-given’ mineral and oil deposits and used to kill their religious enemies.

Nor is it to conquer other countries for prestige. Who would ever be proud of owning Burkina Faso, Syria, Chad – or even Iceland, for God’s sake?

No, devoted friends of Emerson. . .  I’m sorry to report that success is not found in flower gardens, health clinics or kindergartens. Nor is it found in the ACLU, the EEOC, the Black Lives Matter movement or the Democrat or Republican parties.

Since the days when cave dwellers killed wooly mammoths for food and/or sport, success, and satisfaction, has been found by over-powering one’s fellow man.  Sad, but true.

Be comforted, by whatever God you subscribe to, that we live in a country with the strongest, most capable defense capability on earth because the evil bastards will come at us, again and again.

Paranoid?  Perhaps. However, we must be doubly aware; next time the bastards may be us.

Where’s Waldo when we need him?  (Ask Martin Handford)

You are welcome.

For more: go to http://www.jameshpyle.com