Turning Point?

There are moments in cinematic history forever etched into our culture's collective consciousness. Paddy Chayefsky's "Network" (1976) contains a particularly strong one. In it, Howard Beale, a fired national newscaster (played by the late Peter Finch), rallies his viewers to channel their anger over the current state of the country. Thirty-two years - over three decades - later, it is nothing less than uncanny how prescient were the character's words.

Says Beale: "I don't have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad. It's a depression. Everybody's out of work or scared of losing their job. The dollar buys a nickel's work, banks are going bust, shopkeepers keep a gun under the counter. Punks are running wild in the street and there's nobody anywhere who seems to know what to do, and there's no end to it. We know the air is unfit to breathe and our food is unfit to eat, and we sit watching our TVs while some local newscaster tells us that today we had fifteen homicides and sixty-three violent crimes, as if that's the way it's supposed to be. We know things are bad - worse than bad. They're crazy. It's like everything everywhere is going crazy..."

The famous scene culminates in Beale hollering, "I want you to get up right now, sit up, go to your windows, open them and stick your head out and yell - 'I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore!' Things have got to change. ... You've got to say, I'M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!"

I relate. I am angry. I also know I am not alone. I cannot think of anyone content with the path on which we now find ourselves.

I understand I am not - at least in this venue - a political commentator. I write a "lifestyle piece" on wellness, motivation, and change, leaving the "hard news" for others. Yet, it is foolish to deny that one's emotions are disconnected from our perception of how the world is turning; so it stands to reason that current affairs are, at least, a mental health issue, if not so much more.

Maybe anger is only a defense to quell the ever-rising sense of panic that - on a daily basis - rises up and seizes me around my throat. For when neither angry nor frightened, I feel despair. This is not the way my generation promised to leave things for its children. Such high hopes, great expectations, and vast visions now seem an impossible fairy tale. Upon accepting such deep loss, I revert to anger, an endless cycle. I have become one of those inflatable punching dolls. Each time I rise, I am yet again slammed down.

The state of the world affects me - and you - deeply.

But - and here comes that unrelenting, undying optimist - maybe, just possibly, please God, could this is be a turning point? As Benjamin Franklin said, "We shall all hang together, or most assuredly, we shall all hang separately." We are bound as one, like it or not.

Is it feasible that history will record this era as the period where we finally turned the corner, realized our potential, and started moving forward as one? Could a better, healthier world burst forth from these painful flames?

We can hope; we still have that.