With this column, I begin my fifth year of writing commentaries in MidWeek. I’m not sure of any major significance of having now completed four years of sharing thoughts weekly, but I found some interesting concepts around the number (and age) of four.
A child care program primer suggests that four-year olds begin to understand about other people’s feelings, a concept apparently lost once one walks through the formerly hallowed doors of Congress, thus becoming an entitled, elected separatist. The child care commentary indicates that children, upon reaching age four (or thereabouts) become more in tune with the concept of cooperation. Again, this seems to have been lost completely in Washington, D.C.; they’re often acting like three-year olds… which sadly doesn’t shock us anymore.
Empathy is another term used to describe human evolution as we reach our 4th birthdays. And empathy is a value sadly missing far too often in far too many day-to-day discussions, as too many have devolved into a cocoon where it’s often “me” over “we” or even “whee!”; many things just don’t seem to elicit a sense of fun anymore. Perhaps this is a vestige of a post-COVID world, further exemplified by alleged leaders who religiously take themselves far too seriously as they ignore their responsibilities to lead.
Extreme distress is an emotional red flag that might appear in four-year olds… this distress may describe 2023 reality for those dealing with weighty economic, emotional, mental, physical, tribal, (add your own “____al” here) issues.
And not to get biblical here, but on the fourth day of creation, we apparently received the sun, the moon, and the stars (see Genesis 1:14-19). Not a bad workday; I wonder if time off was taken for lunch on that busy day? Childish adults in the political world should take time off to gaze out- maybe on a starlit night- and reflect on their (in)actions, agitation, attitudes, arrogance, and angst.
A lot has happened over the past four years since I began to “think about it” here. In human years, we might opt to discount part of that COVID quarantine window; so the past four years might equate to two “real” years in human- or even dog- terms. Perhaps you wish that my four-year “Think About It” MidWeek editorial sojourn had been reduced by MidWeek’s print hierarchy to just one week. Sorry, but we shall press onwards, as we continue to think about it…