No great civilization ever believed they sucked.

No clawing, long-fingered empire said, “Why?” They did not find satiation and push away from the table saying, “We are done. Full. Finished. That was a fine meal and now let’s have a nap.” That is, until it was too late.

Those who forget history are yada, yada, yada.

Tribes and clans started our success against the wilds that would have had us; and tribes will, as has been proven time and anon, be our downfall.

Colors and lines make for nice maps but not good neighbors. A nod to mister Frost here, praise his wisdom of fences. But here I speak of the grander scale, not the separation between goats and haystacks. Math was never my strongest suit, even so, I know, division is the unsolvable proof, the sum of mankind’s dilemma.

We place Archie Bunker’s frayed wing chair in the Nation’s Attic, a too beloved memory of who we once were and are again, wrong.  Never wise enough to fight or fly from the right fight or leave that old chair on the curb to be taken away. I suppose it’s good to keep the reminders…but only if we keep them to remember how much we sucked.

I had a friend once. One of the smartest I’ve known. Bright and shiny like a newly minted penny. But, like a penny, he tarnished quick enough. He wrote a treatise, if you will, on the topic of Tribes. So eloquent it proved to rattle preconceived thoughts and notions and push the mind to a new and far shore. Like a conquistador driving his ship and crew to new worlds ripe for domination. But his landfall was only words, not reality.

Yes, we are tribes. He got that much right. But our methodology of expanding our tribe to make more of “us” and less of “them” is a rot, a decay of humanity where we are cruel, evil, ugly, spiteful and rudderless upon a harsh and never-ending sea of despair. A journey with no fruitful landfall.

It’s long past time to turn the ship about. Let’s take our tribe home and gather in a fellowship of peace and curiosity. Let us be silly and kind and respect those other tribes for all that makes them the best of us as we are to them.

Maybe then we won’t suck so much.