Revolution
Revolution, they say, is a young person’s game. Rebellion runs in the blood of the young. The strong arm, the hot head, the blank mind. And if the puppeteer is older and frightened, it doesn’t matter. Because the young see only what they want to see.
Intifada. IRA. Sunday Bloody Sunday. Vietnam. The burning monks. Che. Civil rights, human rights, women’s rights. Later, Khalistan and Bodoland, Tamil Eelam, the Khmer Rouge. The extraordinary, the heroic, with feet of clay and capable of horrors that left the world reeling. Stars in the eyes of the young, until the dreams died and the heroes turned away their faces. The young were left to decide who the villains were, who the saviours.
Vietnam struck a chord: as if having lived and died in that hopeless conflict, you were unlucky enough to be reborn in 1972. Too young to die again, to sacrifice the body for the succour of the self. The sixties were gone, and with those years, the last of the rebellions of the young. Growing up in the eighties, living a sheltered smothered existence, these were lode stars. Not a peep of conflict in real life, no struggle, no worry. A charmed life and a sense of having been passed by. Those young people, arms linked, flowers in their hair, chanting ‘The world is watching’ had not stopped and spared you a glance.
Still, in another world. Hijackers and embassies, airplanes and suicide bombs. It was only ever as far away as the tv screen. And yet so beyond your imagination. Revolutions that made no difference to your life, and yet shaped the world you lived and died in.
The world was burning up. The heat scorched the soul if not the corporeal body. It seemed that the protest cries died in your throat, unborn. The injustices formed walls and you hid behind these, traded your youth for luxuries, your dreams for comfort.
The heat congealed.
You grew older. The bones ached, the anger tired itself out, the mind was distracted with life and money and three square. And then you had lived forty-eight years. Half your life, if you were so lucky, was gone. You had not yet found your place in this turbulent world.
It was a strange feeling, then, to feel again the slow burn, the anger flaring into words, if not action, when the outward body was flailing and flabby, grey and worn – caked with the indifference of all the years gone away. Was this the crisis you once mocked from the safe distance of youth?
In the present moment, it is no crisis, rather a validation of ideas and thoughts. There is an internal revolution, quiet, unspoken but every bit as alive and abrasive as the ones you missed being a part of.
The self convulses, all that has gone before is stripped away and the truth laid bare – did you want to know yourself, did you yearn to see yourself in the mirror? Here you are. You are gnarled, and twisted, unbeautiful and aware. Do you dare to see the lumps, the scars, the ugly rivulets of anger that have gouged out the innocence? Will you turn away, close your eyes? Will you hide behind fine clothes and trappings of the good life? Or will you finally stand up tall, reach with your toes into the dirt and stretch with your arms to the sky?
Will you be a tree of life? The choice is yours. The body and the mind, worn, faulted, failing, are yours. You belong to no one, your thoughts owe allegiance to no one. This is the revolution in which you are puppet master and youth, the end and the means.
This is the revolution of your inner life. Consolidate your ideals, fight for your rights. Embrace the truths that make up your life – the loves, the regrets, the losses. Open yourself to the unknown. Look ahead to a new world – the world you can choose to make brighter, stronger for yourself. Here you are. Surprise yourself. Find the strength. Break free of the years of conforming. Break out of the lies you told yourself. Enjoy this breath. There may not be another.
Revolution, they say, is for the young. No question of it. But it is not their preserve alone. They march on the streets, you march in your head. They scream their songs in sweet voices, you growl your truths in cracked tones. They are eager to fight, to die, to live. You make ready to shield them from these little deaths. Their struggle is for the world. You struggle for the self. They laugh at your feeble self. You are energised by their laughter and empowered by their youth.
This revolution only needs the two halves to meld into a whole. The old and the young, fighting for change inside and out, for the things that matter to all beings, only the form changes as the years pass. The young are not required to understand this. They believe in the here and now, this moment, this struggle. And so it should be. But you, in middle life, who have stepped away from the good fight, from the word on the street, can find your way back. Your inner rebellion is no less of a struggle. Its energy can light the way ahead.
This revolution can save you from yourself. Be there when the fire lights inside. Stand up when the call comes from within. Hiding is not the best option now. Be as the young are. Be a tree, be the sky. Be the earth and the wind.
And then you may find that after all, that your inner rebellion, your quiet revolt have earned you what few people wish for: clarity and a truth that is harsh but so very liberating. Almost like being young again.