Aspiring to Goodness

Tonight at work I finished reading Pride and Prejudice, which I truly loved. I think I want to read Persuasion next, maybe. I'm going to Borders in the morning to wrap up my Christmas shopping (since Amazon is stupid and couldn't ship my stuff in time, even though I ordered it early enough), and I'm also going to pick up a new book to read (even though I've got about a million laying around that would probably do just as well). I have to say, reading 19th- and early 20th-century literature is completely retooling my idea of romance. As in, reminding me that romance actually existed at one point in time. And there's no reason why it shouldn't still exist. This is why I don't like most contemporary literature. There's so much sex and so little real romance. There's no courting. No passion. I'm sorry, but jumping into someone's bed is not an act of passion. I think it's sad that our culture is so obsessed with instant gratification that we sacrifice real, lasting, soul-stirring connections for temporary, physical "pleasure." Why does everything have to be now? Doesn't it make it that much better if you wait, if there's a build up of anticipation, if you spend time really getting to know someone? The more I learn about the past, the more I think we've just been passing time. Things have changed, but have they really changed for the better? Is it better that a side-effect of feminism is children coming home from school to empty houses, resorting to sex and drugs for attention from their parents who are just too busy to notice? Is it better that a result of sexual liberation has been a rapid decline in romance and even MORE pressure on women to put out? Is our society better off now that racism has been confined to private conversations between parents and children? Shouldn't we be striving to be so much more than this? Shouldn't our goal be to create a family environment in which children are nurtured, not neglected, by both parents? Shouldn't "women's rights" include the right to be respected, not pressured or harassed? Shouldn't parents teach their children about love and tolerance ALL of the time, not just when the cameras are rolling or the neighbors are watching? AND WHY IS IT SO HARD TO DO THESE THINGS? It sounds so simple, and so beautiful, and exactly what we should all want...so why isn't anybody doing it?

I don't know. Honestly, I'm not sure it's worth caring about. I can try to live my life in this way, but who will it matter to? The best I can hope for, I guess, is that it will influence my own children and inspire them to live this way too. Maybe by the time I'm dead, being a better person will be the new hot fad and everyone will aspire to goodness. But really, I doubt it. I want to be optimistic that we're just in the hedonistic extreme of a moral cycle in society. But who really knows?

P.S. Jack Johnson's new album is coming out Feb. 5th, the anticipation of which is almost enough to make the abysmally-long January a little more bearable.