Howard Jones, Human's Lib 7

I used to worry about why the most clever, educated, and fashionable people seemed to be the most cynical people, why they were more likely to roll their eyes and snort in disgust than to offer a smile and a gentle word of encouragement. Did getting a lay of the land require being consumed by bitterness? 

It turned out I was confusing cleverness with wisdom, education with learning, and fashion with truth. Love is the natural consequence of awareness, not hatred. To know something, or more importantly to know someone, is to bow down in respect. 

While events will unfold of their own accord, my own thinking about them will determine everything about my response. What do I see in another person? Do I gripe about his mistakes, or do I get to work on fixing my own? When I insist that all is lost, am I including myself by giving up the ghost? 

Those fights in the playground yards Mr. Jones refers to, and which the pundits will brush off as statistically irrelevant, are actually the root of our problems, aren't they? From little things come big things, from petty vindictiveness comes uncontrollable rage. 

I have come to trust a man who manages the details of his affairs with decency, for it suggests he will also do well on the grand stage. I also can't help but notice how a caring child is more likely to grow into a responsible adult. 

To use the "glass half empty/glass half full" analogy sounds tiresome, and yet there is merit to focusing on the good while forgiving the evil. 

Rain? I do need it for my garden. Wind? I become stronger by walking into it. All sorts of charlatans and tyrants? They offer me a chance to do right, to suggest a different way. 

—4/2007 

A few words of commentary from Howard Jones: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2iQbj-UlJI&list=OLAK5uy_lFedI4jW6TKDjvu-C8M34duwjnJ3RlL3M&index=13 

And the song itself: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_WXhcnKzxk&list=OLAK5uy_lFedI4jW6TKDjvu-C8M34duwjnJ3RlL3M&index=14 

Howard Jones, "Don't Always Look at the Rain" from Human's Lib (1984) 

Some people I know have given up on their lives
Drowning their sorrows, and mumblin', and forgot the fight
We can tip the balance we can break those barriers down
Little things count as much as the big and turn it all around

And it's oh, don't always look at the rain
No, don't look at the rain

Some people I know have lost their feel for mystery
They say everything has got to be proved, this isn't a nursery
And Joseph who's five years old, stops fights in his playground yard
No more fights and bigotry, oh is it so hard

And it's oh, don't always look at the rain
No, don't always look at the rain
Ha, don't always look at the rain

And tell me, is it a crime to have an ideal or two
Evolving takes it's time, we can't do it all in one go
Doesn't have to drive us all mad, we can only do our best
Let the mind shut up, and the heart do the rest