I can hardly believe it but Summer is almost here. If I had to judge from the blustery weather, I wouldn’t even think Spring had arrived. Yet, most schools finish their year in about 3 weeks so, like it or not, children will be filling the streets, buses, and malls.
I may be curmudgeonly but I don’t begrudge kids this respite from school. There’s all that pent-up energy just waiting to explode and even one more day in school is probably risking spontaneous combustion. No, we have to let them out so they can forget all their lessons and return 3 months later with fresh, blanks slates.
As a kid overexposed to Saturday morning cartoons and corporate consumer programming, Summer was also time for the Slip-n-Slide and Kool Aid. I really did want that Slip-n-Slide but my parents never got one for me. We had to make do with left-over plastic wrap, garbage bags, or plain ‘ol cardboard down a grassy slope. It wasn’t cool but we still had fun.
Kool Aid was something we did have; it was something I loathed. Who in their right mind ever thought kids would like this? It barely had any flavor of its own so, unless you poured 3 cups of sugar in the pitcher, it was virtually undrinkable. It didn’t matter if Kool-Aid Man was cartoon or live-action, if he sang the jingle or just yelled “oh yeah”, the stuff sucked.
When I first heard the phrase, “he/she drank the Kool Aid”, the first thing I thought was, “who’d want to do that?” If you didn’t know, it originated from the 1978 Jonestown massacre/suicide where Jim Jones and his followers gave poisoned Kool Aid to their children to help them perform what they termed “revolutionary suicide”. It has since become synonymous with naiveté, gullibility, brainwashing, and cult worship.
In Hawaii, we have something similar to Kool Aid called Malolo. It comes in liquid form but it has the same no-taste-needs-heaps-of-sugar quality. My mom once bought a bottle and it sat in the cupboard literally until (if this was possible) it went bad.
I’ve been thinking that we need to coin a “drank the Malolo” phrase that would clearly delineate active thinkers from blind followers. We could use the phrase whenever someone kowtows to the ever-present provincial mores, succumbs to cultural stereotypes, or caves in to societal pressures about preserving natural beauty, “keeping the country, country”, or not being pono. Better yet, we could use it for all the people who sit on the fence and wait for their personal messiah to tell them which side has the greener grass.
It may be Summer but harsher seasons will come and we’ve got to stand on our own two feet if we want to take charge of our situation. Nobody is going to come and save us, no one person is going to have the grand plan and vision to guide us into the future, and the minute that we give in to the temptation of hero-worship is the moment we’ve forfeited the right to be a member of a winning team.
In general, leaders get the kind of followers they deserve. Demand better leaders.
So That's Life?
One and One Makes Three
04/17/2012I can hardly believe it but Summer is almost here. If I had to judge from the blustery weather, I wouldn’t even think Spring had arrived. Yet, most schools finish their year in about 3 weeks so, like it or not, children will be filling the streets, buses, and malls.
I may be curmudgeonly but I don’t begrudge kids this respite from school. There’s all that pent-up energy just waiting to explode and even one more day in school is probably risking spontaneous combustion. No, we have to let them out so they can forget all their lessons and return 3 months later with fresh, blanks slates.
As a kid overexposed to Saturday morning cartoons and corporate consumer programming, Summer was also time for the Slip-n-Slide and Kool Aid. I really did want that Slip-n-Slide but my parents never got one for me. We had to make do with left-over plastic wrap, garbage bags, or plain ‘ol cardboard down a grassy slope. It wasn’t cool but we still had fun.
Kool Aid was something we did have; it was something I loathed. Who in their right mind ever thought kids would like this? It barely had any flavor of its own so, unless you poured 3 cups of sugar in the pitcher, it was virtually undrinkable. It didn’t matter if Kool-Aid Man was cartoon or live-action, if he sang the jingle or just yelled “oh yeah”, the stuff sucked.
When I first heard the phrase, “he/she drank the Kool Aid”, the first thing I thought was, “who’d want to do that?” If you didn’t know, it originated from the 1978 Jonestown massacre/suicide where Jim Jones and his followers gave poisoned Kool Aid to their children to help them perform what they termed “revolutionary suicide”. It has since become synonymous with naiveté, gullibility, brainwashing, and cult worship.
In Hawaii, we have something similar to Kool Aid called Malolo. It comes in liquid form but it has the same no-taste-needs-heaps-of-sugar quality. My mom once bought a bottle and it sat in the cupboard literally until (if this was possible) it went bad.
I’ve been thinking that we need to coin a “drank the Malolo” phrase that would clearly delineate active thinkers from blind followers. We could use the phrase whenever someone kowtows to the ever-present provincial mores, succumbs to cultural stereotypes, or caves in to societal pressures about preserving natural beauty, “keeping the country, country”, or not being pono. Better yet, we could use it for all the people who sit on the fence and wait for their personal messiah to tell them which side has the greener grass.
It may be Summer but harsher seasons will come and we’ve got to stand on our own two feet if we want to take charge of our situation. Nobody is going to come and save us, no one person is going to have the grand plan and vision to guide us into the future, and the minute that we give in to the temptation of hero-worship is the moment we’ve forfeited the right to be a member of a winning team.
In general, leaders get the kind of followers they deserve. Demand better leaders.
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