A cartoonish poster with that phrase hung in my childhood home. The line comes from a movie made the year I was born — a film I’ve never actually seen — but the title stuck with me.
I was in Lamaze class the night the first Gulf War started. Someone wheeled in a television so we could watch the breaking news.
Everything I’d been taught growing up said this was it — the Book of Revelation, the end of days.
My mom, newly introduced to the addictive qualities of 24-hour cable news, watched the coverage nonstop.
Two months later Caitlin arrived, 35 years ago this week.
Since then we’ve had another Gulf War, a war in Afghanistan, 9/11, COVID, hurricanes, floods, fires, murder hornets, you name it.
It’s a veritable skull-shaped box of apocalyptic chocolates.
You’ve probably been through your own world-shattering experiences since then. I have. Humanity has a remarkable ability to keep going, even when the evidence suggests we should have wiped ourselves out by now.
It’s easy to get discouraged. Or angry. We’re supposed to be the smartest species on the planet, yet we repeat the same self-destructive behaviors again and again in our endless quest for more of… what? Money? Power? Validation? Pleasure?
Shouldn’t we be getting better at this by now? More Christ-like. More Zen. More grounded. More compassionate. More generous. The things we claim to admire.
Instead we take two steps forward and one step back — a globally destructive cha-cha.
So what can we do?
The same things we ought to be doing anyway: Honor the people who serve, and work a little harder to build a world that asks less of that sacrifice. Be kind. Do good. Love one another as you love yourself.
Or, as Bill and Ted put it: Be excellent to each other.
Somehow I always end up back at Bill and Ted. Maybe it’s generational, maybe it’s because it’s just so simple and true. Most of the things that actually make the world better are simple.
Imagine what might happen if we all tried it.
Imagine if they gave a war…
and nobody came.