Journeys With Jani… Let’s Talk About It…

I put on Buffalo Springfield’s “For What It’s Worth” & I swear the world goes quiet for a second… not because the world is calm, but because this song has the kind of weight that makes you stop mid-task like you just heard your grandma say your full government name from the other room.

You know that tone.

It’s not background music. It’s a hand on your shoulder.

And what gets me is it never ages. It doesn’t feel like a classic. It doesn’t feel like a cute little throwback moment. It feels like a current event with a guitar line… which is honestly just rude. Because I would love for this song to be a history lesson. Something we used to do.

But no.

We don’t learn. We just rebrand the same mess & slap a new year on it like that makes it fresh. Same fear. Same power struggle. Same crowd energy. Different hairstyle, different platform, same human nonsense. Like a maddening amusement park ride… except nobody’s amused & the safety bar is apparently optional.

It opens with “Stop, hey, what’s that sound…” & that line is basically the feeling of looking up from your normal life & realizing something has shifted. The air is different. Folks are tense. Everybody’s got an edge. You can practically hear the collective nervous system humming like a refrigerator that’s about to die. Yes, collective nervous system. Sometimes. I can say smart things 😬

Anyway…

Here’s the part that always makes me tired in my soul… half the people don’t even know what started it anymore. They just know they’re mad, they’re right & somebody else is wrong. That’s it. That’s the whole résumé.

“There’s something happening here…”

Yes. There is.

And it’s usually the same thing: people getting dug in so deep they’d rather be right than be decent.

Then you get to the line that hits me every time… “Nobody’s right if everybody’s wrong.”

Because tell me that isn’t the soundtrack of the last several years.

Everybody’s talking. Nobody’s listening. Everybody’s performing like they’re auditioning for the role of Most Correct Person on the Internet. We don’t listen to understand, we listen to reload. We don’t ask questions, we gather ammo. And we call it being informed, which is precious 😑

And I’m not sitting over here acting like I’m above it. I’m a whole human being with a pulse and a Wi-Fi connection. I’ve had moments where I’m like, let me go ahead & close this app before I start acting out of character.

The song doesn’t feel like a lecture to me. It feels like a mirror. It’s describing what happens when people feel cornered, authority gets reactive, crowds get loud & fear starts driving the car. Jesus has definitely NOT taken the wheel!

And once fear takes the wheel, logic gets shoved in the backseat… if it even gets a seat. Sometimes logic gets thrown in the trunk with a spare tire & a granola bar.

That’s the pattern this song keeps dragging back into the light. Not the details… the pattern.

Tension builds. Folks pick teams. The volume goes up. Everybody’s watching everybody else like we’re in some kind of social cage match. Everybody’s convinced they’re the good guy. And then it stops being about the original issue & becomes about identity. The team of it. The if you don’t agree with me you’re the enemy of it.

That’s when it gets ugly.

Because once you stop seeing people as people & start seeing labels… you can justify just about anything. You can be cruel & call it conviction. You can be dismissive & call it truth. You can be arrogant & call it just being honest. And you can do all of it with a straight face like you’re morally superior… which might be my least favorite hobby we’ve collectively picked up.

And that’s when this song starts feeling less like music & more like a smoke alarm.

Not because everything is on fire every second… but because it always smells like smoke. Like we keep standing too close to the same match & acting surprised when we get burned.

So when I say this song never loses ground, I’m not being dramatic. I’m being honest. It never loses ground because we keep giving it new reasons to matter.

And I don’t have a neat little bow to tie on this. I’m not handing you a solution in a cute quote graphic. I’m just saying the quiet part out loud:

We keep repeating the cycle… because being mad is easier than being accountable. Being loud is easier than being thoughtful. Picking a team is easier than staying human.

But I’m trying. I want to be the kind of person who can hear the sound & pause. Who can step back long enough to ask, what is really happening here? before I get pulled into the noise.

Because if we don’t… we’ll just keep riding this same maddening ride, over & over, acting shocked every time it makes us sick.

If you don’t hear it yet… give it time. That sound always shows up.

XOXO, Jani

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