The more things Change, the more they stay the same....

It's been a long week around here, and I am not in the mood to be witty and entertaining. So if that's what you're looking for today, you are in the wrong blog. I am feeling moody and dark, and I cannot overcome it just to make everyone else feel good. (That is called foreshadowing, for any potential English majors out there.) I've gotta be me.

Americans have a reputation around the world for being naive. Although I enjoy "Pollyanna" as much as the next girl, I have to be honest, I sort of agree with the global assessment of our national obsession with second chances. And third chances. And fourth chances. And so on, and so on, and so on. It seems that no situation exists in which redeeming qualities cannot be found, or there isn't some reason to take a second chance, or more, on someone who insists, generally in front of God and the world, that they have learned their lesson and have, well, Changed.

Michael Vick is only the latest example of The Newly Enlightened. He has come out of prison a Changed Man, he has Learned His Lessons, it was a Wake Up Call that he was on the Road to Ruin. Funny how finding yourself behind bars can open your eyes in a way that years of enculturation cannot.

Of course, now that he has Changed, he must be given another chance (and another multi-million dollar contract to go with it.) This is nothing against Michael Vick. He may, indeed, have genuinely changed. But by and large, barring some really hideous and unfortunate happening (which prison surely must be,) my life experience tells me that most people really can't change. And what's more, they don't really want to, either.

I can't decide if it's part of the hopeful nature of being human that we persist in believing wholesale character change is possible, or if we are just chronically deluded. But I think we are the most optimistic country on the planet. No matter how bad the act, no matter what may have gone before, there is always redemption available, if only you have Learned Your Lesson and Changed.

This past week, Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme made the news because she has been released from prison after three decades behind bars. She was only a twenty-something when she was remanded into federal custody, and now, several decades later, she barely resembles the angry young thing that was originally sent off into relative obscurity.

I don't know if she has Changed, but she has certainly changed. One imagines, spending years in the relative isolation of a prison setting, that you would have some time to reflect upon your previous actions, and perhaps, somehow conclude that you might have been in error somewhere along the line. She has gotten older, as everyone does, and as you age, you have less energy for everything, including the kind of hatred and anger that leads you to try to assassinate a sitting President.

I imagine, if she had not declared herself a Changed Person, she would not have been released from the custody of her keepers. One hopes that she will have some way to keep her mind occupied once she is out of the grasp of the federal prison system, otherwise, we may be hearing more about her. And I, for one, have heard all I really need to know about someone who was, in everything but actual fact, a cold blooded killer.

I find this incredible optimism that people can change their inherent natures sort of perplexing. In my experience, whether in matters great or small, I have found that most people are, in fact, pretty consistent throughout their lives. My children, for example, have the same personalities they had even in utero, although I didn't appreciate the full nuances of it until they were much older.

I don't know that I have ever personally witnessed a genuine change in personality in anyone that didn't have a brain affliction. You can be more or less yourself, depending on the circumstances in which you find yourself, certainly. You can tone yourself down, or pump yourself up, depending upon what is called for in any situation. Just as we understand the word casual means different things at the office and in our own backyard, we also moderate our personal behavior depending on where we are and who we are with. So it's hard to know if we ever, really and truly, see the internal person we are dealing with, even when we are very close to them in relationship or proximity.

But the basic question which interests me is whether or not someone can, deep down inside of them, where it truly matters, change. Is it possible to reverse the thought process held from birth until that moment? Can someone permanently revoke their opinions and attitudes of a lifetime to embrace something new and different?

We, as a nation, believe in the bootstrap theory of life, whereby hard work and effort will eventually lead us to the promised land of wealth and all that is good. Hard knocks, in our cultural view, bring out the best in us, and help us to become the best we can be.

In my own personal experience, hard knocks have their use, but it's more to reveal the person within than to bring out someone that wasn't there in the first place. When faced with genuine hardship in life, some people, even with everything against them, inexplicably rise to the occasion, revealing the stellar person within.

I think most people, in fact, are good and decent people, and thus, when faced with a rough patch, handle it with the same grace with which they handle their successes. The quality of character is just easier to identify when faced with the negative than the positive.

However, there are a smaller, but still significant number of people who do not handle anything well. They screw up success, they are bitter in failure, they constantly make the wrong decisions for all the wrong reasons. They are, temporarily, at least, accomplished chameleons, but eventually, they will be exposed by the inevitable difficulties in life.

The idea that hardship will make someone better is intuitively backwards, for me. In my experience, when the chips are down, people are more themselves, not less so, and that is magnified, rather than reduced, by difficult circumstances. People who are thoughtful and caring towards others will continue that path, even at the cost of their own lives, in some cases, not because society expects it, but because it is who they are, and they cannot do anything differently.

Whether it was providing refuge to escaping slaves on the Underground Railroad, or safe haven to Jews in Nazi Germany, or jumping into a lake to save a drowning child, or plunging into a fiery building to save someone's pet, there are those who will not only rise to the occasion, but rise above and beyond it, even giving their lives for someone else, simply because it is the right thing to do. And conversely, there are those who, even having every advantage in life thrown their way, will still make the wrong choices, using and abusing everyone around them, simply because they can.

What makes an O.J. Simpson or a Tim McVeigh? What creates a Mother Teresa or a Stephen Hawking? Could anything have persuaded Dave Pelzer to go the wrong way in life? Or was his goodness so innate, no matter what happened (short of actually being murdered by his abusive mother,) he would have risen above his temporary circumstances and not only survived, but thrived?

I am fond of saying that each day presents us with a new opportunity to make a choice about how we are going to live our lives, as though anything is possible every new day. [Apparently I am afflicted with a dose of the same optimism that dooms my fellow countrymen to actually believe we can solve the problem of poverty in Africa or violence in the Middle East.]

But I wonder, in the final analysis, if that is true. Perhaps we are simply stuck in the place we are, characteristically speaking, predestined to inhabit, and there never really was a choice at all. I think at least part of our reluctance to impose the death penalty in this country is reflective of our deep seated ambivalence on this very subject. Where there is life, there is the possibility of change, goes the thinking, and we can't cut short the opportunity to make a better choice.

I imagine this attitude baffles both our allies and our enemies in equal proportion, since it leads us to do things like carpet bomb a town, then provide funds to rebuild it bigger and better than ever, or decry dictatorship, a la Fidel or Kim Jong Il, while holding hands with the architects of the Tienanmen Square fiasco. It seems we are ever hopeful [some might say delusional, but I digress] that if we can only find the right incentive, we can save the world from itself. Whether it wants us to or not, I might add.

If it makes the rest of the planet's population feel any better, I can say with some confidence that we confuse us, too. If George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton can not only work together on a project, but even appear to have forged a friendship, of all things, there is hope for everyone. Second chances are the American way, after all.

I don't know, but I wish the Eagles luck with Michael Vick. When you dance with the devil, you have no excuse for being surprised when you get burned.