Dreams 2

Song "Wild West Hero" - Moody Blues

I wish I was - a Wild West hero, and don't you?

The songwriter is expressing a day-dream, a dream of a sort of Wild West equaliser - a person who sets the record straight. Within these words, there's a theme common to most people, a theme familiar from almost all Western's, but also the same theme as in most fairy tales, many books and nearly all television drama - the desire for justice, of setting the world to rights.

The theme is so common it ought to be a cliché. Good wins in the end, and the mediator of justice is the hero, whether that be John Wayne or Robin Hood or Luke Skywalker or Superman or the Fairy Godmother in Cinderella.

But is that our own experience of life? Can we say that good always triumphs over evil? In fact, most of your experience at school is probably far less clear-cut; you play sport, netball, hockey or football; you go to lessons, you do your homework, you play in the orchestra or watch television, you hack on computers or whatever. But where is justice to be found in all that? Where is justice to be found in our everyday experience? There doesn't seem to be a clear-cut right or wrong for most of our lives most of the time.

And even when issues of right and wrong are raised, people of equal integrity sometimes end up on opposite sides. Let's think of some topical issues. Should health care be freely available to all in this country, or should those with more money have the chance of better and quicker operations? Should the perpetrators of crimes against children be locked up forever or released into the community with support and counselling? Should the railways be sold to private investors or left belonging to the whole country? Should rules about school uniform be more relaxed, stricter or left as they are?

On all of those issues, each of us holds some sort of view. But is there an obvious right and wrong in any of them? Probably not. We live in a world where justice seems unclear and continually compromised.

There is a discrepancy between the "greyness" of real life and the clear-cut, "better life", noted in the song. This discrepancy was recognised by the songwriter. No wonder he says he wants "to lead a better life", a life "away from all we know". What he wants is for right and wrong to be clear cut, and to know that he's on the side of right. Perhaps the song-writer recognises he has made a mess of lots of things. He wants to make a fresh start. He wants to live by values in dreams that he doesn't practice in real life.

The song's message should strike a chord with most of us. Don't we often say

"Oh I wish I was as clever as so and so ............"

"Oh I wish I was as tall or as strong as that person............"

"Oh I wish I was better at History or Physics or English............"

and if we were a bit better at English, we might want to use the subjunctive of the verb "to be", so correcting the grammar in the song. We ought to say " I wish I were something I am not at present".

"Man transcends man". In spite of all the good things we enjoy in life, we hope for, we aspire to, something better. In other words, we have hopes and dreams, a vision for a better life. Everyone wants higher standards of justice, of fairness, of sexual morality and of social responsibility. But the uncomfortable truth is every one wants higher standards than they themselves practice. People want to be better than they really are; in the cold light of self-criticism, we all know we could try to get on with other people better. We want to be better than we actually are. "Man transcends man."

And that's where I want to leave our thoughts. Let's apply them in school today. Using words from the third verse of the song, why not spend today being a Wild West Hero, "trying to do what's right", being the person you want to be?