In the early 1970s, a drummer/songwriter named Lloyd Ferris quit the music business forever for the very first time. He was 21.
He set out on a lifelong journey to explore what causes war, what causes poverty, and what can be done to end these scourges. He made a promise to himself to be skeptical of all pat answers, left or right, fundamentalist or scientific. Now, at 72, he is putting together a website of songs about some interesting answers, and the many still unanswered questions, that he has stumbled across in his journey.
Many of the “answers” you have heard of before. Some might surprise you. One theme that kept coming up again and again can best be summed up by four lines in his 1995 song, “Ecotopia”:
All around me I see the answers
Dancing all alone
What if they came together
To push each other on?
The big challenge of the 21st century may be in how to get all the answers that are dancing around us to dance together — without resorting to authoritarian rule to make it happen. And without giving in to authoritarian rule when it subtly, or with a sledgehammer, tries to interfere.
Are you on board with looking for your own answers, considering those of others, and acting on those that you come to believe in? That’s a question, not a command.
While you are pondering, here is what Lloyd has come up with so far: