I love Charlie Chaplin’s haunting melody from Modern Times.  It endured for 18 years before John Turner and Geoffrey Parsons added the timeless lyric that has made it a classic of the American Songbook.  The mix of its melancholy mood and hopeful sentiment has placed it among the most recorded songs of all time, interpreted for nearly seventy years by countless brilliant singers and musicians.  It’s short, sweet and to the point…only 86 words in total, ending with, “You’ll find that life is still worthwhile, if you’ll just smile.”

To my core, I believe that a sunnier outlook, a commitment to seeking out and engaging with the best of human nature, is the only way we survive.  I think that’s what Smile is trying to say, albeit wrapped in a bit of Pollyannic literalism.  But, (here comes that man again), in the battle, (and yes, we are in a real, bare-fisted battle), of Good v. Evil…Smile v. Frown…the Evil/Frowners are kicking our butts.  The righteous are being threatened and demonized, the innocent are being incarcerated and murderers, shamelessly murdering on video, are being acquitted.  Nearly half of our country, nearly half of the planet, our last President, thinks that’s OK.  Our government is incapable of governing, our Free Press has interpreted freedom as the right to mislead with impunity and our courts have become so politicized that Solomon would have sentenced them all to something biblically horrifying.

I fear that the hopefulness and unadulterated joy that used to flit more frequently in and out of our lives is not on track to be enhanced by a metaphorical pendulum swing.  The smirkers are enthusiastically dug in, fully committed to heinous, anti-smiling behavior while those promoting a toothy-grinned, brighter outlook for peace, love and understanding, although in the majority, seem incapable of facing up to the chiding and bullying of their counterparts and sadly, Sorry, Charlie, there are too few reasons to smile.