Latest / YOUR AVERAGE DELTON / Episode 3: What the Fireworks Can't Tell Us
Transcript
- DELTON DEAL: Hey guys, welcome back to the Average Delton. This is the space where we discuss real life, real loss, and the things we carry that most people never see. No filters, no pretending, just truth. You know, every year millions of us participate in the same ritual. As the sun disappears, we gather outside and stare upward. We wait. Then it happens. A burst of color stretching across the darkness. For a few seconds, strangers bless ⁓ land ⁓ I Stand beside her ⁓ and her through the night with the light from above, from the mountains. become a crowd. We point to the sky, we smile, we celebrate. You know, but I've always wondered something. What if the most important thing happening on the 4th of July isn't in the sky? To the prairies, to the with a white foam. God bless America, my home, sweet home. God bless America, my home, sweet home. I'm Your Average Delton, out. What if the fireworks are just distractions? What if the real story is happening in the shadows cast by the light? Tonight I don't have any answers, only have questions. Questions about memory, questions about freedom, standing shoulder to shoulder. You know, imagine two people hearing the same exact firework, the same explosion, the same vibration through the air. One person laughs, the other freezes. How can the same sound carry completely different meanings? You know, maybe that's true of more than just fireworks. Maybe every experience we share is exactly thousands of private experiences. happening at the same time. When we celebrate freedom, what are we actually celebrating? A historical event? A national identity? A feeling? ⁓ And what when someone doesn't feel the same thing everyone else appears to feel? There are veterans who spend this holiday waiting for it to end. Not because they dislike the country, not because they reject celebration, but because their bodies remember things their mind wish it could forget. Think about that for a moment. A day meant to symbolize peace can feel like a battlefield to someone standing only a few houses away. What do you do with that contradiction? Can a holiday represent freedom for one person and captivity for another? Can both experiences be true simultaneously? And if they can, what does that tell us about how little we actually know about the people right around us? You know, perhaps the most dangerous assumption we make is believing that we share a moment, we're sharing its meaning. Maybe we don't. Maybe we never really shared meaning at all. Maybe we're only shared proximity. There's a chair almost at every gathering, a chair that nobody talks about, a chair everyone notices. The empty chair. Sometimes grief is loud, but more often grief is subtle. It appears disguised as a glance, a pause, a memory, a moment when you laugh and then immediately remembers someone who should have been there to hear it. The strange things about holidays is they measure time, not with clocks, not with absences. Who was here last year? Who isn't here now? Who would be missing next year? And why do those questions become louder when everyone around us is trying so hard to be happy? You know, maybe celebrations don't ease loneliness. Maybe they magnify it. Maybe joy and grief are not opposites. Maybe, maybe they're roommates. Think about the people you love. How many versions of them are gone, even though they're still alive? The friend who changed, the child who grew up, the parent who aged, the relationship that became a memory. We often think loss begins someone dies. But what if loss begins much earlier? What if ⁓ life itself is a series of happening so slowly that we barely notice them? And if that's true, what exactly Are we celebrating when we celebrate the passage of time? You know, freedom is a the most frequently used word in the American culture. But when was the last time you stopped and defined it for yourself? Not the dictionary version, your definition. What is freedom? Is it the ability to do whatever you want? Is it something else? Because if freedom is simply doing whatever you want, why do so many people feel trapped while living inside a free society? Why do people feel imprisoned by expectations, by fear, by regret, by comparison? ⁓ Why do some of freest people on paper feel the least free in practice? And what if the hardest change to break are the ones nobody can see? Maybe the question isn't whether a nation is free. Maybe the question is whether the people inside it are free. Free from resentment, free from bitterness, free from needing to be right, free from the stories they've been telling themselves for years. when was the last time you challenged one of your own beliefs? Not someone else's, your own. How often do we talk about freedom while remaining loyal to the habits that limit us? Could it be that independence is easier to declare than it is to practice? You know, I think holidays function like mirrors. But mirrors are strange things. They don't create anything, they simply reveal what's already there. It's simply your reflection. Maybe that's why some people love the Fourth of July and why others struggle with it. The holiday doesn't create joy. It reveals it. It doesn't create loneliness. It reveals that too. It doesn't create pride. Or grief or nostalgia or longing, It simply shines a light on whatever was already waiting Beneath the surface. what does this holiday reveal about you? What emotions appear when the fades? What thoughts arrive when everyone goes home? What truths become impossible to ignore? And perhaps the hardest questions are you willing to sit with those answers? Are you already searching for the next distraction? Look around at the next fourth of July celebration. Park, a parade, a crowded street, you'll see hundreds of faces, families carrying folding chairs, teenagers glued to their phones, couples holding hand, children running through the grass And yet, despite being surrounded by people, how many of them do we actually see? Not notice? Maybe sitting 20 feet away from you. Is someone who just received devastating news this week. maybe someone is attending their first holiday after losing a parent. ⁓ Maybe someone feels alone in a crowd of thousands. The strange thing about human beings is how much we hide. We become experts at performance. We learn how to smile when we're hurting. We learn how to laugh when we're exhausted. How to answer, how are you? Without ever saying how you really are. And maybe that's necessary sometimes, but I wonder what it cost us. How many people have we walked past carrying visible weight while we distracted to notice? How many stories of unfolding around us that we never know? And maybe even more uncomfortable question, how many times have you been the person nobody really saw? You know, we spend so much time waiting to be understood. Yet how often do we slow down enough to understand someone else? imagine if every person at a fireworks show suddenly had their thoughts displayed above their head. Would we be surprised? would we discover that the happiest looking people aren't ⁓ actually happy? ⁓ Would learn that quietest persons have the most to say? Would we realize that everyone is fighting something? ⁓ Or would we simply away because the truth is too overwhelming? You know, maybe empathy begins with accepting a simple reality. The people around us are far more complicated than we'll ever know. The stranger standing beside you isn't just a stranger. They're an entire universe, a universe you'll probably never explore. we spend our life surrounded by mysteries disguised as ordinary people. You know, eventually every firework show ends. The grand finale happens, the crowd applause, people are gathering their belongings, the traffic begins, the night moves on. And for a brief moment, something strange happens in the silence. No explosion, no music, no spectacle. Just darkness returning to the sky. I've always found that moment the most interesting. Because we spend hours anticipating an event that lasts only minutes. Think about how much of life works that way. Graduations, weddings, vacations, promotions, all kinds of achievements. We build entire emotional worlds around future moments. We convince ourselves that happiness is waiting somewhere ahead, just beyond the next milestone. just beyond the next accomplishment, just beyond the next celebration, then the moment arrives and eventually it also ends. So here's a question. What exactly are we chasing? The event itself or the anticipation of it? Why do we seem to draw to spectacles? Why do we crave noise, excitement, and distractions? Maybe because removes the escape routes. When the fireworks stops, left alone with ourselves. And for some people, That's peaceful. For others, it's terrifying. It's a nightmare. ⁓ silence has a way of asking questions, we'd rather avoid. Are happy? Are you fulfilled? Are you living according to your values? Are you becoming the person you hope to become? No fireworks can answer those questions. No holiday can answer them. No politician or celebrity or podcast host. Maybe that's why they're so difficult. The answers can't be borrowed. They have to be discovered. But even then, another question appears. What if life isn't about finding answers? What if it's about learning to live? With better questions. Maybe wisdom isn't certainty. Maybe wisdom is curiosity. Maybe maturity isn't arriving at a final conclusion. Maybe it's becoming comfortable with complexity. it's accepting that some of the important questions are never resolved. And if that's true, then perhaps the purpose of a night like the Fourth of July isn't to celebrate certainty. Maybe it's to remind us how brief every flashing light really is, and how precious. It is when it lasts. Because eventually every sky grows dark again. Every gathering in, every season changes, every chapter closes. not as a tragedy, just as a fact of being alive. So the question, what do we do with the time in between? What do we do with the people beside us while they're still here? What do we do with the opportunities we've been given? And when the smoke clears from our own lives one day, what do we hope remains? Maybe that's what tonight has really been about. Not fireworks, not politics, not even history. Maybe it's about perspective, about noticing the things that exist beneath the surface. The stories, the grief, the hope, the questions, the humanity hiding in plain sight. Because sometimes the most important things in life don't announce themselves with a boom. Sometimes they whisper. And whether we hear it or not depends entirely on whether we're listening. Tonight, after the final fireworks disappear, after the smoke drifts away, after the crowd begins packing up their chairs, I want you to notice something. The silence. Not because silence contains answers, but because silence contains questions. Questions that are easy to miss when the sky's exploding. Questions about Who you've become, questions about who you've lost, questions about freedom, questions about what still needs to change. ⁓ maybe the sky was never main event. Maybe the shadows were. Hey guys, this has been your average Delton Again, thanks for listening, and please hit the subscribe button and thank you for your support. And please remember: your life is the only sermon some people will ever hear. Make it loud. And as always, I'd like to leave you with this.