Brittany and I arrived in Salt Lake City yesterday to warm sunshine. 60 degrees. We immediately went for a long walk and then had a couple of cold beers at an outdoor patio and let the sun pummel us with warmth and Vitamin D. I felt some weight lifting and joy and balance returning.
Today we had a nice brunch with Tekoa and The Boy and then another long walk.
We will be here for about 5 days and then to Pocatello for a few days before flying back home next Sunday.
Very few things matter. Nothing matters very much.
F. Scott Fitzgerald
It’s possible this is reasonable advice at a macro level. But it seems to matter a lot when people are being hunted and beaten and humiliated and babies are starving. But as FSF seemed to mean when he said it in ‘This Side of Paradise’, why waste our time worrying about the inevitability of human suffering. Just have a good time. It was a good book. One of my first adult reads way back in high school.
Later, when he wrote ‘The Great Gatsby‘, a bit older and more cynical, he seemed to codify this basic sentiment. So care a little, or at least pretend to care, but not so much that it drags you into perpetual depression. Just a nod to the poor and oppressed but by all means keep having fun.
Good advice if you have the ability to compartmentalize to that level. Not sure that I do given the emotional and physical toll of the times. But it seems as if this is what a lot of people are doing. But what more can we do besides protest, vote, and vocalize?
I suppose if we step back, we realize very few of us have the will or intelligence or stamina to alter the destructive course of human behavior, which seems determined to bring harm upon our brothers and sisters (human and non-human). We are all but players upon the stage — the playwright sits above us in the shadows of the balcony observing the drama he has created. Surely it is a man.
-5 degrees this morning. I left Columbus at 5:15 for the drive to Akron. There’s a little reflection of the full moon off the snow but mostly it’s that oppressive darkness that seems magnified by the cold; snow; ice. The sun is darkened to near extinction this time of year. Trumps goons wandering around like an airborne plague, preying on people of color they can scare out of hiding. Beating, intimidating and executing people who dare object to their gestapo tactics. It’s a long winter. It takes a superhuman effort to keep the chin up and stay off the therapists couch. These are dark times.
I’ve always been a person of extremes. Probably low grade bi-polar to be honest, but I’ve never been diagnosed. But it means I don’t dwell much along the mean line — I tend to hang around the lows and the highs on the sin wave. Put differently, in terms more near to my vernacular, a few weeks in dive bars followed by a few weeks in over-priced restaurants and pubs. Never been a Chili’s or Texas Roadhouse kind of guy. Or Sand Trap (except the old one).
Right now, these lows feel way too low. The joy of living is being sucked out of all of us it seems. The daily barrage of hate and anger from ICE and our government. Continued nonsense from Trump about taking over Greenland or whatever the lunacy of the day is.
When spring comes and Trump is gone, there is a realist view of what comes next and there is the optimistic view.
In the case for optimism:
We can try to rebuild our country and our democracy. The hateful MAGA’s retreat to their caves and we can allow some sunshine in. We can apologize to our persecuted neighbors and help them back on their feet.
We will hope for bold new leadership that will take truly appropriate steps — increase the Supreme Court to 13 and roll back all the bad decisions including citizens united; Put term limits on the Supreme Court. Rein in the executive branch to re-establish balance of powers, put environmental concerns back to top of the priority list along with consumer protections and tax reform to make sure rich and corporations pay their share, immigration reform to something sensible and humane, and all the other things we need to repair or replace.
In the case for pessimism:
We know the Democratic Party has never been bold. They are tepid and scared of exercising power. In those few times when they find themselves in that position, they panic and appear to be scared of hurting the feelings of republicans who wake up every day looking to harm poor people and who will sell the country down the road for a little power and a regular table at The Capital Grille. Look no further than Chuck Schumer to get a taste of Democratic Party view of leadership. Schumer is hopelessly out of touch and scared of his own shadow.
The only realistic outcome post Trump is a slowing of the carnage. But the damage he has done cannot be reversed for decades, if ever. The minute Trump is gone, the right wing nut jobs will rally around their next fascist leader and fight all progress in social, economic, tax, and foreign policy. They are committed to ignorant self-destruction like an addict to the needle. So there is no case for optimism in my view.
Dream of better lives, the kind which never hate
Dropped in the state of imaginary grace
I made a pilgrimage to save this human race
Never comprehending the race had long gone byModern English
I heard today on NPR that the cost of a 3-day trip to Disneyworld for a family of 4 is $4,000 – $5,000. That means Brittany and I can fly to Europe for a week for about the same cost as someone trying to show their kids some manufactured bullshit experience for a corporate behemoth. Why not just take them to Scotland or Toronto where they might learn something of actual value. Some interaction with non-Americans who are living full and imaginative lives outside of (gasp), the United States. Fucking Mickey Mouse costs as much as the flying to see Van Gogh Museum or The Louvre or strolling along the beach of Normandy where thousands died for our ability to live a life free of fascism — which has mostly held up until recently.
Just one more symptom of a world gone mad. And most people are willfully and blissfully ignorant. What am I doing about it? Not much really. Fretting. Writing. Worrying. Protesting when it doesn’t interfere with my other activities. We are all coping, but also smoothing over the reality which is why sleep is elusive and troubled for anyone with a conscience. Our subconscious keeps us aware even when we are trying to forget.
I’m actually transitioning from a realist to a fatalist. I believe our species is simply not emotionally evolved enough to handle the power we have managed intellectually. The smart 1% or so are simply taking advantage of the freedoms the masses fought so hard to achieve and expand since the days of Magna Carta.
They only needed that sight sliver of space to exploit the bottom 99% under all the protections put in place against royalty. But oligarchs are just royalty anointed under a capitalist shell. A few thousand of the extremely wealthy install a useful idiot to enable them to pillage and plunder the entire world to engorge themselves on what largesse is left on a dying planet. A few are desperately trying to cryogenically preserve their minds and bodies while building a bridge to Mars. But what good is a mind and body without a soul, which they sold long ago.
They can discuss the finer points of making a deal with the devil with Robert Johnson, Hitler, Pol Pot and the other despots. But in any case, their technology play will be too late to save their dying asses. I just hope I live long enough to see some of them buried. Hopefully humiliated and imprisoned for a few years before a shameful and lonely death and knowing in their hearts what they have done. All we ask of them is to be a decent person. That is all that is asked of any of us. Being rich is fine if it’s earnest honestly. It does not give you a free pass. If anything the burden is higher because your influence is outsized.
I’ve never claimed to be Buddha. My aspirations around meditation and peace in my mind are 100% for my own edification. I make no pretense about forgiving these assholes who wake up every day looking for ways to exploit and damage honest and decent people, just so they can add a few dollars to their net worth.
Fuck em.
NOTE TO A FRIEND:
Yea. I summarized on AI and read the article. I mostly agree. I think we are long past the point of convincing ourselves that we are in the midst of a hostile move towards an oligarchy orchestrated fascist government takeover. That is a fact. Not sure now what can be done to stop it. Trump will die or get impeached of course, but the damage to every facet of our government administration, controls, policy, and influence are regressed decades and likely will never recover. As to allies moving on without us, they are doing what they should be doing. In many ways, this is a natural transition that has happened to all global superpowers. They rise, they decline, and a new power emerges. This caught us all off guard by the veracity and the compressed timeline. Most declines take generations. Not a decade or two.
I would like to hear more dialogue that accepts the collapse of the US as the primary super power and instead illuminates the next few decades. EU has a real opportunity here to unite and step into the light. Otherwise, China and Russia who have long considered themselves legitimate super powers will continue to expand. But I think in the US the illusion that there is a way back to where we were is fantasy. I am looking to liquidate and find another place that will have me and my dark-skinned young woman and a dog.
I love Europe. Really love it. The food, the culture, the amazing visual landscapes. The history. But of course part of the history is the remembrance they were mostly a bunch of colonizing cunts. While America was busy trying to rid themselves of those pesky natives who had lived on that continent for millennia, and enslaving blacks to super-charge their economic rise, the Europeans were doing the same thing in Africa.
Perhaps the only difference is that Europeans have owned up (or mostly it seems) to their transgressions. America remains in denial. We are actively teaching in our schools that blacks were better off under slavery. And that Native Americans were savages who needed white education and values.
We really do not have an adequate social or economic model to draw inspiration from in our quest to form more equitable societies. Every country has been corrupted by the greed of humans who believe money will somehow make them happier. Perhaps to live forever. And they are willing to bring hardship to the masses to that end.
Every developed society is built to some degree upon the exploitation of others. If we want to progress society, we must quit pretending that the best of us — those who are only enlightened in the past 100 years or so, somehow have it all figured out. They are only the best of a totally dysfunctional species. Humans are the problem. We have the capacity to be the solution, but so far we are in a death race to the bottom.
If a species who has risen to total dominance on a graceful and fruitful planet evolved to the point of self-destruction of not just themselves, but also every other species and perhaps the viability of the entire planet, they have only two choices.
Totally destroy your species. Kill every single human to save the planet. Or orchestrate a massive emotional and intellectual reform to become the species who reaches its true potential. Not through indulging individual interests, but through prioritizing all life on the planet.
I had a tradition with Mandela which I now have with Martini. The last thing we do before bed, is we go outside to take a pee together. This is the case if we are in a city or in the country. At home or in a hotel.
Tonight, I was finishing some writing at my desk. Marti was in a different room in her bed. We both knew it was near bedtime, but I hadn’t seen her for more than an hour or so.
I closed my laptop. Quietly. But that’s all it took for her. That was a signal. She came roaring into the room like a rocket — right past me and to the back door. We went out and had our wee and then she came right to the bed for our next ritual. The game. And the game was afoot.
Humbly Submitted
Robert Myres – Portneuf Valley Rugby Football Club, Flanker (ret.)
The Martini Tales 