Nope.Nary a post in over a month, and I will tell you why, besides the obvious life is really busy line: I'm saddened, even depressed, at the state of the union and the state of my state. I came within a hair of leaving, and decided the job I have is worth more than leaving for a bit of uncertainty when I really need health insurance.
No hope for me-- but I'm not without expectation of more grandstanding BS everywhere on everything. No expectation of grand change. My belief in the corporate economy always finding a way to pull us out of economic doldrums is still strong because hey, they want to keep making money. Exxon for president. My search for a place in Iceland, Canada, or elsewhere really is picking up. My embarrassment of public discourse (what passes for it) is still quite powerful. I cannot watch or read news unless it's in an international paper now. Physically, I hurt and feel ill watching a mad scramble to keep the amorphous US on top of some amorphous world which is going to leave us behind as embarrassing relics of economic colonization, as the Brits got left behind earlier.
I suppose it is buttressing my understanding of how gain means more pain, not less. There is never enough for many Americans-- never, ever. There has to be one more car, CD, even the last word in debates of well-intentioned people who want to be right, to be secure, to not see how painfully intentions hurt when the ones you want to help can see in reality how very much MORE you seem to have. A fear of choices, of multiplicities, of being wrong, of having to DECIDE for ourselves and then react in interesting ways if threatened-- these fears are palpable and more dangerous all the time.
I fear something insidious in its own way, besides the gradual numbing of the critical mind-- I fear that the fear will make its way into the hearts of people who struggle to find a way through the middle of the mess, skirting every car wreck and human disaster, and that it will embitter them. Too many tears are shed in private, in anger, over the general numbing and fear shown by so many who we KNOW we could help if... if...
And the truth is, we don't really know how to do it, how to fix it, how to get right again. We might not even remember right. In the binary world we built, you would think it would be easy, but our binaries push against infinites and collapse and frighten the bejeezus out of us. We just know there has to be an US and a THEM, and they ain't WE and we certainly would NEVER be THEM! Onward Christian/Muslin/Israeli/Palestinian/Black/White/Brown/Straight/Gay soldiers, marching as to self-annihilation with only the ones with enough to hide out or move or have more soldiers left standing.
This is my world, this hell, and a life that I guess I never saw coming in a country I used to love so much it hurt, and I don't just mean during the Olympics.
Oh yeah. Enjoy those.
