It’s at moments like this that I realize — I really am getting old. Passionate. When I started doing this four and a half years ago, I was passionate. Undisciplined and all over the place. Writing too long, leaping from subject to subject without any connection. Angry one day, mellow the next. Ranting about wrongs and politics … and (please forgive me!) philosophy. And then just dropping the whole thing and taking a lot of pictures of autumn leaves.
I was so passionate about absolutely everything I probably contradicted myself a dozen time a week, but who was counting?
A double round of cancer and massive heart surgery later, we are in the middle of the most horrendous political kerfuffle in my lifetime … maybe in the life of this nation … and I’m beginning to feel numb. Passionate? I can’t even seem to raise a decent head of steam. I know who I’m voting for and why I’m voting for her. I know who I’m NOT voting for and why I could never, ever, under any imaginable circumstances vote for him or anyone remotely like him …
But there’s not much passion behind it. Unlike 2008 when I was wild with energy and excitement because finally, after years of plodding, this country was going to make a major breakthrough. Progress! REAL progress.
I wasn’t blogging in ’08, but by 2012, I was full bore into it. I don’t know whether to be proud or a little embarrassed at my naked excitement at that election. I went from nothing to 100,000 views in just a couple of months …
And the election ended. Gridlock began. The air went out of my bubble. It got grim and ugly. I got sick and spent a year pulling myself back from the edge of the edge. I didn’t want to get down in the trenches and duke it out with people with whom I disagree. I didn’t even feel like bothering to call out the crazies for being crazy.
This time around, I think people should be smarter. They should be able to use their own brains to see what’s what, and why they need to do whatever they must to keep this country a place in which we can all live. The amount of blind hate … passionate hate … based on assumptions, rumor, innuendo, racism, and a weird combination of a sense of white entitlement combined with an obvious belief that Those People have stolen “their” country.
How do you talk to people who are irrational? Who don’t care whether what they believe is true or factual? Who think being passionate is exactly the same as being right?
The answer is: I can’t. Instead of prodding me into wanting to confront the devil in the Orange Hair, I just want it all to go away. Wake me when it’s time to vote. Tell me what happened when it’s over. Let me know if I’m going to have to wear a yellow star on my clothing or my husband and I will have to go into hiding because we are a mixed race, mixed religion, intellectual couple. Both born and raised in the Devil’s own city of New York (or, as we call it, our home town) … and him with 40 years working as one of Those People — you know — media maggots. When comes the fascist dictator to power, we are going to be exactly the kind of people who go up against the wall first.
Why not? They’ll probably gut social security and we’ll be out on the street anyway,.
Is anyone else feeling that somehow, we are living in the worst of times … and you’re numb? Your brain has given up? You’re hearing Phil Ochs in your head humming “I ain’t marching anymore …” and wonder where have all the flowers gone?
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Categories: American history, Election, Music, Politics
Here’s a good book: Eddie Green The Rise of an Early 1900s Black American Entertainment Pioneer. (It’s on Amazon) I’ve been told it is an engaging page-turner that you won’t want to put down and will be sorry there is not more to read. I wrote it. It’s positive and inspiring. Eddie is my father. In 1917 he wrote the song “A Good Man is Hard to Find”. And he gradually grew through burlesque, filmmaking and radio to finally play Eddie, the waiter in the radio program Duffy’s Tavern until he died in 1950.
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Elva, I remember “Duffy’s Tavern” on the radio. Just old enough then to appreciate.
As for that song, I always think of the Mae West line, “A Hard Man Is Good To Find”.
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Haha, I didn’t know that line was from Mae West! It’s nice to know people still remember “Duffy’s Tavern”.
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I was hoping it was available on Kindle. I have put it on my “list.” A good Christmas present choice for Garry, I think. Thanks for the heads up 🙂
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It is an ebook, and you are welcome.
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Amazon only shows hard or soft paper. Is the ebook listed elsewhere?
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http://selz.co/N1uHaxL-b
And
http://www.bearmanormedia.com, click on the ebook button. Thanks for bringing this to my attention.
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And thanks for the link!
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This will pass, Marilyn.
Leslie
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Yes, it will. Since the rest of life is whizzing past, let us hope this will do the same!!
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Pretty passionate post, IMO. I’m with you, though. Wake me up when my mail-in ballot arrives. 🙂
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I don’ t have the endurance to stay worked up for long. I get tired of being mad or upset or anything and I just want to find a good book or maybe a murder mystery. I really ain’t marchin’ anymore 🙂
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A lovely murder (mystery) is the perfect r/x.
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At least we all know the problems in the states, the news is full of it. The state of the nation is, well, a state. Does anyone know about the state of the Swiss Nation? Forget it, it isn’t important enough to tell everyone about 7-8 million people that speak four different languages and a few hundred dialects that no-one understands in any case. We had a big discussion about the senior’s pension scheme on TV. Mr. Swiss watched and even uttered a few engaging comments – I read a book. Life will go on and our cows will still be producing enough milk, although the farmers are not happy about their payments. You see we have a crisis in Switzerland. Who cares?
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It must be a great relief to have such unexciting politics. We could use with some unexcitingness.
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Do not despair. Here in the UK the country voted to leave the EU. Everyone thought it would be the end of economy as we knew it – is it? No life goes on and we adapt. In fact I hear that there are positives as we can make agreements with countries that within the EU we could not. I hope a certain red hair does not win the election in the US but I have no say in the decision. Will life go on? Yes it will, there will be a lot of perplexed people. Will he build a wall? – no – no one can afford to build it – he is all talk and no substance. I wish you well and hope you get your first female President. Go for the girls!
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You guys are still IN the EU. You haven’t even started the talks to separate yet. But in the end, you are right. We will survive. One way or another. I always vote with the other girls 😉
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You can’t talk or reason with the irrationals. “Send In The Clowns” is on a continuous loop in my brain.
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