Giving up..

A friend of mine describes my tendency toward pessimism as "Irish gloom".
It's human nature to cut your losses, try to stop investing time in fruitless enterprises.
What's the goal you have for your political involvement? Is it to make the Democratic Party WIN, or is it to create a more sensible, responsive and honest government?

Would you prefer that we had a one party country of only democrats, or two parties that were both healthy and sane?

Do you have any faith in your fellow Americans?

Morons proliferate, and insulate, themselves. They wear their stupidity these days like a badge of honor.

The left supported and handed over a scholar, a moderate, a polite and graceful man, who exhibited dignity, knowledge, respect and self control. For eight years he gave it his all, and created new solutions.

The right handed over a greedy moron, disrespectful, dishonest, thieving and traitorous, who exhibits no dignity or self-control. In four months he proved how easy it was to simply destroy what someone else had built.

I want to be like the prophet, told to shake my shoes of the dust from traveling through those ignorant towns. How does patriotism match with this heavy heart? Should I rejoice at the stock market, whose temporary climb might induce me to an early retirement in a foreign country? Should I stop concerning myself with the uninsured sick neighbors that I know will be devastated by the policies? With the future?

I am reminded of a poem I read once -- "Hieroglyphic Stairway", by Drew Dellinger -- that said "my great great grandchildren won't let me sleep. They come to me in dreams and ask, what did you do when the earth was plundered?"

The odds seem slim, since I doubt the machines. Even more than the machines I doubt the countrymen.

Sarcasm in my heart, black humor, gets me through the day. There is little point for doctors or for trying too hard. No path forward seems particularly fruitful. I gave a bunch of money and a bunch of time, and where did it end up? Relatives still not talking, but others constrained and miserable in this new world. I want to build, but build something that has value. In this new world there is precious little that has value. A destructive force has taken hold. We wait for a turning that may not come for a long time. We can't stand idly by, because maybe each of us is the butterfly that needs to flap its wings. More likely though, we are the ones that will be smashed on the windshield or arrive in Mexico and discover our grove of trees is gone.

Time to read the Pablo Neruda poem about throwing one's body against the Tower. Or not. Time for another glass of spirits, to forget or to hope for a savior to create a turning. Time to be bitter, and celebrate selfish individual gains while pretending that many who are drowning have asked for those disasters. But of course, many have not.

The times that try men's souls. In such dark light we must make choices, with no idea whether or not they will prove to be worthwhile.

Love to all, my brothers, my sisters.