5/23/2007
I’m sure there are still some starry-eyed optimists out there, but lately, everybody I know is fed up with with the way things are going. Maybe it was tax bills, or the impeachment vote, or colony collapse disorder, but I feel as though we collectively sagged over the last few months. For me it was the Virginia Tech shootings, a weekend during which (coincidentally) over 150 people died in Baghdad. I kind of fell apart, and was starting to think there might be something wrong with me when my neighbor mentioned in passing that she had been feeling the same way.
Misery loves company. I was relieved to know that I was not the only one who couldn’t take any more bad news. Since that dreary weekend, I’ve run into a surprising number of people near and far who feel, as I do, that something’s got to give. Many Americans seem to be ready for a change to something inspiringly different.
But still they — government and the media — tell us how things have to be, and we sigh, because we know they’re probably right. Not because we want to go along, necessarily. It’s just that society has hooks, the biggest and baddest of which is money. To live anything like a normal life, you need cash, and in order to get it, you have to live within the system and do as you’re told. It’s pretty simple and most people are happy to go along when the money’s good, less happy when it isn’t, as right now.
But money is only half of the problem — the other half is the deterioration of everything we hold dear, from the environment to our democracy. We’ve reached the point where the costs of modern life are starting to exceed the benefits, but with democracy on the ropes, what can we do? I’ll tell you what I did — I gave up. Giving up is a strange and scary idea, but to me it’s felt very liberating. I realized that the only thing that could surprise me now is if something really good happened. I’m prepared for just about anything else — we’ve seen most of it on 24 already, and the rest was predicted long ago in moldy books by the likes of Huxley and Orwell.
But the best part about taking a really dim view of the future is that you’re freed up from worrying about it. Instead of fighting the evil, you can take time to gaze at clouds, plant gardens, and listen to friends. If the evil is going to happen anyway, I’d rather spend my life doing good things that make me (and hopefully other people) feel good too — instead of fretting my life away over things I can’t affect or control.
Needless to say, this does not mean that I’m willing to be a doormat for the powers that be. Au contraire, but they would have to get pretty close to engage me. As long as they stay out of Windham County, I’m willing to let other, more passionately engaged people go after the big boys.
Meanwhile, I still hold out hope for that really good thing, which could happen if enough of us want it to and work in that direction. Not saying it would be easy, but what we have now is making no one happy, not even those who are winning the game. Most of society is sinking; inevitably, those on top will get lonely. And as we know from the world of finance, there are always corrections lurking.
How soon we get that correction to our present course depends on how many of us feel sick and tired and fed up and squeezed at any given time. But apparently that number is rising. According to the latest AP-Ipsos poll, Americans hit a new low in May, with only 25% reporting that they were satisfied with the direction America is going, either politically or economically. If that’s true then tens of millions of other Americans feel eminently dissatisfied, and that’s a good thing. It means that significant change is only a matter of time.
As for going to hell in a handbasket, there’s no law that says we can’t enjoy the ride. So let’s not make it easy for them. Let’s go down swinging, and have some fun in the bargain. Hell, let’s really confuse them them by enjoying a better future now — which given the latest doomy predictions, seems like a prudent idea.
