Things are getting darkly intense, folks. Certain evils are now becoming commonplace in America: denial of provable facts, bigoted attacks on people just trying to live their lives, widespread disinformation literally killing people, the alarming rise of religious nationalism in our government, the weaponization of religion to oppress and control, the increasing popularity of dangerous authoritarian figureheads, the worsening attacks on elections and the rule of law… I don’t do politics on this blog, but if you read factual reporting, you know exactly what I’m talking about.
This stuff is not new, but it’s accelerated in the last decade to a terrifying boiling point. It makes me anxious about the dark times I can clearly see on the horizon, but I also know that anxiety is useless — all we can do is use our voices and our votes to try and slow the bleeding.
This also comes at a time when I’m trying to make peace with the transitory nature of life and decide for myself what really matters — and what I’m willing to obsess about — here at my half-century mark. Existential crisis, ahoy!
Which brings me to this morning as I was lying in bed, trying to motivate myself to get up and begin working. Out of my sleepy mind sprang this thought: sure, my time here is brief and I will eventually be the proverbial dust in the wind, but there’s something I seem to have forgotten.
So will they.
These enemies of truth and compassion will also die. The evil they spread isn’t permanent, and it can be pushed back. We’ve seen it happen! However bad things may seem, there are ebbs and flows to this stuff. We may not live to know the full story, but in the long game I think they’re losing. And their desperation is glaring.
It really irks me that once I’m dead I won’t be around to continue watching this absurd show, because I really, really want to see where we are in 50 years. But I’ve decided that after seeing the impermanence of some of the good things in this country, I choose to take some comfort in the impermanence of the bad.
Total Obscurity 