Playing for Time

***

Nothing puts us in our place quicker than events over which we have zero control, so those are the most disheartening and therefore damaging. Things happen, we register the shock to our psyches, and then, because we’re human and it’s in us, we start trying to process the whole thing. Unfortunately in this case (post-election) there are big chunks missing from the narrative, unwieldy boxes full of things we don’t know, power loose in places we’ve underestimated, so we’re left to piece together the governmental and societal cataclysm that’s been set in motion, one which will eventually change every aspect of life in our nation if allowed to run unchecked. Figuring out exactly what’s happened to us and what the everliving hell we can do about it is like assembling a 5,000-piece jigsaw puzzle in the dark.

We don’t know how deep and wide the corruption is, but apparently it’s become the end-all-be-all entity in this situation, and we regular peons have no weapon against a concerted determination toward total control. Lots of “regular peons” are actually saying they WANT to be ruled, WANT to be told what to do, and we’ll see how long that attitude holds. Those same regulars think they’ll be immune to the downside of oligarchy, and that’s just sadly laughable. We aren’t all in the same boat, but we’re all floating on the same crowded pond.

I’m not old, but at 77 most young people (under 30) would consider me ancient. Still, I have yet to make any such noises as: “life’s too hard, I’ve been here long enough, time for me to shuffle off to Buffalo and leave it to the kids,” because I’m not finished living. Somewhere along the way I asked for a long life, and I did at the same time think to ask that my life not turn ugly and scary before it reaches its end, but here we are, we rarely get everything we ask for.

If we survive this era, it will be because we remembered how to love and care for each other. What I’ve seen to this point makes me a skeptic. Prove me wrong, world.

**

Something Americans traditionally have a difficult time with.

**

**

**

Your life, my life, the life of the nation. We’re really here.