There’s less than a fortnight to go before we Americans will point the country toward one of two paths. The path just to get here has been pretty rocky for a number of years. All the more reason we can’t shy away from doing the right thing, helping our fellow citizens. Truth is, we owe it to our country to make the right choice.
Been reading this guy who has a lot of humor and I’ve needed some this year. The writer also has insight into perspectives you didn’t know were there until you kept reading. Rather intelligent writer by the name of Fredrik Backman. He’s a proud Swede with an acute prescience of the human condition and a keen eye into how people tick.
The other day, was reading a book of his, fiction, totally unrelated to our current political landscape. The words hit me like a political ton of bricks nonetheless. He wrote the following about hate:
“Hate can be a deeply stimulating emotion. The world becomes much easier to understand and much less terrifying if you divide everything and everyone into friends and enemies, we and they, good and evil. The easiest way to unite a group isn’t through love, because love is hard. It makes demands. Hate is simple.
So the first thing that happens in a conflict is that we choose a side, because that’s easier than trying to hold two thoughts in our heads at the same time. The second thing that happens is that we seek out facts that confirm what we want to believe – comforting facts, ones that permit life to go on as normal.”
That normal referred to is whatever leanings we subscribe to, whatever path we’ve chosen. Gathering facts to support our claims and saying to hell with the rest is pretty easy to do these days. Sound familiar? Kinda anti-American tit for tat coming from both sides, eh? Makes you wonder.
Talking with a friend of mine recently, we hit on the question of whether mankind is inherently evil or inherently good and just turns evil? We agreed right away that man is inherently a good creature, a good soul. Some get a taste of of anger and hatred and can’t get enough. Before long, they’re headstrong into a dark place.
I sort of think we have a mix of good and bad coming into this world and we work on the balance as we go along. Some of us find our balance at about 60-40 one way or another, sometimes there’s not much balance to speak of. Hopefully, we find a better balance as we get older, become wiser. As we choose paths to go down, it is the hope that we are making good choices, not out of anger or hate, but because we are good Americans.
again, thought provoking and truly relevant to these weird times…we can’t escape the hate…so we must turn off the t.v….put on the music…pet the pup and sit in calmness and the world can go it’s own way, which it will whether or not we watch helplessly…and recall what was, what we had..the innocence and the love…we can hold on to that, if only in our memories…which I do.
…and from our memories comes wisdom, of experience, of love, of the desire to carry on. Our vote is our recourse in this political maelstrom, one in which we have a duty to act responsibly and lend credence to all those memories we hold. The end result won’t be a huge cash payout, a giant trophy to say one side has won. The end result will only be the beginning, the next one in this long line of beginnings. So, rest, think, and vote. Then, get ready to wake up another day and do the best you can, maybe it’ll catch on.