The certainty of uncertainty
This entry unfortunately has to start with the obligatory remark on the miserable political news, which is that one of the worst human beings on the planet has somehow managed to again be elected to the most important job on the planet. The exact repercussions of this are unknowable but range from bad to really bad to catastrophic. Somehow even worse than that is how this has revealed the permanent rot that has set into the American psyche: so, so many people just do not care about ethics or honesty or kindness even simple competence, not to mention implications for vulerable people. That sheer fact alone pretty much guarantees that any form of long-term rational policy making in the US is dead for a long time, probably my lifetime. The idiocracy may leave the building for a while or even change its colors but it will never be far.
At the same time I can at least say that my emotional state is nowhere near the dark levels it reached in 2016, even though on almost every level this time is objectively worse (the result was more decisive, there can be no delusions about him turning out to be a moderate in disguise, the administration will be packed with toadies, etc.) I have been steeling myself for this possibility (and at times, likelihood) for almost a year and, mindful of the toll that the stresses of the 2016 and 2020 campaigns took on me, almost completely avoided any election-related news. On the night of the election I blacked out the news entirely from the time the first polls closed and slept soundly for the first election since this whole sordid era of politics began - at least up until reality crashed in after waking up the next morning.
I had sort of figured that this lengthy charade would fall apart once the feared outcome came to pass, but so far it (mostly) hasn't, perhaps because I've just been to exhausted by the previous go-around to expend any more mental energy writing screeds and dwlling in my own anger over the situation and the terrible people behind it. Another factor is that life just remains extremely busy, so much so that I haven't had time to dwell on things - there are too many urgent things to take care of at work to spend my time on instead. (This fact comes with its own frustrations, of course, but at the moment it is perhaps helpful in a way?)
Awful times are coming up but I will have to take them as they come, I guess...
At the same time I can at least say that my emotional state is nowhere near the dark levels it reached in 2016, even though on almost every level this time is objectively worse (the result was more decisive, there can be no delusions about him turning out to be a moderate in disguise, the administration will be packed with toadies, etc.) I have been steeling myself for this possibility (and at times, likelihood) for almost a year and, mindful of the toll that the stresses of the 2016 and 2020 campaigns took on me, almost completely avoided any election-related news. On the night of the election I blacked out the news entirely from the time the first polls closed and slept soundly for the first election since this whole sordid era of politics began - at least up until reality crashed in after waking up the next morning.
I had sort of figured that this lengthy charade would fall apart once the feared outcome came to pass, but so far it (mostly) hasn't, perhaps because I've just been to exhausted by the previous go-around to expend any more mental energy writing screeds and dwlling in my own anger over the situation and the terrible people behind it. Another factor is that life just remains extremely busy, so much so that I haven't had time to dwell on things - there are too many urgent things to take care of at work to spend my time on instead. (This fact comes with its own frustrations, of course, but at the moment it is perhaps helpful in a way?)
Awful times are coming up but I will have to take them as they come, I guess...