Exasperation and Disillusionment

This may com off as a bit of rambling but its what was on my mind as of this writing. Hey, its still a young year. However, if I can add to the conversation, I’ll be glad to do it.

The other day, I happened on some of my old writings. Some were poems, other more prose oriented. Alot were recollections of dreams and desires I had at the time. Much pie in the sky, save more some downright magical thinking. To say I was a high minded idealist is to put it lightly. Then I got up, brushed off my jeans and proceeded to finish polishing the floor. Exit stage right.. lights off.

This leads me to this singular thought.

What happens to us? When to we loose the spark? When does the magic dust we see so often in youth fall to the floor and eventually get swept out? When do we stop believing in magic and start believing in ideologies? When do we loose our hearts, join in, lockstep, grit teeth- and succumb to the mob?
A new year is upon us.
Seven days in we have already seen the downright putrid emerging in our society, and hoards of the blissfully ignorant trampled on my countries front lawn and with a zeal and ill gotten swagger that was revolting, proceeded to soil on all they claimed to cherish, goaded on by tinfoil ideologies logic born of misinformation and bad old fashioned bigotry. Working as a leasing temp, I intentionally went in and out of the office all day long, so as to see what exactly was playing out. With every trip past the tv, every scant scroll of my cursor past some media, the images got more and more grotesque. Lord of the Flies mixed with Madmax and Deliverance. Such was my horror that, like anyone in my age group, I made a post on my social media claiming, “This isn’t us.”

In retrospect, I must recant. This is exactly what we are. There’s an old saying…when a man shows you who he is-believe him. Here it was, full screen, livestreaming-in full view.
A festering boil primed to burst. A tinderbox needing a singular flame.
Its a hard and ugly pill to swallow knowing that this level of at best ignorance and at worst, unadulterated hideousness, has somehow seeped and slithered through the cracks of our society to where something this severe, outrages and vile could manifest. Yet- here we are.
So, why the digression from my original point? Not a digression. Its an example. At what point do we loose the magical thinking? At what point do men go from dreaming of saving a damsel in distress in a book read by their grandmothers to donning a shirt labeled “Camp Auschwitz” and befouling the rooms of the home they claim to love with a toothy and heinous grin? When do we as a people stop believing in beauty and magic and start shouting over one another, reeling in hubris and hatred and instead of taking of shovels in sandboxes and coloring books, we take up guns and flags and march like rats to the call of a pied piper who never ultimately cared about you at all?
To quote Ms. Prentice in “Guess who’s coming to Dinner”, “What happens to men when they grow old?”
Personally, being one myself-I can only speculate.
Maybe this is why I couldn’t relate to any of my older writings. Disassociation. Maybe I’ve simply seen too much to relate to that person. Maybe the ugliness just gets to you after a while and you just-move out. Trust and believe this is not that tone I wanted for my first post of 2021. As of this point however, I still still carry a cautious torch for this year. A heinous event in our nations capitol doesn’t define me or those I love. However, it does cause one to pause. Stop. Think…and reflect.
Sometimes, as I sit here with my laptop propped up and the window ajar in a hoodie with no music on- that’s really all you can do.

So you better do it well.