prematurely grey

The worst thing about this election for me is when I get the faintest glimmers of hope. I cannot afford to hope. And elections are all about hope.I am still furious at the DNC for the shitty set of choices I was presented this year. I am angry that politics are so dominated by white men who are older than me. I am sick of Vietnam to the point where I feel like shooting the TV whenever it comes up. I have spent MY ENTIRE LIFE hearing and experiencing the fucking national breakdown over Vietnam. Here we have Vietnam FRONT AND CENTER. This is the most Vietnam election EVER.

I am forty years old. Forty years of Vietnam dominating the national “discourse.” Forty years of the culture war that came out of that war.

That’s the real story.

So, maybe, if John Kerry by some act of God becomes president (I don’t think anyone is going to be elected today), we can move into the genuinely post-Vietnam period because our president will actually embody the Vietnam War and its effects on our country, as opposed to two presidents who managed to keep out of it. That seems to be the unsaid drama here.

Now, what about my neighbors here in Texas? Will they feel the same way if Kerry wins that I’ve felt for the past four years? I don’t know. But that’s an incredible question.

If they do, is it the responsibility of the “left” to reach out to them and attempt to “heal the nation?” Or is it take no prisoners on the way to unfucking up the world?

Seems to me we need a little healing. Life is hard in the red states. It actually is. People are terrified and they have no tools, no way, to think, analyze, or imagine their way out of it. That’s why they pray all the time. It’s the only tool they’ve been given over these forty years. So they use it all the time. And guess what, it works. It makes them feel different. It effects their brains. It’s one of the only things they do with their brains, so no wonder it has such a profound impact. Imagine you don’t really create, debate, analyze, categorize, synthesize. Imagine that. Imagine that one of the few times you use your mental faculties, which are pretty much the bomb of humanity, is when you pray. You would LOVE to pray.

So, it seems to me that people who don’t pray should give it a try, so they understand what the praying people are all about and the praying people should give thinking, dreaming, creating, arguing, and contemplating a go.

But we should stop blaming people for using prayer when it’s the only thing they’ve ever been given. We should start thinking about what all this praying means. We should start praying ourselves, to see what happens. We should stop acting like prayer is the enemy. It’s not. Nor are the people who pray. This is insane. We have to deal with this. No matter who the president is.