Life of Wry

Just when you thought maybe things were opening up and simplifying and you might have a little space to pursue a few carefully chosen, priority activities, and just when you thought your focus was clear and your time reasonably alloted …

Along comes a truly embarrassing, shameful republican primary filled with unhinged, whackadoodle extremist candidates who say impossibly ignorant, hurtful, dangerous things… and try as you might to sort of ignore the drama–which feels mortifying and surreal, and it doesn’t deserve the coverage it gets or our time to understand it–it creeps into the news stream, and, in fact, is a huge part of the news stream, and in order to stay informed and conversant in matters of the day (because, actually, that was one of my priority activities, having found myself in recent years way lost and disconnected when we stopped getting several newspapers and magazines delivered to our doorstep because, obviously, the internet (duh) is where information resides, but for years have not given the internet (and really, who calls it “the internet” anymore anyway, it’s just simply today’s information source, period) its due attention (for news) because it felt like it was just time spent online and not time spent intentionally keeping up with current events, and as such, seemed a frivolous and illegitimate use of time, so felt guilty for spending too much time online and in social media sites, but now I don’t because it’s where the I get my news, but I spend a LOT of time online reading, more than I’d ever imagined I’d need to allow) you have to pay attention to what these people are saying.

You have to pay attention.  And that takes time.

So… the republican candidates…the extreme sensationalist aspirants who are dominating the presidential race on the right side of the house.  Or right of the right side of the house.  But really, where have all the reasonable republicans gone?  Can’t we really just have a civil, honest debate with legitimate differences of opinion, and then can’t we make grown up concessions when we find ourselves in the minority, and can’t we be willing to find some win-win things to work with?  Where’d those people go?  We were those people when we were on the minority side.

We can’t run a country on ideology, people.

Until the race started heating up, I’d had just enough time to take care of my own personal projects –mothering my teenager and managing his summer schedule, daily writing, gardening, processing my trip to Nepal (and writing about it), healing a broken pair of achilles, following my curiosity about buddhism–thinking and being inspired about what I’ve been reading (and writing about it), spending more time with Jim this summer than in the last fifteen years combined (it seems) (and writing about it), making monthly visits to Southern California to visit my mom (which, yeah, I definitely gotta write about that)… it seems full but manageable, like I’ve had the focus to choose these pursuits and give of myself fully, even between vacations and baseball tournaments.. it was fine and it’s been a satisfying, thoughtful, stimulating summer.  Good priorities.  All good.

But then it also has to be a presidential pre-election season, one that happens to be populated with people even weirder than the last go-round, people who possess the weirdest damn religio-political views, views that have no business creeping into a mainstream conversation about the running of our country.  And to keep up and stay knowledgeable and responsible–because, as I said, staying politically current is now back on one of my front burners, and we have to pay attention to what they’re saying, because the flock is lining up behind this fringe and I’m not sure the majority of them realize what’s being said here–takes a little time.  Time I didn’t really have much more of.  I do read the news, online, mostly as it appears as links in my Facebook stream (talk about adapting social media..) from favorite sources (mainstream  and non-mainstream newspapers and magazines, Jon Stewart (but of course), political blogs and friends who find even better stuff), but now it feels like a full time job just keeping up with all I want to read.  And.. uh.. I don’t really have that kind of time.

That’s all I’m saying.  I’m fascinated, mostly because I care about the future of the country.  And, I’m in chronic despair over its future, the future of our democracy, the legitimacy (or illegitimacy) of this experiment in democracy, its failures to protect the interests of our human population, to protect our resources, its crumbling at the hands of corporate interests…  Despair.  Where are all the smart people and why aren’t they 1) being listened to by the most people and 2) running our country?  No, we do have smart people in charge, but they’re not taking that charge.  No, he’s trying to do the right thing, doing what he said he’d do–finding the center, compromising–but the other guys aren’t playing along.  And their only objective is seeing Obama and his administration fail, and they’re holding unreasonable lines at the expense of the public interest.

Anyway, this isn’t a rant on what’s wrong with our political system.. which is a lot…. can rant on that later…it’s a rant on what it takes to keep up.

I’m just saying that it’s taking more time to take an interest and that that time comes at the expense of other real life priorities.  Priorities I’d been thoughtful in selecting.  But this is important, too.

Sigh.

Oh..  picture of the day..  I’ll use a nice one from a couple days ago.  No relation to this post, but a picture that says expand, breathe, relax, broaden perspective, open up, peace… all that.