I’m going to lower the lights a bit and muse in the land of somewhat serious.
PART ONE: Mad Obstacle Course
I have a friend. Who is painfully idealistic. Who believes the world will magically become smart about, oh, everything, and clean itself up and that people will learn lessons. And not repeat history as hard and fast as they can. Who, right now, thrums with enough anger and grief over everything he sees, reads, and experiences to fuel a Smith’s ten-CD greatest hits collection. The bitter muddy waters of the world right now have turned the inner fishin’ hole that exists in his head into a stinking drying up slick, full of those mutated creatures caused by leaking nuclear waste and farm chemicals that get into the ground water. I fear for him, that he has no armor against the monsters and indifferent nobodies that foul the planet he loves so dearly. Why can’t they see? Why can’t they understand? Why can’t they know what’s going on? The cries of those battering themselves against the giant light bulb; those human moths dying, dying as they try to deliver their earnest sermons of save the earth, people matter, be kind to one another…
Now, this person does try. Casey [I’ll make up a name to protect myself first of all] attends local town meetings and interacts with others of his ilk, trying to get something started or get something said. That takes guts, in Velveeta Twitler land. Casey is artistic in a place where the arts are regarded as something invented by Satan for lazy slackers who are commie fags on welfare stealing the hard-earned tax money of True Paytriots to get free abortions, free marijuana and free phones. The neighbors threaten Casey because he’s not of their political party. Over which he has gone to the local sheriff, just in case. Just in case. A more harmless, gentle soul than Casey I’ve yet to meet. Who wants the best for those around him and tries to find his way in the stinking darkness and mad obstacle course called life.
PART TWO: Dead Christmas Trees
Now, I won’t delve further into the clinical case of this friend. It’s unfair and Casey isn’t here to defend…it’s just my few hard words, arriving from a place of dead Christmas trees shoved into a garbage cans. Where no light shines because I cannot lift my head and find the sun anymore. I am finding other idealists, who believe so gently and completely in democracy and human decency and human intelligence…equally bruised, dripping blood from their beat up souls [I know, how precious is that image???], exhausted by the utter indifference or laughing mockery they encounter, instead of applause and head nods and agreement that ‘something needs to be done’. They tread water that has already viciously drowned them several years ago. Ghosts whispering against the bulldozing of the universe.
Part Three: Just A Cycle
Some say our current times are just a cycle. We go though periods of great darkness, great and utter stupidity, a meanness toward others, a savage hatred of those outside our tribes, little groups and tiny clans. And then something lets go. That great dark time dissipates and reason comes back to the world. Light returns. People surge forward like mighty tides and get shit done. Great books are written, new ideas seep out and infect societies, good ideas, bad ideas, ideas ideas ideas; they swirl slowly in the human collection, stretching the collective minds. We will not be like that again, the new guardians scream as they examine an age just passed.
We will stand watch against such things. We will not kill over a religion, over a skin color, over a bit of land, over an ideal. We will accept all into the brotherhood of man, no exceptions this time. Except that one group, that one…they’re still suspect.
And the balance comes back, perhaps, for a bit.
Until it all tips again and it all starts over, the darkness happy as a toxic clam and the new guardians elderly bewildered broken bits wondering how it all came to this. Why did people not see? Why did people not study their history and see? Why did people ignore? Why did people not figure out in time? Why? Why? Why?
And then the light creeping back, the balance, the fiery cries of ‘Different this time!’, the great novels written by important new voices, the energy of new invention, the linking of hands across aisles. I don’t understand how they let that happen! I would never do such things! I would stand up and say something! I would…oh.
Part Four: Shoes and Vases
Patterns of destruction and creation. A great myth being told over and over with new characters. A new Cinderella slipping a foot into whatever slipper needs to be worn at certain time and place. Until the one time the darkness cannot be beaten back with a bit of light because there is nothing left of us. That, too, is part of our human mythology, our human destroy and rebuild mantras. The shoe falls apart. [To stick with the Cinderella riff, tee hee tee ha]
The clay wears out and cannot be reformed into the lumpy vase where a generation or two will stick their sad flowers, the flowers dying slowly, the vase leaking, the clay trying to return to dust so it can rest. Yes, I’ve reduced human endeavor into a child’s art project, dragged home in the bottom of a backpack, to be set on a shelf or not even looked at or broken before it can be saved from the interior of that child’s bag. And then just thrown away as the child shrugs or weeps– ‘fix it, fix it!’.
We try and try again. That is our best human quality. And the best instinct of idealists. They keep making those lumpy vases. And do not understand how much easier it is to crush those little vases than to construct them…which is rather simplistic. But the world, now, is rather simplistic and it’s not fashionable to be too much of a smartie pants. Smart people are viewed in much the same way people view rattlesnakes– something highly poisonous that will kill you without a second thought. We don’t need no book learnin’– could very well be the actual battle cry of Velveeta Twitler’s entire campaign. I jest, a bit, because if I don’t, I’ll smash my lumpy little vase and then shove it up the nearest endangered pygmy rabbit’s ass to show those libtards a thing or two. Snowflakes, lol!
Now, I started off with ‘Casey’ so I should end there, as well. Casey will swim toward the land of his familiars and huddle in the dim cool caves of those just like him. He has to, he’s on survival mode right now. That balance swinging back will probably not swing back in his lifetime…At least there’s chocolate. And coffee. And butterflies. Always Be Positive, because otherwise, people won’t like your social media posts.
ANN WUEHLER 