Be Of Stout Heart

Four years and one month ago, people were running around wearing pussy hats and setting cars on fire. I thought “these people are hurting, I hope they return to mental health soon.” They had been discussing impeachment since the day after elections some two months previous.

Last fall, I was weary. People in my society and many places all over the world, spent the summer burning cities. They entertained the strange logic that anyone who gathered in a group, unless for purposes of destruction, was “killing grandma”. I thought “it’s sad to see society tear itself apart like this. I can see that folks are suffering.” I also selfishly thought “I hope they come to their senses before we’re all living in mud huts.”

Fall came and I enjoyed it. Fall is my favorite season; with the glorious sights and smells of a world wrapping up prolific summer and preparing to experience the winter season of death. Such a beautiful and bittersweet time. Each moment is precious. Soon it will will be dark and frozen. Everyone knows it too; squirrels store nuts, geese fly south, and I stack firewood.

One sunny afternoon, I sat on a log and talked with the dead. I turned to people whom I’d respected and loved but who’ve moved on. They’d seen madness come and go. What could they tell me? As always, commune with nature and meditation brought peace. A deep contentment came to me.

I was granted peace, but not prophesy. I thought the American people (my society) would speak in November… loudly. Then, rationality would return. Such did not happen. You may place your bets on whether they did not speak or they were not heard. That’s a topic for another day.

What is clear, if anything is clear, is that “will of the people” is not the same in 2021 as it once was. What can be earned can be unearned. It won’t return for generations… if at all.

I still think of that moment of peace. How much better the world would be if each individual human would mindfully accept the quiet forest and sort themselves out? More to the point, if you have done so but those that surround you are still spastic, what is their consternation to you? That seems obvious in retrospect but I was missing it at the time. I’m neither responsible for, nor bear the burden of, a whole world losing itself. Some things are beyond my pay grade. One can only seek to do the best they can with their personal life, given the world in which they live and the times arbitrarily granted them.

Today, a third impeachment effort is underway. All this aimed at a man who is technically not the president. Can you imagine such hate? Can you imagine it of rational origin?

Meanwhile, the man who sits in power is said to have earned more votes than any living being in American history. Imagine such a mandate! If it were true he surely would be the most excellent choice to calm a seething people. “Here’s the guy who earned the most votes in history, let us all relax and be happy.”

So is it true? More to the point, is truth what happens if someone screams a fact at you until you simply scream it back. If I find a man who believes the sky is green, do I need to beat him to death lest others fail to look up and see the sky with their own damn eyes. If it’s self evident that the sky is blue, why would I care about some demented rarity who sees green?

Today, the people who “won” are acting like losers. They remain locked on a goal they chose over four years ago. Can they do nothing more? Impeachment before swearing in, impeachment during office, impeachment after. Is it sane to impeach an election’s loser when the man who earned more votes than any other candidate in history is comfortably in power? Quick, look up. What color is the sky?

We are told we have steady, rational, logical, strong, caring “leaders”. They don’t act like that. They cower like scared children; wrapping faces with fabric and circling buildings with chain link fence. Those of us who breathe free and speak our minds are “subversives”. They speak of hunting us down. Do they fear we’ll look at the sky and declare it the wrong color?

Do winners destroy any with whom they disagree? Is that rational “leadership”? Even kings and popes have detractors… Stalin and Mao had only corpses.

I wonder too if this is a demographic inflection point. Mortality is a hard thing for a human to accept. Maybe some cannot. I observe a large and powerful generation acting in odd ways. As if determined to burn down all that stands before time drags them kicking and screaming from the smoldering ashes to their mortal end. I’ve seen wise and reasoned generational use and transfer of power, this is not it.

There is madness everywhere. It is the true contagion of our times.

Madness is a fact of the time in which we live. None of us escape unharmed. Yet gloom is not mandatory. There is hope. Even as witch burners stack fuel and media soaked bots dream of guillotines, there is hope. There is always hope.

Time does not go in reverse. There is only forward. In a time of madness, as each day follows day; each stampede follows another panic. Hang on and hope. Aspire to still be standing when the pendulum swings back.

These thoughts caused me to change my header’s tagline. A tiny signal. An infinitesimal speck of light in a dark night. It’s nothing, but any port in a storm is a good one. My old tagline, from Orwell, was apt but in the time since I posted it, society has careened off level. I (and many of you) must disengage. Today is bigger than one election in one nation. Today is a good day to think at another level. First comes lust for power and then, if it’s unjustly attained, madness.

Marcus Aurelius, Roman Emperor and stoic philosopher led the greatest empire of his time. He led it when it was doing well. Sadly, no longer a Republic, yet still strong and stable. Aurelius spent a lot of time admiring and practicing stoicism; honor, self control, respect, etc… Rome eventually grew soft and imploded in a chaotic orgy of destruction from which it never recovered. Aurelius could not save Rome for all time. He only could attend to his time. Which he did. Rome did not fall on Aurelius’ watch. Well done sir.

Here are his words:

The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.

Do not let the contagion of madness ooze from inflamed masses into your soul. Do well. Live properly. Be at peace with yourself. Good luck to us all.