I Have Been Here Before

I wander our beautiful world. I often go alone. I don’t always follow paths. When it suits me, I make my own. Thus, I get where I’m meant to go.

When you’re alone, it’s easy to get lost. The naïve might cling to their GPS… hoping technology will save them. The more experienced are not in the forest so much as they are of the forest. One of their skills is to recognize terrain. They strive to understand the overall nature of their environment. It’s important not to get distracted by minor obstacles and focus on the big picture.

My current path is daunting. The hills are steep and the footing unclear. Everyone crowds the valley, penned into a box canyon. I scale the scree slope seeking to rise above. They leer and chant. “It’s useless. Don’t be a fool. It will never get better. Lower your expectations for this is the only option available.” It takes confidence to work your way to a new place.

If you scale a mountain, you walk alone. Fortunately, you are never truly alone. As you rise, your horizon broadens. From there you can see further than the packed sardines so far below.

From where I am I can see the future and it’s an echo of the past. As soon as I look, I recognize this terrain. I have been here before. I remember what it is like. I have walked out of this place and into better places. What I’ve done once, I can do again.

Amusingly, I see the avatar of failure that made my youth so cold and foreboding. He’s still there. He never left.

Formerly, the worst president of my lifetime.

Jimmy Baby, I never thought I’d see your homeland again. Yet that’s where we are. Drift fences slowly nudged the herd from the vote farms into the corral. They’ve branded themselves for easy identification. From there, the exits are numbered. Cattle cars are positioned for ultimate use.

Bless your heart Jimmy, you weren’t the only one who could drive a nation into the wall. We have found another. A second to renew the task. A walking source of inflation, economic stagnation, intellectual poverty, and foreign policy disaster. He lacks your soul, reeks of corruption, and yet remakes the nation just as you did. I remember the cold winters. The upcoming winter will be just as cold.

From my view, as I approach the canyon rim, I can see you and your cardigan; beckoning the masses. “Join me! Wallow in malaise and helplessness. Tie ribbons on trees and blame others for the fates each man chose for himself.” The nation is one OPEC embargo and a hostage crisis from joining you on that 55 mph slow ride to nowhere.

Meanwhile, I remember something else from that time. I’d almost forgotten it. There was resistance then too. I will now sing the song of my people: