it's only been a couple of days. that's because i have really been driving through my routines. at the moment, i feel good about the fact that i have been able to do that, been able to go through a lot of these tasks. then again, maybe i'm obsessing over that because i feel depressed and disappointed... again, rgb died on friday. and it seems that the legacy of that wonderful woman, that diminutive warrior, will all go to shit. the gop and their followers (evangelical christians, nazis, white supremacists, racists, ignoramouses, all...) are truly... i don't know. in my more generous and charitable moments, i label them as misguided. but largely, i feel that they are evil. and in both cases, i know in my bones that they are destroying our country, and destroying our world. and in the face of that, what are we? what am i?
maybe that's why i return to the little things. because i feel helpless in the face of the big ones.
i can be kind and patient with the children in my life. i can be kind and patient with my plants and fish. i can try to be generous with the world around me. i can aspire to the goals i set for myself, whether in spirituality or art. i can do all these things.
but i despair of changing the world. of changing the hearts of this world. i have tried. and i have witnessed first hand how people will cling to evil and deception and hate. people who you would otherwise assume to be good, decent people. they laugh in the face of the daily deluge of hypocrisy and theft and racism and sexism... they still have that insane fire in their eyes, and the cries that issue from their throats are an incoherent babble. they sound like animals... and in other moments, they are quiet and firm in their resolve... comfortable with their complicity with hatred.
i despair of changing the world, because i have found that you cannot change these people. you cannot reason with them. you cannot turn them with love.
*****
what if the trump gets reelected? what if the country goes 4 more years down this path of "greatness"? i suppose... i suppose i must continue to be a good person, even as it becomes unfashionable. i will watch (with sadness) as the hypocrites rise up in their ascendancy, mouthing the bible while repeating the darkest moments of history, completely ignorant... or completely complicit.
... but i will forget about the idiots. they only stir me to despair and rage.
i will instead look only upon the children, and my family, and my friends... and always to the outcast. we must always look actively for the people who are downtrodden and left out. we must always be their advocate, when they have no voice. we must always be their friend, when they are alone. looking upon these people... this brings me to my higher self. this leads me to be the person i know i can be.
it is far better to focus on this, then to feel an unfulfillable rage.
*****
i understand now why my robotics students complain when their group has chosen a leader who is taking things in the wrong direction. it's not simply a feeling that their own ideas are being dismissed. it is a despair that the group is going to a dead end, and there's no recourse- nothing they can do about it. because i, as their teacher, refuse to intervene. "work it out," i say. "that's democracy."
... i suppose, upon reflection, that it would be best to have groups splinter... if they cannot reconcile their differences... have smaller groups attempt their own ideas.
there is little that is more frustrating than a tree in a box.
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