Desiderata https://youtu.be/PNq_DTmVCWs
Democrats, Republicans, Children of the Universe – we’re all united in the unsettled muck of Election 2016. What began months ago like an exhilarating horse race with thoroughbreds busting out of the starting gates has devolved into a haze of vitriolic trumpery, and now here we are staring in disbelief at two lame mares slogging their way to the finish line in the worn-out muddy track.
I could scarcely watch the Republican debates without storming out of the room, lashing out at my perplexed husband halfway through each debacle. What is wrong with these people who can’t stick to the issues? Why do the flounders who take the bait rise to the top, hook line and sinker? But that anger has gradually morphed into a sickening resignation that this is truly what it has all come down to. The only way I could get through the third presidential debate was by frantically coloring away in the Color Me Calm book a friend gave me. My blue pencil literally colored a rip right through the paper during one gnarly exchange, and my hand cramped up before the debate was finished. Apparently zen coloring doesn’t apply to political issues.
The majority of citizens seem dispassionate about the voting dilemma – claiming that we don’t want to vote for either presidential candidate – because really, how else can we feel without blowing a gasket and losing our minds along with our integrity? We all may be dispirited, disillusioned, disenfranchised, disturbed, disappointed and thoroughly disgusted by the whole damn mess, but the one glimmer off in the distance is the realization that everybody actually DOES care. It seems we care so much that Washington, D.C. therapist Steven Stosny coined the term “election stress disorder” to describe what many of his patients are currently experiencing. Hopefully this syndrome of epidemic proportions can be cured with an election outcome, win or lose.
Peggy Noonan’s WSJ editorial entitled A World in Crisis, and No Genius in Sight aptly pointed out that “An old order is being swept away, and political leaders everywhere seem lost.” What the world needs now isn’t love – it’s a genius along the lines of Gandhi, Lincoln, and Martin Luther King, or better yet a “genius cluster” a la Washington-Jefferson-Franklin-Adams-Madison-Monroe-Hamilton. Heroism and brilliance show up in the midst of trial and tribulation… so how much more turbulence must our world suffer before we are again gifted with a glorious hero to save us all?
Chuck Todd of Meet the Press has tried to bring some perspective and sensibility to this divisive arena through journalism like his interview with conservative pundit Glenn Beck who said, “We have to change our course as individuals now. We’re losing ourselves, we’re losing our civility, we’re losing our decency. We have to stop winning and we have to start reconciling with each other. There’s no leader to do that nationally, so it’s going to require each of us in our own communities to actually stand and do it.”
My fellow children of the 60’s and 70’s might remember the DESIDERATA that gained popularity during that decade of war, protests and social unrest. Somehow we survived that upheaval, and I trust that somehow our world will survive this turmoil as well. Let’s bring back the Desiderata. Perhaps YOU – Child of the Universe – are the true genius the galaxy is waiting for.
janahaertl 