Wednesday open thread: Be like Bobby

Our own Papa Bob returned yesterday. For a while, many of us thought the worst had happened. But he returned, as always, with words of wisdom:

The single worst thing about Trump is how he has almost single-handedly wiped out optimism. Everything is sticker weeds, dark clouds, complaints, reports of war battles, most of the time which are untruths. He tells lie and lie, like we are the worst time ever. NOPE! He is the cause of all crassness, cruelty and evil in this world. He opens the door the dark howls start; He makes claims that nobody much fact checks. Well, I have a different view.

I see a vibrate, active, mostly cooperative. There are no bullets to dodge. No caravan ever makes it our way, rather my coffee maker has my cup ready along with a ready smile. People are gassing up for delivery or getting ready for some delicious pancakes. The positives vs the negative dominant by the thousands.

That is one big reason we are going to dominate and Dark Drump will have fewer nuts to follow around Then the real fun begins with the trial and trial begins and he is found guilty repeated.

The hospice found me face down, as I suddenly collapsed I was gone for at least ten hours. Needed 57 stitches. I thought I had died for certain, this time.

But I did this instead.

Greetings to all you fellow, smiling peaceful punks who are looking forward to rejoining a normal bit of society, for in a moment, no make that a thousand moments glorious after my near fatal flaw fall. The deal was:

Stay at home was the easy choice. But I admit to crying like losing a loved one when the bike disappeared. But I am now ready to get out and take it in. Take in every magic trick I have left. Trump sees nothing but darkness, I see myself surrounded by wonder. I love being alive. I see people getting along. Taking turns on the highways, Seeing goods delivered. Access to all kinds of good from goods grown thousands of miles away.

Contrast with Drump's view. Nothing is ever wonderful. Ever seen Trump smile as he pets a little creature? Money is all the dimwit ever sees. Yep, got a few more swings. Might make it to Christmas. I was seconds away from being something other than me/ Enjoy your life!

"Enjoy your life."

It's been so seemingly hard to do so since 2015. We've been thrown into this storm not of our own choosing, not of our own making. Most of us simply want to live our lives, go on about our days, love those whom we love and do things which make us happy.

It's been impossible, though, not because of Trump, but because of what he has unleashed. 

His arrival on the political scene has ripped off the necrotic scab on the American body politic. Victories we thought were done and dusted proved to be nothing of the sort. He gave leave to millions of people to be as awful and vicious as they always dreamed of being. He exposed the fact that many of our fellow-citizens view us as vermin, as diseases to be expunged. He gave credence to their hatred, to their sociopathy, to their evil. 

Yes, evil. I don't use that word lightly. But as others much smarter than me have said: the time in which we live right now is a living example of the question: "What would I have done in Nazi Germany?" And for many of our fellows, the answer is: Be a Nazi. We are surrounded by putative Adolf Eichmanns and Reinhard Heydrichs. We live cheek to jowl with those who would willingly join Einsatzgruppen units. We work with those who, once the dust settles, would piously intone: "We had no idea, we knew nothing," as the smoke billowed from crematoria smokestacks.

But these are small people. These are scabrous goblins. They are mere mockeries of humanity. No one perverted them; they perverted themselves. They are not to be feared. They count on you not raising your voice, on you hiding in your house, on you allowing them to have free rein.

Like all bullies, they cry when hit. We're not supposed to hit back. We're supposed to take it, because they think us weak. They mistake compassion for weakness. They mistake joy for frailty. They are absolutely wrong.

They don't understand joy, for they take joy in nothing. Their smiles are rictus smiles. Their souls are atrophied. They are unpersons, seeking to create enmity rather than friendship. The would rather clench a fist than shake a hand. And for what? Because someone born a man might realize he's a woman? Because a Black woman might make more money than they? Because a Guatemalan migrant who works three jobs to send money back home puts paid to their prejudices? What a poverty of a life. And it's a life which is chosen. You can choose to be different. You can choose to lay down the hate and the animus. You can choose to be more than you are, more than you ever dreamed of being. You can choose to liberate yourself from the shackles of mental slavery.

The three worst letters in the English language are "i", "s", and "m". When you live your life by the ism, you're missing on what is essential. Humans can't be reduced to a category. They can't be reduced to an ideology. We must be like the Shinto priest in the anecdote which the scholar of religion and mythology, Joseph Campbell, related to Bill Moyers about how the priest responded to an earnest question posed by a Western sociologist, in which he found it difficult to pin down what the Shinto creed was. "We do not have ideology. We do not have theology. We dance."

Dance. Get on the bike. Touch grass. Take serious things as the trivialities they are in the grander scheme of things. We are born. We die. And the universe will continue for a trillion years. Make this short time count for yourselves.

Enjoy your life.

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