If the reader hasn’t experienced it, the reader has not experienced life. All humans, to be recognized as complete souls, must experience the five stages of grief: 1. Denial and isolation; 2. Anger; 3. Bargaining; 4. Depression; 5. Acceptance.
To varying degrees of emotional strife, these five emotional reactions can be applied to many situations in life; certainly the loss of family. But these feelings emerge when a worker is fifty-five and is discharged before retirement becomes available. These emotions are felt when risk and violence emerge as a potential threat to life. And yes, these feelings emerge when one doesn’t belong and has no validating proof of personal community value. Apparently, in the election of Donald, indeed in every campaign since Bobby Kennedy, the mariner has been odd man out.
There aren’t many elections left for the mariner. Realistically, The Supreme Court will not be capable of rational decisions working in a world believed still to exist since 1985. But others must charge on. The millennials are a powerful generation. Already in their young lives they are bonded, they are not satisfied with the old fogeys. It will, however, take most of their lives to overturn a useless Supreme Court.
The mariner must press on. His mind still rebels at idiocy, racism, greed and self satisfying ignorance. Whether the ignorant accept it or not, free access to information, the sophistication required to live in an overcrowded world, and the scary environment of the Earth weighing in on survivability, will move us on whether we desire it or not. Just not today.
In an era of Donald and a Reconstructionist-minded republican government, may God have mercy on our souls.
Ancient Mariner
Despair, oh yeah. My wife has suffered from tearful episodes since Tuesday evening. I waver between anger and resignation. I broached the subject of the election to my apprenticeship class of students and was quite dismayed. They voted for Trump because they believed he cared about the working class and as far as everyone else was concerned, they should take care of themselves. Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps (if you have any boots). The remainder did not vote because they felt it didn’t matter and was not important.
There was only one student out of 25 who believed in showing compassion to others, who thought that the election was about more than lining one’s own pockets. Such a sad state of affairs and bleak future it is indeed.
I wonder if it’s because this was the generation raised on video games, where pain was not real, you could always start over if you “died”. It ‘s all about instant gratification, oblivious to the world around them. There is no sense of community, no realization that the earth is a finite place where every action has a reaction.