Musings Of An Indie WriterSaturday, December 2, 2006
The Agony And The Ennui
Fran here. Regular readers of Eternity Road are aware that I rise very early, seven days a week. As it happens, I do most of my op-ed writing in those early hours; they're just about the only time I have for it. But recently those periods have been marked by anxiety in anticipation and aridity in output. Today I've been sitting at this keyboard since 4 AM, trying to goose the Curmudgeon into producing something significant yet mildly amusing for your reading pleasure. Every topic that comes to mind produces only weariness -- and yes, I got an adequate night's sleep.
Yes, we all have down periods when all our efforts are in vain. But this one has a special cast to it. Striking. Epiphany-like. With implications to be followed to wherever they might lead.
In recent weeks, I've found myself dreading the daily "news sweep:" my survey of all the major news sites and sources of opinion. Yet the news isn't all that bad; it's more or less the same as it was yesterday, and last week, and last month, and last year. Government is still anti-Constitutionally intrusive. Politicians still run the gamut from inept to evil. Leftists still promulgate whatever falsehoods they think they can get away with and excuse appalling behavior committed by members of their mascot groups. Foreign politicians still blame all the world's troubles on the United States. Entertainment celebrities still get excessive respect for their opinions, despite their obvious assholianism. Muslims still seethe, riot, and kill at every opportunity. Islamic spokesmen continue to deny the plain facts about their creed; some even maintain that the atrocities of Black Tuesday, September 11, 2001 had nothing to do with Islam or Muslims but were a product of the Evil Bush-Zionist Cabal.
More of the same...more of the same. Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose.
One thing has changed: the tone of political discourse. It's gotten much worse. That's why I've instituted comment moderation. Eternity Road gets one hell of a lot of hateful comment submissions. Sometimes the hatred is overt; sometimes it takes the form of vicious propaganda. The emitters have an agenda, of course: to offend, revolt, or weary their ideological adversaries out of the game. Clearly, one must be staunch in the face of such assaults. But that doesn't make it easy.
In reviewing the pieces I've most enjoyed writing these past few weeks, the ones that stand out are the Sunday Ruminations, the odd bits about love, romance, and marriage, and "flyers" like this essay at The Reform Club. The political and public-affairs pieces have come rather hard. This one was a notable exception, but that only sharpens the lance.
Mind you, I get hateful comments and E-mail about the Sunday Ruminations, too. You'll never see any of them; be grateful.
All the above was swirling through my head when, a short while ago, I decided to surf the Eternity Road blogroll, to see what my favorite commentators were writing about. When I reached Lana at Live From The Guillotine, who's been silent for a distressingly long time, what I read brought my thoughts into sudden, painful focus:
I've spent far too much time dinking around with inside baseball politics when I should have been baking cookies, watching movies with my kids, playing with my grandbaby, and kissing my husband silly. That's over. I don't get paid to know about that junk and I'm finished following it unless I'm reading for the humor factor. Life is too short and I have better things to do.
Thank You, God, for the gift of this supremely sensible woman. For what, after all, is our attention to politics and public affairs doing to any of us? Is it enriching our lives? Bolstering our hope for a better future? Is it even allowing us to undo some of our past mistakes?
No, no, and NO! Most emphatically not, on all counts. It's making us crazy, individually and as a society. Indeed, if you reflect for a bit on what it means to concern oneself with politics, you'll come to recognize the congruence between immersion in politics and obsessive-compulsive neurosis.
Politics and government are necessary evils. They exist because, at this time, Mankind has found no better way to dampen individuals' propensity to violence and fraud. Unfortunately, we've allowed governments way too much latitude, with the result that today they make all our problems worse rather than better. But the dynamic that propelled us to this point -- governments' nurturance of interest groups that support statist measures in their favor, and which ally with one another as long as their own subventions are maintained -- is highly resistant to being reversed. We who would prefer freedom are too busy trying to manage our own affairs to oppose such groups effectively.
Still, we allow politics and public affairs too much of our attention. It's as if we were somehow addicted to them. When we're in our right minds, we know that excessive immersion in collectivist pursuits -- and don't kid yourself; all political involvement, regardless of orientation, is collectivist -- is very bad for us. But no sooner has the insight formed than a bulletin from WCBS or FOX News shoves us off our pleasant isles of reason and back into the morass.
It's wearing beyond all possible justification. It sucks away one's energies more voraciously than a regiment of Draculas. It can be excused; it cannot be rationalized.
One is not free by virtue of politics, but despite it -- even in defiance of it. One is not moral or responsible because of the threat of punishment; that's merely risk aversion in service to self-preservation. One is not right or courageous in defense of truth and justice because of the passage of a bill or the outcome of an election, but because of one's individual choice of values and priorities.
Does this mean that I'll no longer write about politics and public affairs? Certainly not. But readers should expect a heavier admixture of essays on other topics henceforward. Fulfillment is an individual matter; my fulfillment, as a writer and thinker, has been hampered by focusing on politics six days a week with a little restful mysticism on the seventh. I'm going to reorient, possibly quite dramatically.
Since I know the question will be asked, I'll answer it in advance: Yes, this is at least somewhat in consequence of my declining health. Recently that decline has accelerated, and one cannot contemplate the approach of the grave without being compelled to re-examine one's priorities. I'd like to think that I'm sensible enough to have reached these conclusions even were I still in perfect health, though of course that's mere supposition. Life is an experiment one cannot run twice. But I trust you'll allow me that small conceit.
We shall see.
