What I long for...

Photo by Samuel

How many times have you heard someone say

If I had his money I would do things my way

But little they know that it's so hard to find

One rich man in ten with a satisfied mind.

Once I was winning in fortune and fame

Everything that I dreamed for to get a start in life's game

Then suddenly it happened I lost every dime

But I'm richer by far with a satisfied mind.

Money can't buy back your youth when you're old

Or a friend when you're lonely or a love that's' grown cold

The wealthiest person is a pauper at times

Compared to a man with a satisfied mind.

When life has ended my time has run out

My friends and my loved ones I'll leave there's no doubt

But one things' for certain when it comes my time

I'll leave this old world with a satisfied mind.

-Red Hayes & Jack Rhodes 1955

We'll marry our fortunes together...

The bright spark that fired so long ago has never really gone out, but have you ever gone down the street and seen yourself with someone else? Someone you least expected? I'm sure a lot of people have.

See, we walk and talk our lives away with so much intensity and intention that we can scarcely remember our own original selves. How can we care for someone else when we don't even understand ourselves?

Sometimes we can re-kindle old fires, sometimes we can't. I guess I wonder how you can tell the difference? Why do some people live their lives with the same person they started with and others, alas, spend their entire life trying to figure who that first person is supposed to be? Why do some people have to wait for the happiness that finally comes late in life?

I envy the lovers, the ones that can make a life together and feel joy with each other even in the direst of situations. I am humbled by their ability to cling to each other when all else is failure. I take refuge in their ability to continue happily. maybe I can do it too?

Relationships are difficult, even under the best of circumstances. We work and toil to make them work but, too often, we screw them up. There's plenty of psycho-talk around to decypher motivations for doing things, but none of it addresses the core dilemmas.

Why aren't we happy? Why does everything seem so desperate sometimes? Why do we walk and feel like, any second, the earth will open up and swallow us?

The new day will bring new insights and new revelation. But, somewhere between now and whenever, the anxiety will creep in again. I pray to God for light to understand, but I still wish it were night. The comfort of darkness is warm and inviting.

Done Gone

I think I can say with a relative amount of certainty that I have successfully gotten politics out of my system for the time being. I wake up happy and content and the presence of demonic spirits has finally left me.

Politics, you see, is a study in utility maximizing, at least to my mind. I hold to the thought that doing politics is, in reality a dirty business that we must endure to get from day to day. Some see it as a noble pursuit, but I guess I see it more as necessary evil.

Sure, I played with the idea of running for President in 2008, and even broached the topic with possible cabinet appointees. But, unfortunately, I cannot consider and will not accept the nomination of my party. Sorry Pig. Sorry Spoke. Keep trying if you will, but I doubt that I can successfully lead this hodge-podge of contradiction.

The Deomocratic example ends with doom. Look at ancient Greece. The epitome of participatory democracy and when someone like Socrates comes along, he gets the Hemlock straight, no chaser.

The Republican form stands up no better. Rome's senators had no regard for their heroes or even their friends. get a little power thing going and, adios Julius. Stabbed by your own friends and left bleeding in the hallway. Maybe that's how Congressman Foley feels.

I find myself going back again and again to the notion of utility maximizing. How can I get up in the morning with the least amount of damage? Do I have to get up at all? How does a Libertarian wake up in the morning?

The Season of What Now?

Photo by Leo

Politics are still on my mind. I can’t help it. Like the junkie that I am, dumping politics is an impossibility. It may be the worst jones there is. I eternally hope for the best but have yet to see it. My 50 years have proven less than positive in the political realm.

But maybe now…

Now, maybe we will see some repartee between parties. Maybe we will hear some new solutions. Maybe the democrats will mix it up a little bit. I hope for it.

I voted for it too. I want with my whole life for it to get better and the insanity of the past to finally be expunged.

I want to be optimistic, but I'm not sure yet. We Americans are a fickle lot. In less than a generation we have gone from Nixon to Carter to Reagan to Clinton to Bush, ad-nausea.

The majority of the population looks for instant change. The old-timers know it takes effort and time to make a difference. Some of us are downright pessimistic because of past burns.

We saw JFK die on TV. We saw MLK shot. We saw Bobby die. We saw a Pope hit and even Reagan shot, a victim of his own acceptance of the gun. We see violence in the streets every day. We long for newness and peace but get nothing but more violence and social stagnation and segregation that never seems to end.

Whether the newly empowered Democrats will sound or act any differently than the entrenched Republicans remains to be seen at this juncture. The last 40 years of American politics have been, alas, 40 years of re-elections more than 40 years of progress. Time has shown that once elected, the candidate (now encumbent) struggles to keep the job. Maintain the status quo. Keep your job.

No new thing under the sun. Yet I still hope for a change.

My son sits in the other room struggling over chord changes, sounding horribly like John when he wrote "Hide Your Love Away". Maybe his changes will prove to be more lasting. I can only hope so.

Post Season Review.

Well folks, another election season has come and gone. In the end, all you can say about the winners for certain is that many millions of people did not vote for them.

Politics is a funny thing. There are those whose lives revolve around the process, those who opine from an easy chair but never leave the chair to do anything about it, and the rest of us.

I generalize here, but by "the rest of us" I mean those that sit politics out like I sit out football season. That is, until January and February. Die-hard fans are joined then by people like me that are only interested in play-offs and championships.

Politics, like football or a Rock and Roll concert, is a Dionysian event. It's an orgiastic ritual, with everyone coming together for the same result, the same release. Everyone crowding, working together for that emotional, well, you get the idea.

It's mythical in content too. Heroes like Vince Lombardi, Buddy Holly, Bobby Kennedy are gods, the icons of the American Dream. They ruled the day and their weaknesses are ignored, for the most part, because their strengths and personalities are so huge.

Villains exist in this mythical world too. Remember Ohio coach Woody Hayes slapping players around and bullying. Remember Nixon? How about Colonel Tom Parker?

Then there's the religious element. Every good belief has a ritual, a coming together of the tribes if you will. Here you find the Superbowl, the Stones playing to a million people in Rio, Elections. The faithful make their statement of belief.

Once it's all over, there's nothing left but the commentary. Who played the best, was this the best show of the tour, how could the polls and pundits have been so wrong...

Do they change the way we are? Sometimes not as much as we wish they would. We search for meaning in sensational, emotional events, but do they really change us? Football is just a game. Rock and roll is only more howling at the moon. Politics is, well, I don't really know. Maybe a little bit of both.

Tomorrow we wake up and still have to eat and work and laugh and cry.