2024 was an abominable year, which will live in infamy if humanity with its history persists. If not, we will have peace on earth – either the peace of desolation or of the natural world figuring how to get along. America is only beginning to pay for the obdurate ignorance of its electorate. Species, like airplanes, may crash, killing all aboard.
Before 2024 I believed in human salvageability. Yes, we messed up, but we learned from our mistakes. People, like democracy – one of our great inventions – self-corrected. The events of 2024 woke me to our wreckage. Donald Trump – not Jesus, Shakespeare, Lincoln – defines humanity. He is who we are deep down – selfish, cruel, truthless, ruthless, vicious, rapacious, vain – I cannot conceive a specimen more vile. A species pleased with such a monster I want no part of. The White House, Congress, and other national symbols used to lift my spirit; now I avert my eyes, lest I spiral into despair. Does it behoove me to participate in this season’s bromidic cheer? Arguably. Only I can’t. My pledge for this space is to say what I see and what I see appalls. Might I be mistaken? For sure. I’m human – and all humans are more or less duped, like the blind men envisioning the elephant from their partial evidence. Our conclusions are colored by our condition: we see self-protectively. Gloom may be a symptom, not a just appraisal.
As an individual, I’d rank 2024 among my happiest. My health was good, Jane’s mended, my loved ones blossomed, dog-pal Henry bounced and bounded, we both wrote our best (Henry and I), Jane and I pampered our home till it beamed with pride. I made some new friends – in person and on the page. I ache with gratitude for my blessings.
But, oh, the turpitude of my tribe! How they let me down – not just November Fifth – daily – with our selfishness, cruelty, indifference to danger, tolerance of the intolerable, reckless neglect. We lost interest in the climate, our grandkids’ well-being, truth, justice, fairness, while we groused about the price at the pump. We grumbled with the dyspepsia of the privileged. Technologies improved while souls corroded. Granted we had fun partying; so did the Titanic’s passengers the night before.
I railed till I was hoarse, tiring even myself with my tirades. Then I gave up. I’d done my best to waken my fellow humans with my words – and I’d failed. We were goners, whatever I might say, drifting toward the cataract, indifferent to our risk. Like Boccaccio’s pretty young people in The Decameron, why not flee a plague we could not cure and enjoy our remaining time? Prophets are flops at festivals – let’s live it up.
My goal for 2025 and beyond is to enhance the time. Beautify the hour. Impotence exonerates – change what you can, accept what you cannot. I learn from Henry – live now, without a rearward glance or fear of the morrow. Compose to console, not confound. Celebrate.
What we make of our time is a moral choice. Are we living to benefit our kind or plump our own pillow? Companionship enlivens and enlightens. My aim will be to brighten your day with our occasional stroll. There’s a solipsism in rage, a self-importance, which ignores one’s effect on others in one’s zeal to alert. I’m done with that. Let me be serene – not false – there is no beauty in falsity – but encouraging. Life is a losing battle, but the joys along the way!
Is my surrender ignoble – or sage – or both? Sunsets may be sad or glorious – depending on one’s point of view.