THE SYSTEM DOES NOT CARE IF YOU ARE HAPPY - The lure of "glittering bullshit"

My favorite joyful dance group! The Ghetto Kids

Do you remember the first time in political life you heard the Democratic candidate for Vice President in early August of last year, use the word "joy"?

Walz said:

"With all the things that make me mad about the other guys and all the things they do wrong, the one thing that I will not forgive them for is they're trying to steal the joy from this country. They try and steal the joy. But you know what? You know what? Our next president brings the joy. She emanates joy." 

I was so stunned that I immediately wrote a blog because I remembered, "Oh yes. Joy! I can still have some of that!"

But then last November 6th we lost the possibility of public and political joy, at least for the foreseeable future.

Still, art can be and likely is the sole manner by which to maintain private balance and calm in these Bering seas days roiling more sickly than anything the Alaskan crab fishers have ever faced.

A musical friend said as much this morning.

Then I happened on a video by a podcaster who is new to me. He calls himself the "Functional Melancholic" and his personal style, and yet poetic manner of speaking, does not belie that self-rubric.

In the first video, "The Death of Intelligence", he describes and laments our descent in this country into not just disdain but mindless hate for education and intelligence. He calls it "America's favorite distraction."

For years I have been puzzled by how society was moving against everything education that was promoted to me by my parents and teachers back in my day (think growing up in boomer days of the 40s and 50s). The value of education and for intelligence was lost, he thinks, when we turned to reality tv. Some might place the blame on social media. I take both alleged causal events of misery as metaphors for what I noted years ago, that is, the giving up taking personal responsibility for anything, then lying back for screwing by the "Daddy" or "Mommie" we have chosen to think for and take care of us. (For an excellent discussion of th benefits and need for independent thinking and owning up to our human mistakes, consider this forthright podcaster Angela's take.)

In the second video I watched, "The Joy of Less", the podcaster discusses materialism. This topic grabbed my attention because last December I started on a draining, dedicated process of downsizing my material possessions and simplifying my life.

He also discusses the intense human desire to belong, which for many in the MAGA crowd seems insatiable.

I do not agree that that insatiability is fueled by self loathing. That explanation seems a bit simplistic if not arrogant. I hearken back to his first video discussion about failure to activate our brains but rather seek the easy way out. It's easy to hop online and spend money carelessly and copiously, or jump on Facebook and talk about the most irrelevant or silly incident of our lives as if it is of enormous interest to the world. That fits right into our social and political descent into fascism.

Thinking about both excess materialism and valuing ignorance, it is not solely one thing or concept that has become today's currency. We live in a kleptocorporate capitalist society (a term I first heard used by a physician writing in the prestigious JAMA online journal). I'm not letting anyone convince me that it is only cryptocurrency or Presidential meme coin that is the current must-have product. All stuff is just the "bait" as the podcaster says; your uncritical attention is what is desired for their pofit-mongering.

Regulating one's accretion habits is hard, but necessary if we non-oligarchs are to survive the coming paucity of goods as a result of No. 47's insane tariff policies. Regulating one's verbal diarrhea differs because it can be excused as an exercise of one's First Amendment rights.

True, you and I have that right (or so some of us democrats continue to think the US Constitution guarantees), "but should we exercise it?" is a different question.

What is not a question is what my musical friend reminded me of this morning:

Music and the other arts can bring spiritual peace and balance,

if not lucre. Without the arts and intelligence, life for me is just so much "glittering bullshit" as the podcaster points out. I know I cannot find joy -- or avoid "emotionally ghosting my own life" without the arts. To live without music would be intolerable to me. Viva the arts!

***

A TIME FOR DOWNSIZING

The secret is not to stop collecting

nor is it to let go

of excess things from another’s viewpoint,

when they give a pretty glow.

Nor is the secret to banish books

or pictures from one’s life --

the college roommates, the bridesmaids,

a Boy Scout’s first knife.

Piles of pale memories, these are not,

nor do they leech my will,

but mark my journey through the years

and the moments that have thrilled.

Some things we can preserve in photographs

and then happily let go,

other things passed on to those in need

when clothing we outgrow.

There’s no heartache with the memories

that nurture and give joy,

nor with them wither I, like plants,

and roots be all destroyed.

When it comes time for thing or human

or season to pass on,

I’ll sit in silence and search for peace

remembering their song.

###

(If you resonate with this blog kindly sign our confidential mailing list)