Bad News Schleprock

There is a guy in my world, on the very outer periphery, but nonetheless in my world, whose vitriolic passions about society and politics color seemingly everything he does. Everything I see from him is about how awful everything is politically, economically, globally, and how one political party is full of trash-talking personal agenda promoters. It’s gotten to where I wish I’d never run across him again. Why, why, why do people let the world’s issues define them? Why would anyone choose to live in such frustration, helplessness, and anger? If “we are the world,” then I don’t want to be in his. Actually, I just quit his world, "de-friended" him on FaceBook.

Yes, the world is in a tight spot right now (as George Clooney’s character said in O Brother Where Art Thou?). We are in a tight spot. But don’t lose sight of the fact that the world has been jammed before and it will eventually smooth itself out again. Every decade there has been at least one, usually several, events that had major economic implications. Of course some have been larger than others, but if anyone took the time to go back through the cultural archives, they would see that there have been many, many times when our society felt as if the world had spun off its’ axis.

Based on everything I’ve read, the 60’s weren’t exactly the decade of rollicking good times despite the free love agenda. Remember Vietnam and Kent State? The assassination of two Kennedy's and a King? Desegregation and integration and bussing? I remember long lines of people in a mild panic waiting to fill their cars with gas back in the 1970’s. Remember Watergate? People seemed to be going off the hook back then and tossing aside decades of accumulated values for the fast and quick fix of easy sex or a temporary feeling of euphoria to stave off the feelings of darkness that hung over the world. You can go back through the Korean War, through WWII and all the fear of the nation and world at that time, back through the Civil War…back to the beginning of time and you would find that times have been generally challenging all the way around.

So why is this time different? Global economic leaders are publicly letting us down and showing a side of humanity we would all rather not face. But why should I let this define my smallish life down here in my little corner of the world? What if it all worked in reverse and the larger problems are simply mirrors of the problems of the smaller man and the problems in his life? Think about the guy you know who just divorced from his wife because of an affair. Think of the guy you know who just had his house foreclosed on because during a lovely time of euphoria and confidence he bought a house but forgot that he had to pay for the life that goes with the house. These are the same guys who work at the companies that are letting us down. Whether they’re in accounting or PR or if they’re the CEO, they bring their little life problems to the global table and that colors what they do there. Don’t you think that’s a fair assumption? Is the person who takes his company bonus, buys himself a Hummer, a beach house, and a new wife as the company tanks really the ethical corporate baron making decisions about how to handle our retirement money? Should he be running the company?

What if the world decided to approach the problem from a grass roots level and each individual person started trying to fix themselves first. Just tried to be the best person they could possibly be: the best friend, son, daughter, employee, father, mother…whatever the title, just to take it seriously and do what’s right for that position. Just do the right thing. Everyone knows what that feels like, you’re heart and body tell you when you’re behaving right or wrong, ethically or not so. If the little people like “us” can’t be trusted to handle our own smallish lives with some sort of reasonable attempt at doing the right thing, then how in the world can we expect the world to do so? We are the people that fill the companies, the elected offices, the boardrooms.

If the world is in crisis, then isn’t talking about it ad nauseum just fanning the flames? I really don’t’ see how knowledge of all the politicos and their stance on everything from taxes to out of wedlock child rearing has any place in my thoughts. I don’t really think that knowing what the Dow is on a daily basis is worth knowing, especially if it causes me angst. Why should I care? Wouldn’t I be better off worrying about if my kid is where he’s supposed to be? Or attempting to find the place of peaceful understanding with my sister or my husband? If I am made of energy, a fixed amount of energy, why would I give up a single scintilla of that to blunder on about people who don’t even touch my world? Yes, yes, for all you literals out there they touch my world, but not “my world.”

People can make themselves sick from soaking in all this toxicity. I like the method where you learn about what matters to you, put it away, and pull it out again in the voting booth. That’s the only thing we can do unless we choose to write a blog, become a lobbyist, run for office, support an office, or make some change that results in our being able to affect change on a very large scale. So far, I know of exactly one person who has done that. In my life, that is, just one. But boy do I know puh-lenty of people who love to stand around at parties, kids events, grocery stores, and any other place people talk and blather on incessantly about the “world crisis” and how bad it all is. Why in the world would we repeatedly harp on that disappointment? It’s like a cheated-on spouse who never stops “telling her story” to everyone she meets. That becomes who she is rather than just a part of her life.

Jeez, it’s tough, okay? It won’t be tough forever. It’s just history in the making, just a time to be gotten through. What will be happening next year at this time? Five years from now? People have slogged through life that’s been a thousand times tougher than it is right now, it’s been done hundreds of times before now, right? Why globalize what can be handled locally? We can’t really attend the G20 Summit now can we? I would bet this guy hasn’t even written a letter to the editor of the newspaper. He’s a critic just throwing more logs on the panic fire. What is to be gained by that I ask you? He can say he’s “up on all the news that matters,” “abreast of the current situation.” Big deal. I don’t really want to talk about that, do you? Does it feel good? These are the folks who will be cornering you at parties in 30 years to tell you all about their health. Find something that matters and fix THAT why don’t you?