One Damned Thing...

One Damned Thing…

“As I was finishing, I heard a crashing noise. A horned and tusked purple thing went racing along the ridge to my right pursued by a hairless orange-skinned creature with long claws and a forked tail. Both were wailing in different keys.

I nodded. It was just one damned thing after another.”     ---Roger  Zelazny

So, how exactly does one stay inspired?

I began pondering while watching news shows.  I thought to myself, always a dangerous proposition, “Why are they talking about the Emmys?  Who the hell cares about the Emmys?  Oh! I get it.  They’re hiding!”

I do get it.  This last year has been a series of disasters, one after another, and to keep life interesting anyone who looks can see them lining up for the next pass.

Syria, Benghazi, Christians being slaughtered in Kenya and Pakistan, Iran talking peace, again, in a bid for more time to build nukes.  Korea apparently is going into the meth business.  Floods in Colorado, home for me.  The Climate Change Militia is coming out to scream all their old dire warnings, yet again.  This time it’s the growing ice pack that apparently heralds more global warming.

Stateside, we have had another mass shooting.  Even some liberals are starting to realize that all their attempts at gun control are only making things worse, but they have the bit in their teeth and are determined not to stop.

Nobody can afford what Obama Care is doing to them, but now that congress itself has waivers, it isn’t passing out any more of them. K-12 education stinks and is getting worse. And of course, my own unwavering depression acts like punctuation for every piece of bad news. It would be easy to give up. Why continue?

I’m going to do a horrible thing to you.  I’m going to tell you why, and you won’t be able to un-hear it. Ever.

It’s very simple.  Hopelessness and despair are just not good enough. You will fight it, because humans simply cannot stay locked in despair.  I have found that when I am curled into a ball and waiting for death, it only takes a little while until I am furious at myself for acting so ridiculous.  It does not work. Humans, and particularly Americans, struggle for more because it’s how we define ourselves.  We want better.  We will make it better.

Ideals cannot be destroyed. Hope cannot be lost. It’s simply misplaced for a time. Hope is the human, and the American, imperative. Despair is unnatural to us. 

It is always crisis that brings out the very best in us.  It forces us to grow.  Maybe we don’t step up, but when everyone else steps back, the point is moot.  Here we are. What now? To quote a great American:

"All right, they're on our left, they're on our right, they're in front of us, they're behind us...they can't get away this time."     --- Lewis B. "Chesty" Puller, USMC

The worse things get, the less there is to lose.  Refusal to quit is a curious strength and power. We have all found it from time to time.  We will find it again.  No fight is over unless we quit fighting.  In the end, we can’t do that.  Nor should we, It is a surrender of all that we are.

And we’re not dead yet.