I’m a happy man. I have a wonderful husband. I have a wonderful family. My career is going well. We finally live where we’ve wanted to live for a while. I can fly an airplane when I want. I can see and do things that I enjoy.
So why do I occasionally feel glum? Why did it take a conscious effort for me to not crawl back into bed this morning?
It’s the tempo of our society.
While I have whittled down the number of news sources, political reporters, etc. that I follow on Twitter, my feed is still a constant barrage of Trump stupidity. It still boggles my mind that there are enough incredibly stupid people in the United States that managed to find their way to a voting booth and cast a ballot for this pathetic excuse of a human being, let alone leader of anything. I look at Facebook hoping to see happy faces of friends and family enjoying life and there’s a bunch of commentary about the same thing: the blatant idiocy, inadequacy and utter instability of the President of the United States. Once in a while a politician will belch out some sort of statement that is meant to admonish whatever the Idiot has done this week but the words ring hollow. There is never an action as a follow-up. It’s all about the words.
It’s all my fault for relying on my computing devices for information. There are many times that I long for less of a connection to technology. I know this is odd, since I make a living building applications to make the user experience better but honestly I would be perfectly content reading and writing text on a flat-panel black screen with amber characters and a flashing cursor. Perhaps that’s the route I should take. Find a laptop with a beautiful display that just gives me a command prompt when I log in.
When we ride the train I noticed that 85% of the people around us are glued to their phones. There’s always someone taking a barrage of selfies. Most have headphones in. They’re looking down and oblivious to the world around them. I wonder if they’re reading about the latest display of ignorance from the White House or if they’re just watching videos of teenagers trying to drink boiling water through a metal straw (don’t even get me started on that) or if they’re watching movie trailers of another dimly lit superhero movie.
Where’s the sunshine? Where’s the positivity? While there were some horrible things going on with racism, homophobia and the like in the mid 20th century, you have to admit that back then eyes were on the future. People dreamed of flying cars and going to the Moon and building computers that helped make our household lives easier. Today many have eyes down a hole, looking for zombies and making moves to take us to the past.
The times we live in are so unstable. I would give something, anything for just touch of stability.
