Sunday

The Longest Slide

This has been a really long slide. Usually the slide begins on Field Mowing Day in late September or early October and ends on the day with the shortest period of daylight and the longest night of the year: the winter solstice. We slide into darkness and then we are the recipients of additional minutes of daylight, daily, for the next six months. It’s a pattern that we can plan for annually and use to our advantage for creation or hibernation or whatever it is we want to do. The point is, aspects of our existence are predictable and we control how we function within that paradigm.

But this year, the slide felt like it began in mid-March. It will have been almost 280 days worth of continuous sliding. This nine-month decline has been especially dark, void of reasoned context or sense of time, and wholly perilous. We have shared a toxic Kool-Aid jug of pandemic, willful ignorance, racism, institutional malaise, attempted coup, and the complete loss of truth, decency, and reality. For the liberal elite, this has been an especially frustrating period. For the intellectual gentry, this has been an especially infuriating period. So many resources expended for so little; everyday, a Sisyphean slog.

Yet, we have survived. To be fair, there have been many moments of normality and familiarity. There have been some silver linings, but for three-quarters of a calendar year there has been a literally dystopian backdrop. So, on the cusp of the completion of this hellish free fall, we can finally see some light. We can sense the surface that we’ve been swimming toward for so long. Instead of succumbing to the sense of powerlessness that arises from these traumatic events and persistent failures, we can opt to build it all back up, to recoup losses, and to step boldly into an uncertain future. We can start by affecting things we directly control. Something like that.

We have to understand that we have actually become stronger, tougher, smarter, and more determined to live our lives in very specific manners. We needn’t tolerate the persistent nonsense any longer. If it’s pointless, if it’s stupid, if it is a waste of time and logic, we can turn our diva noses up and walk away. We are better. We are the righteous. We are the ultimate winners in all of this. We do not have to defend our positions. There are not two viable sides to these issues. Logout, delete, unsubscribe, close accounts and take a look around. This ride is almost over.