Mirrors

 

 Impressionism / Hans am Ende/ A Summer Day in Worpswede

Feeling like I am coming out of a bit of funk here.  Which is always a good thing.  Winters above the 45th parallel are always a bit of a struggle, but spring is coming.  The days are just now getting barely long enough.

Mike sent me an extensive response to Illargi’s article that I am still digesting.  Providing he gives permission, I will post it here tomorrow, but I want to mull on it first.  The politics and pathologies of hatred are starting to get super interesting to me right now.  I am wondering where this all will go.  As you will see tomorrow, Michael makes some very cogent points and some crucial observations.

What I think I would like to talk about is the nature of the American experiment itself.  That takes some serious thinking.  Even worse it takes a bit of effort to sift through the accretions of fable and myth that have layered themselves, barnacle like, on our national psyche.

We are not the men we once were. None of us are, I suppose, even when we were. But I am too old and too ugly to be allowed the indulgence of vanity.  I think that politicians and leaders and celebrities and influencers are merely mirrors reflecting back at us what we want see and just often enough, through the shifting hall of mirrors that we are trapped in, we get back a true reflection of who we are.

Trump is an ugly man.  But the reflection he allows shows more than what the man himself is.  I don’t want to discuss Trump.  I want to discuss what he shows us about ourselves.