Why Are We Like That?
Because I thought of this today
I got to work today and thought of how funny it is that I poured coffee from a thermos into a cup at a stoplight, an audiobook blaring in my ears, and I didn’t fear death then. Even though the bleary eyed drivers around me could be doing the same, or worse. They could be texting, eyes to the floor while driving sixty plus in a forty five. But I felt good. And alive. And safe.
When I parked my little death machine, I listened to said audiobook for a little longer, and felt a prick of fear, real fear, when Clive Barker’s monstrous creatures from the dark crept into a train to feast on the bodies of the dead. I knew I would remember it after everyone went to bed. At night. This night. And I thought of how funny it is that I pin my fear on the invisible, something I have never seen, but drive to work semi-distracted at total ease.
Isn’t that the way of things? To pin fear on the nameless monster and avoid any reconciliation with the truth of things? Why are we like that?
I think about this often while driving. It's one of the reasons I'm looking at new places to move this year, to get closer to work. Less time in the death machine.
I'm thinking not all of us. Watching the SOTU this evening I thought Biden’s signature optimism is such a dramatic contrast to the gloom and doom of the Trump years.
Playful, relaxed, powerful, folksy, respectful of his opponents,
enjoying the banter with rejoiners that were the result of his
abilities to use wit to silence the inevitable and embarrassing
howler monkey outbursts of Marjorie Trailer Grease and her
sidekick Gaetz, Biden was commanding when needed and empathetic.*
Our President wanted to demonstrate he could serve another four years.
He succeeded. He knocked it out of the park, IMO.
*His story about the couple with a daughter with cancer is
heartbreaking. “If she goes, I can’t stay.” Biden quotes the father
of a young girl with cancer, who is, Biden said, beating the odds and
watching from the White House. This would strike a chord with anyone who had nursed a sick child.
Anyhow, no demons here. My spirits are raised as I look forward to a great day tmrw!