I’ve been feeling a little overwhelmed lately. Actually, a lot overwhelmed. I think a lot of people have. Indeed, I know so.
This—this space, this cyber-venue—is where
I concentrate on a more philosophical look at things. Where I avoid politics
and stick mostly to the common ground of nostalgic memories. Places in the mind
where we are all more alike than different. Places where “what we are” is
human, with no “isms” or “ists” attached. 
Malaise - a feeling of discomfort or unease
Maintaining that careful duality is the
reason I have two different blogs, one “literary”, and the other, “political”.
However, I have been prodding my muse to help me put together a lighthearted,
mildly humorous tale of the “good ol’ days” to spin for you, but even she can’t
seem to pierce this wall of resigned ennui that has taken hold. Or maybe ennui
isn’t quite the right word. Perhaps it’s more like malaise—a restless discomfort
and general feeling of unease.
Don’t worry. It’ll pass… I think. I hope. But
for now, it seems like a stationary front, come to rest and holding until some
chance refreshing breeze comes along to blow it away.
I feel tired a lot. Exhausted some days. I
would like nothing better than to sleep soundly for eight, ten, or even twelve
hours. But I go to bed bone tired, and awake every hour or hour-and-a-half
after that, all night long, which, anyway, usually isn’t more than six hours
long, with a couple of those spent reading whatever it is I’m reading at the
time to distract myself, and a lot of time also spent eyes closed, but wide
awake behind the curtain, with random, often apocalyptic thoughts ablaze in my
bloodshot mind’s eye.
More than malaise—malaise-plus—it is a
state of weariness and defeat. Twenty years ago, I might still have known how
to deal with it, how to gather strength from adversity. How to stand my ground
and fight. But at this stage, I’ve forgotten how. And it gets me down.
Given my lifetime of intimate connection
with current events, my constant analysis of the news, my serious dedication to
researching historical trends and the pendulum swings between democracy and
authoritarianism, progressive and regressive, freedom and tyranny, good and
evil, all bent on unveiling truths, I should be accustomed to taking tendencies
like the present one as just another chapter in history to be studied, analyzed
and pondered, without letting it reach down inside of me and rip out my guts.
But, alas, I can’t.
I can’t because history has taught me that
the living generations of today might think this is all new, but it isn’t.
Those with a memory, those who know historical sequences intimately and value
the importance of learning history, of delving
deep and not just scratching the surface, have seen this movie before, or have
gained insight after the fact. They know that some of the most cataclysmic chapters
in modern history have developed around ordinary people’s unrest. People’s
often warranted feeling that things should be better for them. A feeling as
contagious as a pandemic plague that spreads from one individual to another and
ends up infecting whole nations, when not—gods forbid—the whole world.
When that feeling runs rampant through
societies, people want change. They want it now, now, now! And they aren’t
particular about how it happens. It’s a first cousin to a lynch mob mentality. They
will take it, and they will cheer it and root it onward, no matter what the
cost might be. And they’ll worry about the consequences later. When, of course,
it will be far too late to halt and consider further. Too late for their
perceived rivals (who are no such thing, since we nobodies are all in this
together), and too late for them.
Because, wherever there is general unrest,
there are always cunning, ruthless, violent, unscrupulous men, who know exactly
how to tap into the raw power of that discontent and make it their own. They feed
on it and grow huge from the malevolent nourishment with which it provides
them. All the while their goal is simply more power for them, until it becomes
absolute. But the art of their cunning is knowing how to make others believe
that theirs is an altruistic mission for which they have been anointed by the
almighty to be the people’s savior.
It is known as populism—i.e., movements of
the people—and it comes in all flavors, from far-left to far-right, with the
one uniting criterion being fanatical fundamentalism. But populism is something
of a misnomer, because the power of the people is only such until they hand it
over to charismatic leaders for “safe keeping”. Then, it quickly becomes
tyranny.
Russia 1917, Italy 1925, Germany 1933,
Spain 1936, they all began with popular discontent, followed with the embracing
of a charismatic leader, and ended tragically and in tyranny.
It’s all just hitting too close to home
for me right now. Everything I’ve ever
believed in (and that my father before me believed in and took up arms to
defend), everything I’ve ever struggled for and sacrificed to protect,
everything I’ve sworn an oath to uphold and care for, everything I have had
occasion to literally risk my life for, is being intentionally set ablaze. And,
like in the run-up to the worst war in the history of the world, it is taking
place with huge crowds cheering deafeningly as they gleefully watch the bonfire
of our best institutions, traditions, and ethical mores, kindled with some of the
most valuable of our books.
These are echoes of the perilous times, before
I was born, that my father told me about. Times when we were the good guys who
stepped in, across the sea, to show the bad guys that evil had consequences,
that tyranny wouldn’t be tolerated, that authoritarianism would be crushed,
that there was a strong, clear-minded, clean-cut and democratic new kid in the
global village, who wasn’t taking any crap from bullies, and who would defend
others against them as well.
 |
| You can never be silent again |
But this is worse. It’s internal,
intestinal, pernicious, and it is infecting the entire body at once. And those
of us who see it, those of us who have lived it in a different time and place,
are powerless to stop it, because this is a first-time experience for most, who
think they´ve just got the flu when they have cancer.
The malaise I’m feeling isn’t for me. It’s
for others, for the social body that is gravely ill and doesn’t know it.
Politically and humanly speaking, I’m a survivor of this deadly virus. I’m
immune to the deceit of its symptoms. But there is a major after-effect of
having had it and survived: Once cured, you can never be silent again.
You’re like the proverbial tree in the
forest. You still make a loud and resonating sound. Even if no one else is listening.
