The Pendulum

Published a piece on Medium called The Pendulum, about the shift from despair to tentative hope while I ponder all the catastrophic implications of the Trump presidency. I also mention the Thai Blind Orchestra. Both of these things came to me in an NPR report this morning, on a drive to take care of some errands.

The Pendulum on Medium:

The future does not look bright. In fact, in some moments, like driving down the road listening to these NPR reports, it looks frankly terrifying. My head constructs something that looks like Flint in the middle of its water crisis, and NYC and Detroit at the height of urban decay, and the Rust Belt and Appalachia at their most desolate, featuring lone-wolf terrorists in prominent roles, both Middle Eastern and radicalized American. I think this is what they call “catastrophizing”… or just “hysteria,” if you want to spare a syllable. 

At these times, I tell myself that I just have to protect my family and seek high ground. Civil society has always been build on the bedrock of a hostile wilderness, after all… will that world, where we have to fight for survival, finally start peeking through? When is it ethical for a non-violent leftist to buy a gun? Is a coming apocalypse the right time to rethink that principle?

At this point, it was not a pleasant drive.