My friend is having a 2016 party, how can I bear it?
Because when I think of 2016 I think of that election.
Because a woman in Minneapolis had her head blown off, with stuffed animals in the gloved compartment.
Because my brother is joining the reserves. “If war happens I’d rather be prepared” he says, we both understand the absurdity, neither of us laugh.
Because we live in a culture, and society which celebrates cruelty, insincerity, violence.
I’m not sure how I’m supposed to bear it these days.
I don’t think I’m alone in this feeling, caught up in a sense that everything has gone maddeningly wrong and yet there’s nothing we can do about it.
Suicide is up, mental breakdowns are up, I would hazard a guess that for those who care, the nervous laughter of an ill-premonition is more of a daily ritual than it once was.
We walk the streets amongst the discarded human refuse of a society which has decided it simply cannot bother to care.
And we speak to ourselves with two mouths, one denies the monumental state of the moment, the other proclaims its certainty.
Maybe this is the course of history, maybe in our ego we assume that this moment is special, that time and life and every hallowed moment have always been drenched in blood and the indomitable screaming. Maybe.
And yet, surely, we say in the words of W.B. Yeats, some revelation is at hand. Surely, we proclaim, the panicked students of a declining institution and a pointless education, the Second Coming is at hand!
But I think there is something unique, I think everyone with a pulse and clear ears – everyone who strains to ignore the din of 15-second AI reels, mealy-needle mouthed spokeswomen, and the barrage of static information on our screens – they can hear it. History is in the making.
What a horrifying thing to be at the making of history, the thing our parents and teachers promised us had ended, what a terrifying thing.
Here, in our less-than-ivory, slush filled puddle of a tower, we have a choice. Let history wash over us, or make it.
History is happening, who will shape it we ask? W.B. Yeats speaks once more to those who are listening.
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Do not, history begs, lack conviction.
How else can we bear it?
