Funk, Hopelessness and Change

Do you feel it? It’s all around. Hope and change has evaporated and there’s an unpleasant residue. After being drunk on “Yes We Can”, America has a hangover, experiencing the vile after taste of gullibility. Others, the resentment of “yes we KNEW”, but were not listened to.

America is in a funk.

Everyone makes mistakes in life. Some are worse than others. But the ones you look back on and say to yourself, “Yeah, I could have done more”, or, “Wow, what a fool I was”, they hurt. They hurt a lot.

Where did we go so wrong? There’s not a point in time; and, no, this isn’t simply about the last year and a half. This is about Americans who stopped paying attention, and began caring more about the Super Bowl – even the commercials – about BMWs and other status symbols than ensuring the freedoms long enjoyed in this country would be guaranteed for future generations the way they were ensured for us.



I was walking down the street in front of a restaurant earlier today. An elderly gentleman with a walker with wheels, dressed in old sweat pants and in his socks, scooted up to the edge of the street. Two women were watching from one of the restaurant’s tables. I moved slightly past him, observed momentarily to see if he was waiting for someone or about to move onto the street. There was no ramp, and the difference in elevation was easily six or so inches. I came around to one side and asked him simply, “Sir, would you like any help?” He said no and sort of laughed, then followed it up with, “Thank you. Now that’s the American spirit!”

Sad that we have arrived at a time when simple courtesy, truly looking out for one another in our day to day lives must be “the American spirit”. Or, if it is, that it’s so shocking when displayed. Of course, I did get the idea the two women at the table thought I might hurt him. Sadder still.

It’s painful now to be an American who “gets it”. Sad to see the vile lot now leading this country, and having any idea where it is they'd like to take us. I could never vote for these people. I am suspicious of my fellow citizens who helped to elect them, who still support them, who sit by while they tell us bills they vote on can’t be read, that they must be passed for us to know what is in them.



No, this did not happen overnight. Nor did it all happen in the last few years.
Most are familiar with the video of the woman who, overjoyed after Obama’s election in 2008, proclaimed she would no longer have to worry about paying her mortgage or putting gas in her car. Not, I believe, an extremely bright individual, yet she knew where we are headed. So many smarter people I know, however, were either in denial, or oblivious. Now many of them are residing with me and most of America in our funk. It’s not a pleasant place to be.

I do not have children, but I fear for the future. It pains me to hear my mother tell me of conversations she’s had with my sister, ones in which my sister expresses fears for the future of my niece. I see people with children who must worry, I see older Americans who knew very different times, many of them who’ve known many others who gave their lives for this country and so much which came to be taken for granted. I feel for them, worry with them. Often times, I hate to even now talk about the future, as I do not wish to add to their angst. I haven’t written here for many weeks for that same reason.

Now, however, I feel my own “funk” starting to fade. Underneath there is an anger which continues to build.