By Example

23 November 2023

In the seventh year of the reign of Trump,
we are floundering, just like before, as the businessmen
sell us our candy and hula hoops, and government
roves in search of destroying production. One wonders
where all of the flourishing humans are, why
none of their concerns matter here, in an empire
now far out and well on its way, toward what? If the coming election
brings blood, you may say that I warned you, but I think you knew it
already, though it may lie buried by mountains of nonsense
and oceans of shame. All the same, we strive on toward glory
and know not whence hope comes nor whether our lives can be tamed,
whether here in America still lives that germ of empowerment
that once, twice, and hence fuels revolt, and if so, whither,
where it will go, in the body in which we are parts. If we know
that the swamp has its sickness, malarial as always, that sickness
is sabotage, the purposeful undermine of confidence, always and everywhere,
and not in the spirit of philosophy proper (which by its very name
implies friendship) but rather with sick dialectics, designed to kill masters
and liberate slaves. It turns out that the masters know better
(to no one's surprise) and without them we're nothing, although
the enslaving did get a little out of hand. But is mastery itself
to blame? Or is competence simply essential to flourishing?
No, there are ways to progress unlike this, with less venom,
with generous friendship from first to last, by example.