A Brighter Future?

Pick up any newspaper (you still do that?), peruse social media, or conduct research on your favorite news Internet sites, and you don’t have to go very far to find bad news.  We see politicians trying to outdo each other as medical czars working to outlaw mask mandates, threatening sanctions for vaccine requirements, or promoting untested medical solutions. We see faux election audits, new voter restrictions designed to disenfranchise specific ethnic groups, and false claims of 2020 election malfeasance.  We would seem to be on the brink of disaster, and perhaps we are.

We watched as a sitting president held rallies that looked more like a visit to the Star Wars Cantina than a gathering of “my fellow Americans.”  We see zombie-like cult-crazed victims of the big lie now trying to justify their actions on January 6th in court trials.  We have politicians supporting the "fraud of election fraud" by joining the new Insurrection Party.   We almost get whiplash with the hard political shift to the right headed toward authoritarian rule being excused as a counter to the horrors of mislabeled “socialism.”  We further see the continuing chaos of a hopefully waning viral pandemic where predicted shortages are set to be the Grinch that steals yet another Christmas.

Star Wars Cantina

Is there light at the end of this tunnel or is it merely the headlight of another train?  I’m hoping for daylight, but I would recommend moving slowly forward to avoid the distinct possibility of another locomotive.  We recently saw what can happen when a barely functioning congress ran head-on into a once-in-a-century killer virus.  It was a time where we desperately needed a well-oiled governing body and had naught but the lumbering rusted hulk of a once-revered democracy.

The Light at the End of the Tunnel

We are living in a time of self-inflicted chaos.  We are witness to former friends and neighbors being transformed into ideological enemies at the mercy of false gossip that spreads faster than a tachyonic particle.  For those of you who may be unfamiliar with tachyons, they are theoretical faster-than-light particles that defy the laws of physics.  Tachyons are much like honest politicians, we’ve theorized about their existence, but no one has ever seen one.

So, what is there to look forward to?  Is there life post-Trump, post-Covid?  Well, since both are still with us and exist as major sources of irritation, perhaps we need to adjust ourselves and our expectations to the reality that both annoyances will continue into the foreseeable future.  Life continued after the Spanish flu of 1918, the Asian flu of 1957, and the Hong Kong flu of 1968.  Life will once again settle into some sort of normalcy, but it is doubtful that it will look like 2016; probably more like 1984, and not the year but the book.

The post-pandemic world will be different.  We are already seeing an altered workforce where people are being a bit more discerning about the jobs they will accept.  Supply chain shortages have hit many.  Inflation looms as gas prices climb.  Hopefully, we will see a more global future and will no longer believe that we live on an island where nationalism is its own reward.  This pandemic rocked the entire world and not just some obscure country in Africa.  This time we were forced to pay attention.

Diogenes of Sinope

The direst area of concern will be in the political arena where far too many politicians have abandoned their oath of office in pursuit of power and wealth at the expense of others.  We can only hope that there remain enough individuals of conscience to return us to something resembling normalcy.  That light we see at the end of the tunnel may just be Diogenes of Sinope, the Greek cynic philosopher with his lantern looking for an honest man.