Orchids, Oceans, and Cockroaches
I find myself rocked and roiled by what I see, hear, and think about as a tiny speck of interplanetary dust in the 24th year of the 21st century. Correspondents tell me that they want to hide from the bizarre and the imbecilic swirling around them. A hole is to dig, I have heard. A hole is to hide, but hide where?
It doesn't matter who shot at Donald Trump, whether democrat or republican, baptist or muslim, cultist or anarchist. It happened, and all of us, you and I included, have allowed a culture of violence and hatred to pull that trigger.
This shooting, and others preceding it, does not follow the law of unintended consequences. It was fully intentional. It followed, as night follows day, from a sense of overwhelming helplessness. The institutions that should offer a reasonable and solid architecture of morality, understanding, cooperation and fairness have disintegrated into self-serving shambles. Brilliant kids-now-billionaires dictating election results? Religions abusing children? Nazi-haters using nazi tactics to justify genocide?
As Mike Allen writes on Axios (7.14.24): "We've watched it build from a lunatic shooting a member of Congress in the head, to the bullets sprayed at members of Congress playing ball, to the brutality and violence on Jan. 6, to a crazed man pounding to near-death the husband of Nancy Pelosi."
We seem to be in an endless race, but to what end?
The only race that looms large right now is the human race, and it seems to be in tatters. An unknown God has created a panoply of creatures - orchids, oceans, cockroaches - living on one fragile planet. Who is to say that any one of these is better than any other?
The only certainty for me is that nothing can thrive on the leftover crumbs of affection.
Not a person.
Not a democracy.
c. Corinne Whitaker 2024
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copyright 2024 Corinne Whitaker
