No High Road

 

Original post by science-fiction author David Gerrold.

"I am flawed. I know it. I can be lazy, selfish, arrogant, judgmental, and as self-centered as a Republican.

(See, notice how arrogant and judgmental that last one was?) 

All those courses and workshops and seminars and trainings that I've been taking for 40 years — in the hopes that I might someday learn how to behave like a responsible human being — ?

They worked. Enough that I can once in a while pretend to be something more than a cranky old curmudgeon with idealistic principles. 

Most of those courses were about giving up judgments, about recognizing the humanity of others, about respect and compassion and empathy — about creating positive and worthwhile and empowering relationships. 

That's the goal. It's a lifelong process. Every day is another opportunity to learn, to explore, to discover, and to practice — because practice makes permanent. 

There's a question a trainer once asked. "What do you have to do to a person to get them that screwed up?" It's a question that stops the emotional reaction and replaces it with a much less judgmental consideration of the moment.

But I have to confess a singular failure. I cannot — I absolutely cannot find it in me to stop despising the man and his enablers for the damage that they have deliberately done to this nation. I wish I could be enlightened enough to say, "This too shall pass." 

But I'm not.

There are families that have been broken up, the parents deported, the children still locked in cages. 

Over 200,000 Americans have died due to the incompetence and ignorance and sheer malevolence of this administration. 

Programs that were put in place by multiple previous administrations — programs designed to help the working families of America, the farmers and laborers, the poor and the hungry and the sick — those programs have been dismantled and shut down. 

Bullies and thugs have been given tacit permission to threaten and intimidate minorities and women. Trans people, Muslims, Jews, Asians, and others have been targeted.

The federal treasury has been looted by robber barons. Valuable alliances have been destroyed. The level of pain and suffering that has been created is unimaginable. 

But after all of that has been acknowledged, what is left is the pathetic posturing of a man whose behavior is so demented and bizarre that any rational human being must recoil in horror.

The people who benefit from this situation, who encourage it, who profit by it — they are evil. 

But the man himself? He glories in his own delusions. Evil flourishes as a result of his ignorance, incompetence, malevolence, and stupid pretense of power. 

So I cannot help myself. I despise him, I despise all who benefit from his reign of error. And I despise those who are too stupid to recognize the damage that he has done to all of us. 

I am not enlightened enough to forgive. I am not noble enough to give up my rage. I am simply not good enough to take a road that high. 

The best I can say? I do not wish him ill. 

I simply wish that he gets all of the consequences that he has fairly earned."