Reflecting on Life, Politics, and Society: A Stream-of-Consciousness Personal Essay on Emotional Intelligence, Critical Thinking, and the Human Condition

I’m supposed to publish something today. I have nothing ready; more than a dozen essays are outlined, just waiting for me to sit down and bleed but I haven’t felt it. Last week I was editing my essay on depression. It took me days to get through that. Afterward, I slipped into a minor depression. I tried to write but couldn’t think ahead of more than a few words. My thoughts were scattered and overlapping. I realized later that I was too focused on writing something targeted. When I allowed myself to write thoughtlessly the words came effortlessly. Since I have nothing ready today, I wanted to talk about this week; A “Last Week Today” kind of thing. Considering yesterday’s event, I’ve been processing how I feel about it. Everyone’s talking about him regardless of what people think of him. That contributes to my feelings about him and everything. There are a few things I would like to get into.

          Firstly, Shannon Doherty died yesterday. I watched some of Beverly Hills 90210. When the show was released in ’90 I was six years old. It didn’t exactly represent my purview—you know? It was about a bunch of teenagers born in the 70s. I watched Charmed in the late 90s. Besides the general theme of three witching sisters fighting evil, I don’t recall much of the show. I enjoyed Heathers and Mallrats. Doherty’s passing wouldn’t have received much attention anyway had she not passed away on the same day as you know, because she’s been relatively inactive since Charmed, but she did pass away on the same day. I think a paragraph in recognition of her contribution to entertainment is merited. It may inspire me to rewatch Charmed (or try to. I struggle to sit through an entire series these days). Shannon Doherty was 53 years old.

          Secondly, politics used to be a fascinating thought experiment into the human condition, because it didn’t consume the lives of everyone. Some people were wholly affected by it but nowhere to the extent it is today. I’m appalled by the heightened level of reactionary bias-induced behaviors of people. The thoughtlessness on both sides of the arena today provides merit to the fact that we’re an emotionally stunted culture. Where we are at, behaviorally, is… I mean it’s unfathomable. And even more so considering we’re largely unaware of this formative breakdown. At least we’re unaware of where our cultural breakdown is genuinely rooted. I’m adamantly against the forced loss of life, which is to say that I am, literatim, Pro-Life: death penalty, abortion, murder, whatever if the result is the loss of life, I’m against it. *Disclaimer, while I believe there are alternatives to some cases like what to do with people who are incapable of cooperating in society and the fact that I’m male and therefore have no realistic concept of abortion, etc. I don’t have the answers; I’m not going to revert to what I can relate to and build my entire worldview on emotionally compromising with myself, simply because applying uncomfortable critical thought might be too hard.

          Thirdly, and with all that said, I realized I’m so numb to the new reality of political encompassment that I don’t care. I went to work last night, and a coworker mentioned (it wasn’t the first time I heard about it) that someone tried to assassinate Trump. I’d been processing it since I heard about the event moments after it happened. My coworker mentioned it to me, and I had nothing to say. Accept about how people will react to it. It’s not just Trump either. I thought about how I would feel if someone took a shot at Biden or any politician. And while the loss of life in that manner is repulsive to me. Politics isn’t real. At least not the way most people think about it. Most people focus on the story, the narrative and the commentary. People don’t care about the policy and legislation. Not really. I don’t think the American people are emotionally capable of maintaining a healthy relationship with policy and legislation. In part because we’re as poorly educated now as we have ever been and are far more outspoken and reactionary than we have ever been. That’s not a healthy correlation. Many people are weary of education, particularly the public education system, but most don't understand how ideas and beliefs develop. I didn’t finish university. I grew disillusioned with the institution when an economics professor forced his classes (of which I was among) to buy a textbook he was the author of for the class syllabus. My experience went downhill from there. So, to a degree I get it.

However, I dropped out after three years and recognized the underlying benefit of an education's influence on a person’s ability to discern rationally. It’s important to know and understand the rules to break them. It’s fascinating to me that on the one hand, we know that humans need to be taught how to be human, in our formative years we’re watching, mimicking, and learning how to be human. And on the other hand, the idea that we have to learn how to think, to apply unbiased critical thought comes off as offensive to almost everyone. The way I see it we have to work through dangerous dichotomies collectively as a culture before we’re capable of overseeing anything. We don’t merely arrive at a point in our lives when the necessity to keep learning how to relate to our minds, emotions, situations, and other people, simply offsets. That’s absurd. Our thoughtless certainty is dangerous. While I think that Trump’s rhetoric precariously influences the way an already unbalanced society thinks and relates to one another in an alarmingly harmful way. I don’t want to see the man dead. Perhaps he can fake his death in a cartoonish way and live out his life on some island.

          Lastly, my cousin had a baby this weekend. Her name is Lyla James. They live in Atlanta. I can't say when I'll meet her. Hopefully sooner rather than later. Lyla James made my grandmother a great-grandmother. My grandmother turned 96 this year. You see, these things are real. Congratulations to my cousin and her husband and my entire Georgia family! It's overcast and hot out. My cats are sleeping. There's music coming from my television. Voices are traveling through the floorboards from the bar below, there's no music though which is unusual. A train is quickly skating along the tracks across the street, it almost sounds like the streets and tracks are wet but I don't think it's raining. The day is rapidly passing me by; as do many these days.