They love puppies. They love children. They love sunsets and bird watching. And if you tell them the pandemic is bullshit they grow fangs and hiss at you. If you tell them you love Trump as a President their faces turn red and nothing good comes out of any further conversation at that point. A transition happens, a transmogrification, from something seemingly benign, to something nigh on demonic. I’ve seen this happen more than once, in front of my eyes. In general, I forestall it by lying.
But how is this happening? Why is this happening?
What is stupefying to me, horrifying, and unbelievably frustrating, is that the world could be saved NOW. We could secure for the next 100 generations prosperity, freedom, comfort, and peace. We could become a planet where most people spend most of their time on spiritual pursuits. We could make all of our public lives, and all of our social lives beautiful. We could build beautiful towers in the sky, vast swathes of flowers. We could built heaven on Earth.
But I would guess at least 100 million Americans have fallen under the sway of ideas which will take that future away from us all. It will take it from them, and from me, and from my children. They work every day, tirelessly, in the pursuit of ugliness and stupidity. They work in the name of the Good for the reality of the Bad, of the extreme, of the hideous, bound, and terrified.
Why? Have demons infiltrated our world and filled them like so many body snatchers? Why are they so fucking stupid? Why can’t they pause for JUST A MOMENT and realize what they are doing so blindly, so compulsively?
It is a question for the ages. Why do humans build Hell so assiduously even when given all the tools to build Heaven. We have not been left without resources. On the contrary.
Good people: can you please wake up now? It’s much too late to be sleeping. And if you insist on sleeping, you are not good people, are you? Sustained stupidity can and should be viewed as willful.
And I would add that, almost by definition, cowards cannot be truly good people. Goodness requires bravery.