Shir, I'm sorry if I panicked and over-reacted.
Also, it will sound unbelievably naive, but a part of me goes "if I'm doing all this, and I know a lot of other people who are doing great work as well, how come this world isn't better place? How come my country seems to hit the bottom of its moral barrel?"
I'm fighting that kind of discouragement and loss of faith. Every time I think that things must have hit bottom, won't get worse, that soon things will make a turn for the better, some portion of the government does something else truly ugly - making it plain that it is no longer a "government of the people, by the people, for the people" but a government over the people, for the benefit of the wealthiest people, by their bought minions. I do not have the power to hold back the tide, or alter the direction of the current. All I can do is speak out, so that I am not guilty of the sin that Martin Niemoller described ("First they came for the Communists, and I did not speak out, because I was not a Communist..." and I hope I didn't just invoke Godwin's law). I get discouraged and I think nothing I can do will help. And sometimes all I can do is to speak out, not because I think it will be effective, but so I can sleep at night, because I have not given my consent for injustice by silence.
Is there a corollary to Godwin's Law about quoting from The Lord of the Rings? Maybe there should be, but I'm going to do it anyway.
"Always after a defeat and a respite, the Shadow takes another shape and grows again."
"I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.
"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."
'The Shadow of the Past', Fellowship of the Ring.
My favorite punk band (the one with whom I am corresponding by email) has a lyric that goes, "I wanna look my children in the eye / and tell them what side I was fightin' on." And that's pretty much the whole of the reason I fight, some days. Even if I fail utterly, I want to be able to say, I was fighting.
Change happens in the heart, one person wrestling with it at a time, and over time (and probably through backtracks) that one person becomes a different person. And that person is in the world, so you have changed the world.
So beautifully said, Liese. This is the kind of worldview I try to hold in my heart.
I love my thinky, caring Bitches.
{{{{quester}}} and {{{WindSparrow}}}. Such categoric statements make me sad. I hope you both find ways to move forward, maybe taking a shape you never anticipated.
Shir, I wish you lots of luck and wisdom drawing your boundaries and am glad you have some downtime to recharge soon.
Liese, you continue to be one of my greatest inspirations. Here's another clip of Rue Fiya with their regular lead singer - [link]
I'm having a hard time getting back into the swing of things; partly my low energy from being sick, partly because part of my heart is back in NOLA*. We only worked a couple of hours this morning because it's pouring rain and in the 40s here. I came home and ate lunch and napped, and now I'm doing work stuff mostly. I just feel... off.
* Well, except for the chunk that hitched a ride to KC MO.
Such categoric statements make me sad. I hope you both find ways to move forward, maybe taking a shape you never anticipated.
Thanks for the kind thoughts, smonster. I've been in a pretty low place lately and didn't know how to articulate it until I read WindSparrow's words. Just hit me where I live.
Is there a corollary to Godwin's Law about quoting from The Lord of the Rings?
This made me laugh and laugh. I guess not too many people are pulling Godwin's Law every other sentence in the U.S., but since it's quite a very common argument in Israel...
I laughed, anyway. Wanted to post it in COMM, but I then I thought it might be a cultural thing.
~ma for Sox's DH
Feel better ~ma for sj and Shir and smonster and quester and Teppy and WindSparrow and anyone else feeling low (physically or otherwise).
Liese is my hero.
My morning, let me show you it.
I am without my Prius until the 8th or so when the body shop finishes fixing the damage done by the moron who cut across traffic and hit me in an intersection last week. The good news on that was that he did stop and had insurance and it's all on him, but still, not having a car blows. So we have a big huge work truck for ND's business that he said I should use this week since ND is working down in Irvine and I am on Spring Break, but I hesitated to do so since I am so short and have a really hard time gauging distance in a full-sized truck like that. Alas, this morning was my annual I-hate-being-a-girl GYN appointment, so I had to get there somehow. I took the truck. I swear, I was trying so hard to be slow and careful and look both ways, yet within 90 seconds of turning it on and starting the five-point turn extravaganza necessary to get turned around in our driveway, I managed to scrape up against the big white pole (that, in my defense, is a bitch to see--at least four different people have hit it over the past three years). I figured a few scrapes, shouldn't be too bad. Drove to the appointment. Stepped out and looked...and the door looks awful. It's like the thing is built to crumble at the least bit of force. It still opens and closes, but it certainly doesn't look professional.
It probably didn't help that this incident was followed by my annual; my GYN is a well-known infertility doctor too, so his office is just plastered with pictures of kids and babies. I've mostly accepted that it isn't going to happen for me, but it still hurts like hell.
So on the way home I went to two body shops to get estimates, figuring it doesn't make sense to up our insurance rates for body damage, so I'd just pay for it myself.
The first shop's estimate? $1650. The second's? $2050.
ND hasn't seen the damage yet (though I texted him what happened with a picture of it), and yet he's being very supportive about it. Still. I fucked up, and now my dream of paying off one of my many credit cards is laughable. I feel like shit about myself and about money and I'm pretty miserable right now. Sorry to braindump, but today has really sucked.
~2K to fix a door? MOG, Pix.
Oh Pix ... I am so sorry for the horrible day, love. I wish I could help make it right. Much love honey. So much love.
