NYC was pretty great on 9/12, too (every 9/11 has its 9/12). It's in times like these that humans shake off their hypnosis momentarily and remember themselves. Life comes to life. I live for broken moments - personal and societal (as I child I loved playing with calculators whose batteries were almost depleted), and don't understand why most of us fear them so. Breakages, bottoming-outs and reboots are blissful; we all know this deep down.
(The phrase "I give up" - pretty much the most anti-American statement one can utter - is an unsung talisman, if invoked with absolute resolution. Try it someday.).
Try to bear in mind that many of the tens of millions of Americans geared up to "shake up the system" via Mr. Trump subconsciously yearn for this. They hanker for life to come to life, and I can't say I don't sympathize at some level, despite my abject frozen horror. As I once wrote:
The...resistance to surprise is what gave rise to the Hindu goddess Kali being known as the goddess of destruction (remember those depraved cultists in "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom"?). She gets a bad rap. What she actually is is the goddess of creativity. But to those who tenaciously cling to status quo, her bottomless thirst for change and the immense energy she wields in empowering the world's ceaseless churning represent all that is destructive, dangerous, and deathly. She's the very root of all our fears because, being infinitely surprising, over time she breaks absolutely everything.
Never forget Mr. Rogers' story about his mother:
When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, "Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.' To this day, especially in times of 'disaster,' I remember my mother's words, and I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers - so many caring people in this world.
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