All installments in reverse chronological order
"The child is the father of the man," they say. Surprisingly, I understood this even as a child. And so I willfully sent forward to my elder self some thoughts and images which I knew would be helpful, and which I suspected I'd otherwise forget.
I always wondered about the word "hate". It was one of several terms I suspected I understood differently from other kids. So I decided it might clarify things to try to draw a line between hatred and milder aversions, finally devising this test:
If this person were shipped off to Tahiti, and you were guaranteed never to run into them, or hear about them, ever again, would you wish them a bad life in Tahiti?I mentally ran through various candidates. Nasty kids and bullies. Sadistic teachers. Gristly historical figures. But in all cases, merely shipping them off and being done with them seemed to suffice. While I was easily capable of contempt and repugnance, I concluded that I didn't hate.
Oddly, I never once considered the inhabitants of Tahiti. A rare slip of my childhood self. But I certainly never wished them ill.
At age 61, I still haven't found anyone I'd wish a horrible time in Tahiti. Though I might need several massive container ships to handle the transport.
Yesterday, Donald Trump was convicted of 34 felony counts. I'm relieved that the system worked. I'm very relieved that, at least as a candidate, he won't receive secret security reports. And there has been no individual in my lifetime who I more desperately wished to vanish to Tahiti.
However I don't understand the celebration. This is not a good day. None of this is good. I can't find a framing that makes this good, except in some garish cartoon where The Bad Guys lost and we (of course, "we"!), The Good Guys, won.
We don't live in a cartoon, and I take no joy in seeing Trump punished or miserable, because I don't care about the guy. What I really want is to stop hearing about - stop thinking about - Donald Trump. I want him in Tahiti!
But everyone else seems to care persistently and deeply...one way or the other. Nearly every one of us, I'll bet, would eagerly follow his Tahitian exploits, for purposes of either adoration or abhorance. Everyone but me seems hellbent on paying him the infinite attention he so desperately seeks.
My baseline view of this guy stems from the acknowledgement that if someone had told me, in 1990 or 2000 or 2010, that I'd be compelled to speak his name daily for a decade, and constantly have that guy on my mind, that would be a seriously horrible outcome for my life.
So what I want is for it to stop. I do not enjoy paying attention to him. And hatred is attention. Strong attention. Rapt attention! I want two simple things: 1. preserve democracy, and 2. remove that guy from my screens.
I want him shipped off to Tahiti, and never heard from again. And I would not feel the slightest impulse to check in on him there. Because I have no strong attachments. No love, no hate, just a desperate desire to change the channel. So if, on that distant island, he passes his time jubilantly sucking down mocktails on the beach while feebly and briefly shtupping every porn star, fine! What the hell do I care?
The "Former Guy" trope, which superficially seemed to reflect that same mindset, was actually the very oppposite. Like "the N word", it was an example of power enhancement via euphemism. Both euphemisms glow with emotion and investment compared to the stupid, absurdly impotent terms they replace.
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