Is It Time?

I think it’s time to write again. Maybe, kinda, I’m thinking about it. Sorta. I guess I should write about writing. That would be a novel idea. Hah! Novel!!

We’ll see about that.

Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash

I don’t like that I haven’t written in over a year. I’ve even had another Covid shot! Maybe I got complacent. Maybe I ran out of ideas. Maybe aliens took over my brain. There’s no explanation. Maybe I just ran out of things to say.

Nah. Not me. I’m an observer and can always describe things in my sight.

Besides, if I do start writing again, it will distract me from so many troublesome things: the war in Israel and the rise of antisemitism; the war between Russia and Ukraine; the frightening dog fight for candidacy in the 2024 elections; and my brittle fingernails. Distraction. What a noble goal!

MEANWHILE… I cannot leave this page without commenting on the tragedy that befell my fellow Jews and other innocents on October 7th by Hamas terrorists. The murders of Israeli innocents and capture of hostages was the largest attack on my people since the Holocaust. As of this writing the hostages have still not been returned. Alive. The United States government is urging for a ceasefire and wants to send supplies to Gaza. I fear the “peace’ and supplies will only be used to further strengthen the terrorists.

Another painful knot in our history. THERE ARE NO WORDS. Prayers for the victims and their families. May Hashem avenge their blood. #StandWithIsrael

Photo by Oleg Vakhromov on Unsplash

Schroedinger’s President

I have not listened to the news yet. It’s November 4th, the day after the US elections and I still do not know whether Trump or Biden is the projected winner of the election, this hotly controversial election, this disgrace of an election.  I don’t know even if there is a projected winner because all of the mailed-in ballots have not yet been counted.

My unwillingness to hear the news reminds me of the Schroedinger’s Cat thought experiment.

“Schroedinger’s Cat Poster”, © Jay Gannett, CC BY-SA 2.0

Erwin Schrödinger, an Austrian physicist, posited this in 1935:

[A] cat, a flask of poison, and a radioactive source are placed in a sealed box. If an internal monitor (e.g. Geiger counter) detects radioactivity (i.e. a single atom decaying), the flask is shattered, releasing the poison, which kills the cat. The Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics implies that after a while, the cat is simultaneously alive and dead. Yet, when one looks in the box, one sees the cat either alive or dead, not both alive and dead. This poses the question of when exactly quantum superposition ends and reality resolves into one possibility or the other.⁽¹⁾

Thus, in my current state of mind, both Trump and Biden have been elected. Once I hear the news, it will resolve into one possibility or the other. OR WILL IT?

Cringeworthy electioneering dominated the news: name-calling, lies, posturing, COVID-19 superspreader events, vitriol, and fearmongering. Between the virus and the elections, I avoided news, sought escape watching comedy recordings, woodturning videos, and snippets of House episodes on YouTube. I mailed my ballot and received email confirmation that it was received. DONE! I’ve been subjected to the circus for overlong, having made my decision well before the last moment. I’ve had it. Even the Baltimore mayoral race doesn’t excite me—it’s a foregone conclusion the Democratic candidate will win.

I don’t have a TV, and only read the funnies and do the crossword puzzle in the free Sunday newspaper that lands on my doorstep every week. I mostly get my news from NPR radio and internet, but I have to choose to listen and choose to view a particular news site. Remember choice? Six second political ads bookended my YouTube viewing choices. I succumbed to watching Jimmy Fallon, Stephen Colbert, and Seth Meyers’s monologues. Although heavily anti-Trump, lampooning Biden only a fifth as much as the president, they were compelling, like rubbernecking at an auto accident or picking a scab.

“ABC News 29 September 2020 Presidential Debate”, © Elvert Barnes, CC BY-SA 2.0

Even when I finally hear the news, barring a landslide victory for one or the other candidate, the election results will be in a state of flux until the final votes are counted, contested, and vetted by the Court. Accusations of mail fraud, disputes over postmarks, lawsuits and voter roll examinations loom ahead. Thus, Schroedinger’s President.

When will the election be decided? Who knows? I shrug my shoulders and reach for my mug. This is all beyond me. Just as COVID-19 will dominate my life and thoughts night and day for the next while, this reality of this election will linger. No clear resolution presents itself. A supernatural superimposed Trump-Biden presidential state exists as long as I don’t look, as long as the results are contested, as long as the Electoral College has not cast their votes and selected the victor. But this is unprecedented; even after that point, the election could still be contested.

It could go on and on and on. Is ignorance bliss?

I’d better gird myself with a big cup of coffee before I clock in to work. Maybe later I’ll crack open that bottle of wine I’ve had for nearly 5 years after work. I think I’ll need it.

/-/-/-/-/-/-/-

1. Source: Wikipedia, Schrödinger’s Cat, Retrieved 4 November 2020.↩

No Second Thoughts

This is how I feel. “Towel Dry” by Christina Welsh, used under CC BY-ND 2.0

How would I describe this presidential election season?

I choose from a whole slew of adjectives at hand to choose from—endless, tiring, shameful, contentious, disgusting, embarrassing, slimy, frightful, and jading to name a few—but irritating fits the bill as well as any. It’s bland enough to go about with your daily business but strong enough to worry at like a hangnail. For in the end, I am convinced that there is not much I can do to avoid the choice between awful and terrible.

I feel twitchy, restless, and apprehensive. Really irritated. So much so that this morning, Election Day, I dare not turn on the radio. I don’t want to hear the pundits. This has been going on too long. The process is broken. The trial balloons started rising in 2014, fer gosh sakes. That’s two years ago! I wish they had popped and never left the ground. I cast them in lead and drown their first-born. I salt their earth and inveigh the wrath of the Heaven against the universe that spawned them.

Figuratively, that is.

“Second Thoughts” by Laura Billings, used under CC BY-NC 2.0

Meditation may help soothe me. I will gaze outside my windows, admire the gaily colored leaves adorning the trees, and breathe in (noting the position of my shoulders and rib cage), then breathe out (modulating the velocity of my breath). I will remember my Lamaze training—which I usually conjure during dental work—and go somewhere far away, a pleasant place, where calm and tranquility reign, and the only thing to mar the surface of the lake is the occasional ripple from a gentle breeze. I will cast my mind to far above the clouds, to the Moon perhaps, where eons make a difference, and a footstep on its surface will be evident for centuries to come. Breathe in, blow out, huff puff blow—this baby better be worth it!

I will vote today. My vote won’t count as I’m not in a “swing state” but indeed, I will vote; we’re choosing a mayor here, did you hear? No? Me neither. I listen to public radio and talk shows but there’s not much political news about anyone except the top guy and gal. How do I make an informed decision then?

I hope I won’t have second thoughts about my choices in the election booth years down the road. I hope my country will survive this battle, growing closer together rather than stockpiling worse epithets and stronger artillery for the next bout in 2020 [for which the blasted trial balloons will start to rise even earlier, I suspect].

The future as I see it, stormy weather ahead. © Batya7, Just Having Fun

I’m planning to avoid the news until tomorrow morning. I will wake up like any other day, switch on  my computer and walk away to prepare a cup of coffee. After taking my vitamins, I will return to my desk with a cup of hot solace and breathe in the aroma. Breathe in, hold it, then gently let it out.