Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Two Minutes, Eighteen Seconds Before the Apocolypse
Driving to work today, I realized that my belief in our personal power to influence the government (I'm referring specifically to voting) compares to my belief of whether or not there is a God.
Coincidences and turns of events in my experience cause me to feel something existing, controlling or at least influencing everything, whether that force is completely chaotic, cyclical, or following a benevolent or at least narrative time-line with fire and dragons at the end. Popular culture and close friends tell me that I must vote because the popular vote makes a difference, but others say it has no influence whatsoever. The way I believe and feel about politics is malleable, much like my metaphysical beliefs and leanings. I vote because maybe something exists. If it doesn't, hi-ho, into the black hole we go.
It seems the financial problem is much more telling of what letting existential abstractions and distractions like credit run our lives than debates are. We're selling mortgages for houses built on invisible sand. I don't think a debate can be real without more voices being heard. Its not so black and white.
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Before learning I "drink far too much" (I lied, said it was more like 20-25/week) and "have the heart of an athlete," outside, drinking a semi-burnt espresso on a sweltering picnic table I thought of this. Of credit. How the solution to our woes is for governments and financial institutions to loan out more money. Which should only make things worse, eventually. Money is the great abstract and so very concrete too. I wish I could say it is abstract when you don't have it and concrete when you do, but this is not true. I'm not exactly sure what is true. I do know that for the next few weeks I do not have to worry about where my meals come from, whether they will be there when the air in my stomach churns. I suppose this is what matters, but somewhere between the abstract and the concrete lies the knowledge that things can get worse or things can get better or maybe stay the same. Maybe none of it has ever changed. Of course things are bad, it's a depression, but I don't really feel any worse than usual. I suppose this is a plus to chronic morbidness. My dour is constant. Now if I can only find somewhere to do some cheap copies for me...
when I don't have money and I'm worrying about where my next meal is coming from, it becomes very concrete. When a big decision rests on something like 2 dollars, deciding whether or not to give in and eat or to stick it out, to wait to eat until before I go bed so I can sleep. the money is concrete at that point. its when you're making major purchases on credit, when you're paycheck is direct deposit, you don't know what's in your fucking 401k because it fluctuates with the tides of conservative greed and buyer's intuition/indecision that money becomes this abhorred abstraction. money has always been associated with guilt for me, ever since my mom gave me a dollar to buy gum and i spent it at the arcade. that's one of the first time's i can remember feeling guilt, except for maybe when we had to kill the snake that got into the basement in nebraska.
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