wussing out

At a time when I worked as a newspaper reporter and later as a 'concerned citizen,' I was stronger about the evil shit that lurks behind socially-acceptable facades. I felt responsible and subsequently outraged by the depredations that are real, as for example in the systemic Vatican abuses of little children or the casual, money-making bloodshed that men wearing gold cufflinks can and do inflict. The vileness needs to be addressed and revised if possible.

But with age I have grown weak and thereby, perhaps, immoral. I decline with increasing frequency the opportunity to enter into grisly realities. It's depressing. I do hope that others will take up the moral baton, speak out and act up, but I no longer have what it takes. I'm not proud of it and I hate being in a position where I might rightly be accused of playing the ostrich. Still, the ostrich imagines he is safe by sticking his head in the sand. That is one illusion I don't particularly have ... but I feel a bit like an ostrich: If I don't look, I don't have to be depressed by the resounding sense of helplessness.

Yesterday, I friend emailed me an hour's worth of Youtube depictions of police brutality (I can't seem to make it begin at the beginning) ... mindless, cruel, self-serving and not at all a defense of a public that sometimes needs police protection. I watched it and, assuming it has some basis in fact, felt as if I had been lowered into a cesspool. When I email-responded that I found it depressing, he sent me "more" -- a broader look at the frightening intrusiveness of government under the banner of patriotism. And then again more ... which I decided not to watch.

I can still be grouchy as a wet cat when I hear pollyanna renditions of spiritual or political life, but it seems that I too might pass for a pollyanna. Frankly, I am getting old enough to care less about what anyone calls me. I don't like living in garbage and, to the extent that I can avoid that situation, I will.

As I say, I do hope others have more energy.

Yesterday, I built a chocolate-on-chocolate cake. It turned out pretty well.