The Curse of an Active Mind
Rich glanced again at the clock and saw that 6:30am had finally come. The pillow-top mattress of his NYC apartment bed had done a decent job of cushioning his glitchy hip and it had not been the reason for his semi-wakefulness for the past two hours. That was more likely due to the unplanned nap he had taken while getting his late afternoon fix of MSNBC and the daily DC shenanigans.
Rich had grown up overseas and had never really grown up with a morning newspaper delivery. He had never really been a news junkie like some he knew. He was particularly unengaged in the political arena. One of the events he remembered most from his Freshman year dorm life was getting dressed-down by Frank, the floor radical with the Serpico-like look and the NYC edge to his voice to go with the look. For some reason Frank took offense at Rich’s non-committal politics. He had arrived that Fall with an army jacket (bought at the Porta Portese flea market in Rome) that had an American flag on the upper arm. Was he a liberal hippie in an army coat or was he a “love it or leave it” guy who was proud to be an American. Frank seemed offended by the juxtaposition. Rich had been an expat for nine of his seventeen years and as such, genuinely missed America. But he had grown up in a very liberal-minded family that was borderline socialistic in its leanings. And, Rich was largely apolitical, happy just to be within the broadcast signal range of American television.
Over five years of higher education that spanned engineering and modern revolution studies, Rich managed to tread that line repeatedly. He had gone into banking with minimal thought about any deeper meaning, but because it was a non-committal path again. He figured he would work in banking in NYC for five years until he figured out where he really wanted to live and what he really wanted to do. Forty years, as is always the case, went by all too quickly. He read the New York Times and/or Wall Street Journal religiously but did so as a prerequisite of the job. He read no paper on Saturday and read the Sunday Times for interesting non-business stories of general interest. He never read the paper on vacation. As for the news (at 6pm or 11pm), he never bothered. No news meant less to him than political news.
When Rich’s daughter met the man she would marry, he learned that John was very much into politics as an area of interest. That struck Rich as strange and somewhat foreign to his way of thinking. This 60-something state of mind was hard-wired as apolitical. Then came 2016, and everything changed.
Even Rich’s voting patterns was ambiguous. McGovern, Carter, Reagan, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Clinton (begrudgingly), Gore, Kerry, Obama, Obama, Hilary (again, begrudgingly, but fervently anti-Trump). He was neither a registered Democrat nor Republican. He most admired Bush (HW) and Obama above all and was perhaps most disappointed in Carter, seeing hard work leading to ineffectiveness. But until Trump, the overwhelming attitude was ambivalence.
That all changed on November 8th, 2016.
When Rich wasn’t watching a movie, he watched HGTV House Hunters. That too changed that fateful day in 2016. Now all TV’s are glued to MSNBC and are constant Trump-watch. He knows he is not alone. It seems we are living in the golden age of cable news with MSNBC, Fox and CNN dominating the airwaves. Let’s get his point drilled home. Rich watches Morning Joe when he arises. If he’s in his car, his satellite radio is tuned to MSNBC live. At work he listens to live MSNBC unless someone comes into his office. If he leaves work early, it is to catch up on the day’s events on MSNBC. HGTV stock has surely plummeted in the era of Trump.
Rich wishes the Trump era would just end. He is somewhat unconcerned about what becomes of Trump (except when particularly offended by some nonsense), he just wants him gone. He wants the world to return to some semblance of civility in our political dialogue. He wants to throw away his “Resist” t-shirt and he wants to return to the oblivion of not knowing who Bob Mueller is. There are moments when Rich wonders what he will do for entertainment when Trump goes, but is reassured that there will likely be a gradual withdrawal as the Trump legal follow-through drags on for several years until the next crisis or opportunity changes the channel on national consciousness.
Rich is approaching retirement age. He longs for HGTV and movies again. He wants to return to his own personal age of innocence. He reminisces about the apathy of yesteryear. He knows he is living through the curse of an over-active mind, stimulated by Rachel Maddow and Lawrence O’Donnell. He looks forward to going to sleep without a sense of liberal offense on his mind. He looks forward to waking up with nothing on his mind except for his dry mouth.