This week I've been trying to envision life after Trump, and while I'm still relieved (assuming his ongoing coup ultimately fails) to be in a position to consider a post-Trump landscape, I haven't been feeling too great about it, either. A lot of my concerns are 'political' to the extent that I worry about the ability of the (centrist) Democratic leadership to enact reforms (voting, health, environment, labor, inequality: choose your own response) to 'roll back' the 'libertarian' Republican agenda (i.e., loosely, a government designed to maximize corporate profits and to police the world), but I'm also concerned about the psychological toll of living in a system defined by extremes, none of which seem poised to abate more than a little. Will a Biden administration radically restructure the economy to spread the money around? Will Facebook, Google, and Apple be broken up? Will the rich start paying a LOT of taxes? Will our police departments stop acting like occupying forces? Will we ban cars? (Or at least regulate them?) Will we cancel student debt? Will we pass M4A? There are countless questions like this, and the answer to all of them seems to be 'Well, maybe we can take a few steps in that direction, but . . . .' Whatever happens, getting there -- or partially there -- is going to be contentious and grueling; and because of the system in which we live, and the high stakes of reforming it, everyone will pay attention. There's an imaginary world, often depicted by Hollywood, where Americans somehow exist largely oblivious to politics, and this world is increasingly detached from our collective reality, where most people have strong opinions about politics because they understand the extent of our problems (even if they're delusional about causes and solutions, and -- like seventy million Americans just did -- voted for Trump.) And while I don't want to live in this fictional Hollywood (or the sanitized, nostalgic version of the past upon which it's based), I also don't want to be completely consumed by our reality, which even after Trump leaves will be a big risk, because our system demands our attention; it pesters us if we turn away, even for a few minutes, telling us in screams (but sometimes whispers) that we should be doing more: making more money, getting a raise or a promotion (actually: not getting fired or laid off), acting more (or less) like this or that celebrity/influencer, donating to this or that campaign or cause, doing interesting/'interesting' things that can be documented (and monetized) on social media. My fear is that Trump did not create this world; to the contrary, my fear is that he was created by it, and when he's gone, we'll still be living in it.
In terms of coping with this reality -- by which I mean 'escaping' it, at least temporarily -- I'm sure everyone has a different solution, depending on circumstances and where you currently reside on the pyramid of needs. Given that I'm currently employed, I can afford to be relatively cavalier, even though I understand the desperation that defines the lives of so many at this juncture and -- with a few unlucky breaks -- could define mine. I mean, I actually have some spare time and I make choices about how to use it, which I believe should be a right for everyone but is more like a luxury these days. I run through the park and take pictures, which I post on this blog. It feels like I'm documenting something, even if it's mostly for myself and the imaginary audience who live in my head. I haven't written fiction in the past year, but I'm starting to think about it again. In some ways, fiction has never felt more pointless or irrelevant to me, which somehow makes it seem more interesting, although -- like anyone I guess -- I worry about whether I'm capable of writing something 'good,' notwithstanding the fact that I regularly immerse myself in television shows (and books and movies) that I feel are objectively worse than my new prospective novel. But good or bad, novels are a big investment: for me, anyway, they take years to write: I become attached to the characters, I get offended when readers criticize them (or my ability to render them in a convincing or compelling way). I think this fragility is why, this year, I've gravitated back to playing music and recording songs. Writing songs is not a big commitment but it offers a perfect escape. I've learned to fit it in with doomscrolling, which is not a habit I'm ready to break.
About a week or so ago, I finally figured out how to record a distorted guitar that -- to my ear -- sounded the way I like distortion to sound: warm and fuzzy but capable of conveying a kind of agitated dissonance and anger that has defined my understanding of life in societies (friends, family, country, etc.) to which I do and do not belong. Distortion has been a big part of much of the music I've loved over the years: discovering it -- in high school and college -- and then using it (in my band) coincided with learning who I really was, what I did and didn't like. Rediscovering it in my fingertips felt like regaining the use of a phantom limb.
Here's the song I recorded: NB: WEAR HEADPHONES AND TURN IT UP :)
Link.
In other music news, I also 'produced' a (much quieter) song my brother wrote, which you can check out here.
These days, I'm either in the park or not in the park, wondering how people decide where they want to go.
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