Tuesday, December 30, 2014

My New Years Resolution Right Up To 2017

Here is my new years wish right up until 2017.  I said as much when I entitled it last year around this time.  And yes, it is still my new years wish.  May we find the humility that brings true strength.

2013 seems to be a year I shouldn't miss.  Though life's experience thus far has taught me there always seems to be some memories to cherish even in hard times.

I met a 1st cousin of my mother's who has an amazingly sharp mind in spite of frequently forgetting what was said just a minute or two ago.  The contrast between her short term and long term memories was amazing and I felt just as amazingly fortunate to have met her.  I know, how many times could I use the word 'amazing' there, but it seems quite fitting in spite of whatever literary critique it may attract.

I saw lightning bugs which I hadn't seen since my childhood, and for the first time I saw the attic bedrooms that my father and his siblings used when they were growing up.  I've decided I want an attic like that myself some day.  Nothing like having three or four bedrooms right there in case company comes over.

And oh yes, the public's perception of the president has finally begun to come down.  We in the United States in general seem to have an entirely unjustified reverence for whoever we elect president.  It's as if somehow by electing a president the nation bestows the dignity and honor of the collective populace upon that person.  

It's collectivist nonsense at its finest.  By essentially worshiping a president we worship ourselves, and even worse than worshiping ourselves as individuals, we worship ourselves as a collective we call the "American people".  As fine a country as the United States may be and as unusually common is nobility amongst its people, worship is inappropriate.  Especially when it is of any collective.

Too many of us read way to much meaning into the fact that the president is the only nationally elected public office.  Instead of seeing democracy as a lesser of evils that only represents at best a momentary glimmer of a generally vague public sentiment, too many of us see the president as the people's avatar.

This I suspect explains why approval polls consistently put any congress below the same ratings of their contemporary president.  It's because many people see the president as the human embodiment of the nation as a whole and to assign the president blame for things would be like accepting the blame themselves.  And it is human nature to want to blame others first.

Though I would hope the current president's drop in the polls would actually translate into Americans accepting responsibility for our problems, I suspect that rather they are finding ways to transform Barack Obama from their avatar into their scapegoat.

In other words I look on this good news from 2013 with a scant eye.  If he continues to slide in the polls right onto 2016 I fear the same group of foolish avatar-makers will just find themselves a new one.

What we really need is someone like George Washington who will step in and announce to the American people that no one person can or should be as important as we keep trying to make our presidents.  And that it is not that an individual can ever be so important, but that the individual always is even more so.

Can we hope for that much wisdom in such a high office?  That is my new years wish.

I wish you a happy new year.

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