Since leaving the USA earlier this summer I have re-discovered a simple, yet painful truth. The way we live in this country is deleterious. The more I watch and even participate in the culture, the more I realize the profound and simple truth of it. We, as a country, lack patience, carry hate and anger, and feast on the concepts of constantly being either right or in the right, and seeking revenge on those who would claim otherwise. It is no wonder that our leader, our Avatar in a true sense, is Donald J Trump, a man who embodies everything I’ve listed above. We are reflected in him. Now, I do not have the time to break down the entirety of this argument, but I can start with the one that I think most applies to me and this moment–Patience.
Since returning, my patience has dwindled. It shadows that lack of patience I witness all around me. The more I see of this lack, the more I see of the lack within myself. It has always been there, of course. I was born a New Yorker. When they cut the umbilical cord, they harvest our newborn patience with it, likely feeding it into some machine deep within the MTA that slows trains and busses causing them to run exactly 6 minutes later than we need them to run. This poor-man’s Omelas machine has stripped me of the basic level of patience I see elsewhere–especially in British Colombia. Correction–Especially in Catalan Spain. Those folks are as patient as the mountains waiting for the winter snow to bleed off. Perhaps my troubles with here were reignited there during the slow afternoons when we turned our bodies in the sun like pottery setting in an oven.
The problems did begin. That they have not ended, that I have this awareness of how impatient and harried everyone around me appears to be is causing me qualms. As I’ve stated since I returned: I do not want to be here. I am ready to be elsewhere and have a life less harried. I am ready for the next act. Now begins the preparation for such.