disappointment

Feeling Fatigue From Jousting At Windmills

October 29, 2016

Those who want to reap the benefits of this great nation must bear the fatigue of supporting it.— Thomas Paine

charles i. letbetter - feeling fatigue from jousting at windmills

Doing your best and seeing no results creates a fatigue not easily resolved

This is one of those mornings when, after looking through the news headlines and all the currently trending topics, I’m inclined to throw up my hands and move to the Netherlands. This isn’t a single-issue moment. Rather, it is one defined by too many issues, too much effort, and too few results. I don’t want to live in a country where we have the problems we are currently having.

None of us should have to live in a country where militarized police are shooting horses out from under Native Americans who simply want to keep their drinking water reasonably clean. Furthermore, I resent the fact that police officers from Indiana, whose salaries are paid with my tax dollars, are in North Dakota contributing to this travesty. No one asked if they should go, the matter wasn’t even put to a vote by our sorry excuse for a state legislature. They just went, giving the extremely false impression that people of Indiana support the desecration of tribal lands.

I’m no longer interested in supporting a country where the people running for our top political office—all of them, not just the two at the top of this dung heap—are some of the most hilariously inadequate people to ever run for office anywhere. I am beginning to fear going out into public knowing that roughly half the people out there are complete idiots who think that isolationism and unregulated business is a good thing for the country. I don’t want to be around those people. I don’t want to talk to people who have apparently lost the ability to reason.

Banging My Head Against A Wall

I have written emails (since no one actually communicates by letter anymore). I have made phone calls. I have tried playing by the rules of the game and have gotten absolutely nowhere. When I send an email, you know what I get in return? Requests for money, like this one:

I’m close to giving up.
Our final End of Month Deadline is just hours away — and things aren’t looking good.
I won’t sugarcoat this. We are WAY behind where we should be.
I wouldn’t be asking unless it was important.
If we fall short in the final stretch, we can kiss our chance of winning a Democratic Congress goodbye.
We have an ambitious goal — 32,982 gifts in 72 hours. Please, will you pitch in $1 and help?
Thank you,

Nancy Pelosi

Mind you, I didn’t write Congresswoman Pelosi. I wrote my own Congressman, Andre Carson. I’ve written him more than a few times and have never gotten anything more than fundraising emails in response. The same applies for Senators, the Governor, and various other officials in government office. I don’t even trying writing the President. I learned at 16 what a complete waste of time that is.

If no one is going to respond, if my attempts at trying to make a difference fall empty, then how can we say we live in a representative democracy? At this point, I’d be thrilled with a “thank you for writing” form letter, which was formerly the standard response from elected officials.

I will still vote on November 8, because in the race between untrustworthy and absolutely deplorable, I’ll reluctantly go with untrustworthy. I feel I can survive better under an oligarchy than a fascist dictator. Don’t take my vote as an endorsement, though, because it’s not.

We Get What We Deserve?

I keep hearing different pundits say that we get what we deserve, that the disappointing choices for President reflect the decline in our national character, the disintegration of our collective reasoning, and our steep fall into anti-intellectualism. At times, I tend to believe those pundits are correct. After all, three people in Florida, Iowa and Virginia have already been caught attempting to change people’s votes. Not only can we not trust politicians, we can’t trust our neighbors who are working at the polls.

And how is it we can acquit the seven jackasses who took over a federal park by gunpoint, but yet we’re using brute force to remove people protesting at Standing Rock over the desecration of their own land? Are there two different sets of rules that no one has told us about? That’s certainly the way it appears.

Could it be that we have horrible choices for leaders because we have become a country of horrible people?

I don’t buy that. We are still a country of innovators. Look at what Elon Musk is doing to transform your roof into a power source. This is still the country where teens who meet in an online chatroom can grow up and get married. We are still a people who create amazingly unique art, incredibly moving films, and automobiles that drive themselves. Clearly, not all of us are complete fools, despite how we commonly appear.

Do we not deserve a government that reflects our best characteristics and not our worst? Why do we not have a government that better values innovation and invention rather than continuing to support antiquated ideologies that have been proven to not work? Why are we still sending huge portions of our population to jail for no good reason when we’ve known for over thirty years that our current methodology doesn’t work? There are plenty of Americans who are intelligent enough to know that continued war after war after war is a horrible idea; don’t they deserve a government that reflects their views?

Nothing Left To Do

I’m hitting a figurative wall where I no longer desire putting time and energy into a cause that, apparently, is already hopeless. For the past eight years, we have had a President who might very well be one of the most intelligent people to ever hold the office. How did we respond? By electing to Congress the biggest pile of do-nothing bovine excrement to have ever disgraced the name of public service. If that is genuinely what the majority of America is choosing, then America and I no longer have enough in common. Just as we need to distance ourselves from people and things that are not healthy for us, perhaps it is time to do the same with our country. If I cannot, in good conscience, give you my allegiance, and I can’t at this point, then why should I stay around?

I’m not packing my bags just yet, mind you. I am still holding out one thin sliver of hope. But I am fatigued from wanting to improve a country that doesn’t want to improve.

I think I’ll just go back to taking pictures of naked people, if there are any left.

Current Issues / PotD

Sex And Politics

April 20, 2016

One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors. —Plato

Given a choice between sex and politics, the wise person chooses sex

Now that the New York primaries are over and went exactly the way everyone knew they would, the circus that is presidential primary politics moves to Indiana in advance of the primary on May 3. Many times, having a late primary means that your vote really doesn’t count for much. In the past two election cycles, the nomination of both parties has pretty much been decided by the time the Indiana primary rolled around. Not so this year. Both Democrats and Republicans are involved in races that are close enough in delegate counts as to make every last vote in the Indiana primaries worth something (despite what some pundits are saying). So, all five of the remaining candidates will be hitting the state hard and heavy over the next two weeks to try and convince Hoosiers to vote for them.

What should Hoosiers do? Have sex. Not with the candidates, mind you. None of them are attractive enough for the thought of having sex with them to not be cringe-inducing. I’m pretty sure a couple of them have to blindfold their spouses before getting into bed at night. And we’re fortunate that the list has dwindled to five. One of the advantages of a late primary is that we don’t have to put up with that messy political orgy that started the season. Still, given the choice between politics or sex, we’re all better off choosing the sex.

Let’s face it: we’ve been listening to these yahoos spout their lies and hate-inducing clap-trap for over a year. Media of various forms have inundated us with every stupid word they’ve said, every insult they’ve spouted, every ridiculous idea they’ve proposed, and every opinion on which they’ve flip-flopped. Whichever party one favors really makes very little difference. The candidates who have survived thus far do not offer any real hope for our country.

So, if we’re going to get screwed anyway, we might as well do it in a way that is at least pleasurable. Sex is so much better than politics, makes people so much happier, and even in the worst of circumstances doesn’t endanger as many lives. Here are a few reasons sex is better than politics:

You, alone, get to decide who fucks you. Politics is like rape in that you’re getting fucked by someone you don’t like in a manner you don’t enjoy and then you’re told it’s your fault. With consensual sex, you choose who’s in bed with you. You don’t have to worry about some lame southern state screwing it up for the rest of the country or taking it up the backside from the electoral college. The sex partner you get is the one you choose.
When the sex is bad, there are ways to fix it. Not all sex is good, which you understand if you’ve had sex more than once. However, the majority of bad sex comes from poor communication between partners and can be resolved with a little time and patience. Bad politics, though, last a minimum of four years and there’s not a damn thing you can do during the interim to make it any better.
Even bad sex is still good. Even when the sex isn’t as wonderful as you might have preferred, at least you come out saying, “Hey, I got laid!” You don’t have to share the details and no one actually cares if you fudge the orgasm count a few times. Bad politics, however, is never good. Bad politics is like finding out your partner has an STD even the CDC doesn’t know about yet. You’re doomed. The bumper sticker won’t scrape off and people scream at you for electing the douche that sent the economy into the toilet and got West Virginia nuked.
Sex only affects the lives of you and your partner(s). Even if you’re cheating with someone who is also cheating on someone, the total number of people affected is likely to be less than ten. When politics goes awry, however, the fate of the entire world can be at stake. Millions of innocent lives can be lost. Clean air and drinking water can be ruined forever. Generations who linger long after our demise can suffer because of one bad political decision.
Cleaning up after sex is relatively easy. When the sex is over, you take a shower, wash the sheets, re-adjust the lamp shade, and then go on about your day. Or night. The backside of politics isn’t so easy. Who cleans up after war? Not the politicians. Who has to find a new source of drinking water? Not the politicians who allowed it to be polluted. Who replaces the air we can no longer breathe? Not the politicians who allowed it to become poisoned. Who replaces all the jobs that are lost due to bad foreign policy? Not the politician who implemented the failed policy. Politics is sloppy and leaves you with the mess every time.

As the presidential candidates roam from town to town the next two weeks, they’re going to make a lot of speeches in a lot of different places. Your best move? Don’t go. Leave them all talking to empty chairs. Send a message that Hoosiers are fed up with their lies and their hate and their condescending attitudes toward the Midwest. Instead, stay home and have sex. Or go to a strip club. Or take your significant other to a strip club and then have sex. Or watch porn together. Or try out a new butt plug. There are myriad options that are better than attending a political rally where no one cares about your opinion.

Mind you, I’m not saying you shouldn’t vote. By all means, everyone who is eligible should be at the polls on May 3. Your vote counts more in this election than it has in a long time. Be there. Do the deed. But don’t think for a second that anything leading up to the actual election matters; it doesn’t. Protesting doesn’t matter. Picketing doesn’t matter. Yelling and screaming doesn’t matter. None of the candidates give a shit what you think; they’ve already made up their pathetic little minds. The ONLY way to send a message is to stay away from their stupid events, all of them. Void the damn political polls. Then vote.

And have sex.

PotD / Social Commentary

Some Days Just Suck

February 12, 2016

Tonight I’ll dust myself off, tonight I’ll suck my gut in, I’ll face the night and I’ll pretend I got something to believe in.—Jon Bon Jovi

Just as every day has the potential to be great, they have to potential to suck, and it’s not always your choice

I would very much like to meet the person who came up with the concept that every day is supposed to be bright, cheery, and wonderful. I would very much like to meet this person and come upside their head with a two-by-four. Why? Every day is not good. There is not always a reason to smile. Not every bad situation has a silver lining. Everything does not work out for the best. Some days just suck and to deny that censors feelings we legitimately need, such as anger, disappointment, and grief, if we are to ever improve our world. Remember: there are no bad emotions. Even the non-happy ones have their place.

So, here it is another Friday, the end of the work week, allegedly, and you have at least two, possibly three days off if you work for someone who observes President’s Day. Maybe you have big plans, have already spent a lot of money on deposits and such, and have everything arranged perfectly. You’ve done all you can and you’ve put your best effort into the whole weekend. Then, something happens, something you cannot control. Your father-in-law has a heart attack. Your car engine inexplicably blows a gasket in the middle of an intersection. That lovely person who was supposed to join you this weekend becomes ill and can’t stop puking. One of the children falls and breaks a limb. Suddenly, this Friday stops being happy and now, immediately, sucks. Your plans are ruined, your deposits are non-refundable, and all those perfect arrangements are irrelevant. There’s no recovery.

Sure, the day may suck. What’s important at this point is that you not deny how you feel. Don’t let someone tell you to suck it up. You can’t deal with those emotions until you admit that you have them. Be disappointed, there’s nothing wrong with that. Be angry, not in the sense that you fly off the handle and hurt someone else, but step away and punch the living hell out of a pillow or something. Go outside and scream. Let it out. Deal with those negative emotions.

No matter what we do, no matter how we try to live our lives as joyfully and righteously as possible, there are going to be days that suck, and they’re going to happen when it is least convenient to put up with the sucking. Part of what makes a day suck is that it upsets what we were expecting from the day. Convenience isn’t in the cards when life suddenly turns sour. Even when you have some clue that a day is going to be difficult and you try to prepare yourself for the inevitable, it still can be worse than you ever expected.

My father died 14 years ago. We knew it was coming. If anything, we had hoped the end would come sooner because seeing him suffer through the deterioration caused by cancer was heart-wrenching. When I flew into Tulsa that morning, I knew what I was facing, that the inevitable had finally come. This was not going to be a good day. Yet, for all the mental and emotional preparation I had done, the moment he finally took his last breath, when the grip he had on my hand relaxed for the last time, when the hospice nurse looked at us and shook her head, the wave of grief that swept over me in that moment was unlike anything I had ever felt. This was more than just a bad day.

I didn’t think I would ever feel pain like that again, but I did. Six months and four days later I was called home from the office. Mother had fallen during the night and died quite unexpectedly. Not only was their grief, there was anger. I had just spoken to her the night before. What went wrong? To say that day sucked would be the most severe of understatements.

You’ve had days like that as well, maybe worse. I think of people who lose entire families in one fell swoop. People full of hope and opportunity are suddenly, for any number of reasons, paralyzed or struck with some seemingly random disease that dashes their hopes like glass on a concrete floor. A baby dies. A house catches fire. A dear pet is hit by a car. Those are all days that suck.

People are always trying to take a bad situation and make it better. Stop it. Let us deal appropriately with the bad, recognize tragedy for what it is, and then give people the space to move on in their own time, in their own way. Not every day gets to have a smile. Some days have tears, and that’s okay. Offer a tissue if you want to help, but never tell someone to not cry, to not feel whatever they’re feeling.

Some days just suck. Be a friend and accept that.

Music / PotD

When The Music Dies

November 19, 2015

To be alive, to be able to see, to walk, to have houses, music, paintings – it’s all a miracle. I have adopted the technique of living life miracle to miracle.—Arthur Rubinstein

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]”Do you still play?”

Something in me dies a little every time I’m asked that question. Music was such an overwhelming part of my life for the first 26 years. To no be playing, or conducting, or doing something creative in the field seems like a giant disappointment to myself, my parents, and all the teachers who suffered myriad lessons where I had failed to practice sufficiently. The adult I am now is less than pleased with the child I was then.

I miss making music outside of myself. I miss being part of an organization and having talented individuals with which to work, even amateurs. I miss the feeling of excitement when everything comes together in a performance and sends chills up my spine. Memories of the intensity of those moments make me glad that I had them, but wonder if I could still re-create that feeling now after being away for so long. With continued, every-day immersion in the music comes a sensitivity to the subtleties; one hears things in the 453rd listening that one did not hear before. Certainly, any sense of precision I once had would be gone now.

Questions linger in my mind as to whether I could ever return to a shadow of the musician I once imagined myself to be. For too many years, schedules that created 18- to 22-hour days prevented me from even being able to touch a piano. The day I finally sold the instrument at which I had sat through my entire childhood was painful, but not because I was losing anything that at that point was an integral part of my life. Rather, it was like the passing of a once-dear friend whom I hadn’t seen in twenty years. Mastery of music does not happen in a casual come-and-go relationship; either one is fully committed or one is merely a dabbler.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]Kat used the children as an excuse for buying a keyboard a couple of years ago. We immediately set it up right next to my desk so that I could simply turn and play a few bars as the mood struck. Such an arrangement proved impractical for space as small as ours, though, and now it sits in the studio, out of sight. I typically wait until everyone is gone before slipping in there and playing for a few minutes. Each time I do, I am painfully reminded of how much skill and dexterity I’ve lost. My hands hurt as I try to execute a simple two-octave scale. Fingers fumble over keys that they once knew intimately.

Not that music is totally absent from my life, mind you. My playlists stretch on for hours and hours; some of them could fill an entire day without any hint of repetition, but I doubt such a thing is all that unusual. My opinions and criticism of music is still just as strong as ever, also. Some may remember earlier this year when a video went viral of Denver quarterback Peyton Manning “conducting” the Denver Symphony in an incredibly weak and pathetic rendition of the University of Tennessee’s fight song, “Rocky Top.” What ruined the video for me was that Manning was holding the baton backward. How did no one correct such an obvious error?

If, as Rubenstein suggests, music is a miracle, then I have let that miracle quite literally slip through my fingers. I keep telling myself that one of these days I’ll have sufficient time and discipline to bring back the Beethoven and the Debussy, perhaps to even find a small group of which I might be a part, but we know that won’t actually happen. The music that once dominated my life has died. Perhaps it is time to let it rest in peace.[/one_half_last]

Art / PotD

Autumn Illusions

October 25, 2015

Autumn Illusion – In The Sun

My sorrow, when she’s here with me, thinks these dark days of autumn rain are beautiful as days can be; she loves the bare, the withered tree; she walks the sodden pasture lane.—Robert Frost

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]Flip the page. Start a new week. No longer are we talking about a once great magazine soon to be relegated to memory, like the formerly dominant titles, Life or Look, neither of which anyone under the age of 50 is likely to remember. Seasons pass, times, change, and their passing isn’t always what we expect of them.

Recent weeks have been dry and yesterday’s attempt at rain did little more than taunt a parched ground with a hope that never came. Not here. Instead, random gusts of wind blew swirls of dust down the sidewalk like a small dog taking its human for a walk; the wind yapped and howled at everything it saw while the dust impatiently meandered along.

Autumn is definitely here. She’s solemn this year, quiet, thoughtful in her actions. While she has moments of being bright and vivid, they come randomly; more are they punctuations of color rather than whole sentences. Drive down a road full of brown and there’s suddenly a comma of red. A little further down the road one finds an em dash of bright orange. The punctuation is glorious and appears in careful spaces just often enough to give one a sense of autumn, but all that lies between is a meaningless jumble of disappointment.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]There is a point at which all the photographs of autumn run together. Maple leaves, so resplendent in their colorful stage show, perform the same act year after year after year. Was that photo taken in 2009 or 2012? I can’t tell. Although, one might argue that it doesn’t actually matter. Photographs we miss this year we can try again when the numbers on the calendar are different. Does it really make that much difference?

Who else feels that autumn arrived already exhausted, like that great aunt who has been traveling for a month trying to see everyone in the family? When she finally arrives at your house, the excitement she once held for her trip is already gone. The car broke down. Her favorite blouse ripped. Cousin George’s dog crapped in her shoes.

Flip the page. Who knows what may happen? Certainly, things will be different than they were last week, and different than ever before, but different doesn’t seem to matter. Will this week be sexy, or artistic, or just a poetic mess that no one really understands? Autumn is full of illusions and today is one of them.[/one_half_last]

Feeling Fatigue From Jousting At Windmills