What kind of petition-pusher trudges through a thick snowstorm on a dreary night in February, fighting the icy wind to knock on door after door in the freezing dark?
Even the ever-loyal mailman won’t go to that extreme. In the current political maelstrom, I can’t say I blame him.
But I digress.
Husband warned me that there was a young man headed down the street with a clipboard. Political activists are always so earnest and full of hope. They make me tired.
Having supported a few fringe causes now and then (radical stuff like clean air and water), we’re now on all the canvassing lists when liberal local support is needed. Usually I don’t mind. Tonight, though, I suspect the topic du jour is gun control. I can’t face it. Nothing I do will make a damned bit of difference.
My No Solicitation sign can take the bullet tonight.
The doorbell rings anyway. I ignore it. It rings again.
I swing open the door, resigned and ready to invite the advocate for change in out of the cold.
Turns out, it’s a gum-chewing chicklet huckstering a frozen food delivery service. I point to my sign. I do not invite her in. She says, “But I’m not selling anything! I’m offering you an opportunity.”
“Please go away,” I say. I’m very proud of that “please.” The breakdown of American civility does not rest on my shoulders tonight.
The doorbell rings again. I open it, gunning for bear and the Schwann’s rep.
It’s the young man Husband spotted, who is indeed wielding an arms-control petition. His warm brown eyes shine with sincerity through the snow. I invite him in and sign his form and cut him a small and useless check.
He is the future, after all. And spring is surely coming.
Thank you, Emily Dickinson.
I am so there with you. And apparently even my pessimism is causing problems.
The Left Is Killing Itself With Pessimism
And it is not the case that the future of humanity is bleak. The problems we face today are solvable and, moreover, are likely to be solved in the coming decades. Life for ordinary citizens should improve dramatically over the course of the twenty-first century.
It is also staggeringly obvious that pessimism dramatically undermines the appeal of the left. Why on earth would anyone sign up with a movement that believes the situation is so hopeless? What’s so inspiring about that?
http://time.com/4692486/left-donald-trump-pessimism-optimism/
Yes yes yes, Rosa. What the Left needs in spades is hope, cheerfulness, and snark. We own them — we just need to project them outwards at the appropriate targets. The snark is for the Nazis and fundies and lunatics. When we mock them, they lose their power — they feel stupid, they look stupid — we regain the narrative flow. So when Uncle Biff starts talking about arming squirrels or some other dumb shit, you start talking suggesting new weapon systems to try out. Why shouldn’t third graders work on a railgun? It makes perfect sense.