The Meat of the Matter

Everything Counts in Large Amounts

While recovering from the election, I've been looking around the blogo-sphere, and seen a common message from Republicans to Democrats. Want to hear it? Here it goes. It goes a little something like this: "You woke up this morning, and your coffee was still brewing, the world was not on fire. The cat was purring. The dog delivered your slippers. Your wife still makes love to you. Etc. Etc. … the world is fine. Stop worrying.” I even heard this message on my own blog … twice! Now it’s not uncommon for me to argue with Todd, but now I actually have to argue with Pero. I’ve *never* disagreed with Pero! Sorry Pero, but here it comes … I have to seriously disagree with this sentiment. Of course the coffee is still brewing, etc. No, the election did not create a vortex and suck us all in. But I have to ask this: how small is your perspective? A spiritual person will tell you to live in the moment, and in your own space. For those of us wise enough to do that, we have a lot of very nice moments. But you know what? I’m starting to think that in some regards, spiritual people are full of large amounts of shit. Living in the moment and in your own space implies that we are helpless to change things outside of our moment and outside of our own space. It implies that we shouldn't care. Being a Capricorn, I tend to look at things from an astronomical perspective. I think about how this election will be seen 1,000 years from now. I think about how the people in Bora Bora will be effected by the election’s outcome. Do you think that if Roman Citizens had been given the opportunity to elect Caesar Caligula or Caesar Splurfibat, that history would not have take huge sweeping turns in a different direction? Do you really think that it wouldn’t have mattered either way? Well let me tell you something. Caesar Splurfibat would have been a lot better. He was a cool guy. Some things wouldn’t have been different. The Romans still would have drunk water from lead jugs, and died off. But Splurfibat would not have done a lot of the brutal things that Caligula did. This would have made a big difference in world history and global events. Splurfibat also wouldn’t have had orgies, though, which is kind of too bad because I think orgies are cool in a way. But we’ve never heard of Splurfibat, have we? Nope. Because Rome didn’t have elections. But America does. And guess what? There will be huge, sweeping differences in the world 10 years from now that are a direct result of Bush being in the White House instead of Kerry. If you want, we can discuss what I think those are. But I’m trying to get TMOTM back on track and off the political partisanship bandwagon. So here’s my non-partisan statement: It does matter. Everything depends on everything. I know it’s a pain to have to worry about so much—-I wish it didn’t matter. But it does.