The Middle Way

“Personally, I’m still figuring out how to keep my anger simmering — letting it boil over won’t do any good, but it shouldn’t be allowed to cool. This election was an outrage, and we should never forget it.” This was the conclusion of Paul Krugman’s op-ed piece* ‘The Tainted Election” in the NY Times on December 12^th.

Since the election, I have been torn between acceptance and outrage. I want to go back to my normal life. If Clinton had won, I would take a passing interest in her cabinet appointments but already be fading back into a kind of benign and general approval. But now I read the NY Times every morning as a way of staying engaged. It’s a little like waking up and sticking my finger into a light socket.

Every morning, I get shocked. I try not to overdo it. Being lost in despair is not helpful. One of my coping strategies to balance my emotional state is to escape to the sports page. Fortunately, my New England Patriots (those paragons of virtue and steadfast excellence and trickery) are doing well. But then I suspect myself of being the Roman citizen who distracted himself from the excesses of the empire by following the gladiatorial games at the coliseum. It’s all tainted.

My other strategy is meditation. Stopping and breathing. In the stillness of formal meditation and throughout the day, I make a practice of consciously turning toward the immediacy of life. This sensation. This emotion. This person.

Times are dire. The forces of greed, anger and ignorance have been unleashed in terrifying channels. But this is not new to human experience. These are the times that call us to practice more deeply what we say we believe in.

Not all the news is bad. Ten members of the electoral college have asked for an intelligence briefing on Russian intervention in the election before they have to officially vote Trump in. And Republicans are defying Trump’s irrational dismissal of evidence of Russian hacking and calling for an independent investigation.

This buoys my spirits, but then I think of the turmoil that would ensue if the election results are overturned by the electoral college. And Trump would not sit idly by as Clinton has done.

How do we behave with integrity in a system that has been compromised? How can we support our underlying democratic system and resist the forces that have taken it over so successfully?

Of course, the system was taken over long before Trump arrived on the scene. The forces of greed, ignorance and fear have been driving our democracy (and human behavior) since its inception and have merely been magnified over the years. Trump’s current ascendancy is both reaction to and culmination of the economic oligarchy that pulls so many of the levers in our wonderful and flawed country.

Let us be vigilant and keep our anger at injustice simmering. Let us recommit to the preciousness of life and to using our power to relieve the suffering of so many around us.

Probably good advice, no matter who is president.

Full Krugman Article