I am feeling some internal difficulty right now, or lately. Conflicting interests, or commitments.
On the one hand, I spent nearly my whole adult life as a student of, or participant in, or teacher about, government. Forty-one years, if you count undergraduate studies as a poli sci major: 1962-2003. One builds up certain habits with that much of a time commitment. (Among them, for example, is always watching the State of the Union message. Buying a lot of non-fiction books: economics, politics, sociology, management. Subscribing to 50 or so magazines).
On the other hand, I am retired, very fully so. As retired as they get! My (first) wife passed away in 2003, and I became ill and stopped teaching after that. It was necessary, from a health standpoint.
And so a new life formulated itself slowly, a new life with a new wife, a wonderful second marriage--and a new focus of attention, especially on travel, which we both very much enjoy.
But here we are now, in what is certainly a crucial election year, a turning point, perhaps a defining point, for the American future. There is a good chance at least that whomever is elected president will serve eight years. When you are 65, and not in very good health, that is perhaps most of your own future.
Lacking any meaningful way to exert political or policy leverage, I guess it makes more sense to just sit this one out. I am torn between wanting to monitor campaign developments, and wanting to forget the whole thing. For us, there is still much of America to see: the Pacific Northwest, the Southwest, California, upper New England, and Canada. All interesting places.
And, political discussions can create interpersonal tension. Even among good friends, people can be of very different minds. Talking about pleasing restaurants is far less controversial.
I'm not sure which way I will turn. But I am of the generation that started college
just as John Kennedy came to the White House. I remember the hopefulness of those times. Even with all that has happened since--the many governmental and societal failures and disappointments, including assassinations, Vietnam, Watergate, voodoo economics, George W. Bush, September 11th, the failed search for bin Laden, climate decline and social decay, and an apparently endless war in Iraq--it is hard to accept the idea that the true American spirit has been wholly extinguished.
I hope that it isn't so.
