On the Feeling of Futility

How do you do it, my fellow Americans? How do you hold yourself back, bite your tongue, stay in your lane? I know you’re out there. I know that these gun crimes which have been increasing with such regularity that the tactless anonymous person on the internet joking that December’s massacre happened early and that maybe there will be another one squeezed in before Christmas holidays begin leads you not to rage at his cruelty but rather to sadly hoping that’s not true. But not doubting that it might be.

You see it so often you don’t know what to do. The politicians continue to pray away and react to the problem and save face by showing support and remorse for those involved. You watch them offer their well wishes, hoping the victims will stay strong, the police will do their job, and that they can continue to pretend that they will be an effective president.

How do you do it? How do you keep from divisive political rants? The gun violence, rampant racism, pervasive sexism, and ignorant classism (just to name a few) – how do you keep it off your newsfeed? Off your wall? Out of your conversations?

When one of the few speaks up on your newsfeed they are attacked – they are called extremists, crazy left wing liberals, surely there is something wrong with them, they want to take away our rights, and anyways, why should we punish Honest Hard-working Harry who simply wants to take his gun out and kill some helpless animals?

How do you ignore it? You’re passionate, you’re educated, you’ve anticipated the typical responses and addressed them. You've drafted a lengthy response, you've bared your true feelings, you are prepared to hit “share” “send” or “post.” But then you take a deep breath, delete it, and continue to scroll through your newsfeed.

It's obvious, you see. You don’t want to cause an argument, you don’t want to be pulled into a mindless feud with someone who refuses to see the other side of the argument, someone who refuses to be inconvenienced in anyway, and who is incapable of questioning the necessity of a hobby that perhaps their parents had passed on to them.

How do you hide your truth, your perspective, your beliefs? When did you become a passive observer, when did the futility of change become so embedded in you that you can’t even attempt to sway the opinions of close friends and family?

It happened gradually. Your youthful vigor has been deadened. Your eyes are dulled. You've learned that it’s too easy to avoid confrontation and a messy argument. There’s so much anger and darkness in the world, you rationalize, why bother bringing a heavy cloud over the skies of my friends, my family, my world?

You scroll on through, lurking in the background watching the events that will define your life, your country, and the lives of your children.

Because clearly, there’s nothing else you can do.

thoughts on antiquity

It’s funny how quickly you can adapt to your surroundings. I’ve only been in Rome for seven days now (I can’t believe the time is going by so fast) and yet I already find myself walking quickly from place to place without looking around. In America we never look up, I don’t anyways, and here in Rome you miss out on eighty percent of the awesome if you are always looking down. The first few days I was a wide-eyed American, taking it all in and shamelessly gaping at the architecture, the beauty of the sculptures and fountains, and walking slowly. But just as the body adapts to exercise, so to does the mind to visual stimulation. That’s why most people who live in beauty, which is almost everyone if they look hard enough, don’t recognize it for what it is. You’ll hear about greener grass, but I think we just don’t look at our own lawns often enough.

I was talking to my roommate about how awesome these buildings are, and how old. The water systems here are the same as they have been ages ago, and they still work! Every fountain isn’t powered by electricity, just by the ingenuity of the creators of the aqueducts. There are water fountains strewn throughout Rome and each has fresh water that is cycled through the water systems here. It’s awesome. But if you think about America and the things we have surrounded ourselves with it has one thing: new, novelty, different. In America we will tear down the historic old building out of disgust and ignorance. Rather than allowing the old things to be revered and kept alive to remind ourselves of our past, we are constantly tearing them down in order to put something new and fresh in our yards. It’s such a shame. That is not to say that all new things are bad, bur rather that some old things are good too! Can’t we sacrifice some of our modern conveniences for the sake of these historic and old buildings? Perhaps we will figure it out eventually.

A lot of the excitement I get from my travels here in Rome stem from the age of these buildings. When I enter the Pantheon I can only look up and wonder how that huge building was constructed. How the hole in the ceiling was constructed without everything falling apart. Wondering at the sculptors that took the effort to add painstaking detail to every surface of the church I wander into, even areas that are hidden from the view of most people. Marveling at how these buildings were constructed in an age of “lesser” technology. It’s a good reminder of what we are capable of doing that does not rely on fossil fuels, oil, gas, and other devices that have polluted our world.

Is it possible to turn our back on what we have created and live as those before us had lived? Not entirely, I’m not saying to forsake everything about modern medicine or forget the countless different things we have learned about the world and how it works. But is it possible to look at the changes we have made in this world and get rid of the ones that are clearly not beneficial to our earth and ourselves? Even if it means that we have to be inconvenienced, that we have to walk a little farther or work a bit harder? I don’t know if it’s possible. Humanity has gotten lazy, or perhaps it is just us Americans, I’m not sure. But these are the things that I’m thinking about while here in Rome.

I’m looking forward to these next few weeks; let’s see what else Rome has to offer to this wandering musician.