We’ve come this far. We really should try and see it through. On through to the next place we will have gone so far to get to, when we’ll be trying to see it through.

Time is a circle, after all.

…

I was having a nice conversation about TV shows with a coworker today when a quote from Steven Wright came out of me, and I’m paraphrasing now, as I did then: “No one knows why we’re here, and we’re just gonna die anyway.” I should be clear in saying it did pertain to that which we were talking about, just so as not to come off as someone who drops little bits of existential dread around my workplace. But what surrounded that quote has me thinking, which has me writing, so here we are.

Now, I work retail, and I’m very good at my job. That may leave me with a slight bias this evening. But that bias is fed by a rather stark contrast between what is our national stage and what we as People seem to be doing in spite of it all.

At the most iconic bookstore in the Greatest City In The World, it is busy as Shit the week before Christmas. So today, the 17th of December, was nonstop for hours. I interacted with thousands of strangers. Would you like to know who was rude to me? Just one person. Just one person, whom I know for a fact is worth tens of millions of dollars which I see no reason for to be to her name. It is, of course, just a goddamn name. And that’s all she seems to be: a Goddamn Name.

The person to whom I quoted Steven Wright is not Just a Name. And together, that person who I know, but don’t know, though maybe don’t know I know quite well, we were in that moment deeply affected. And I think it sort of condensed of how I viewed the whole day: Maybe People are beginning to get the hang of all this insanity we’re faced with from President Donald J. Trump [sic] and Congress – every single day. Maybe we’re bringing it all back home again.

A few things have me beginning to convince myself that We have a fighting chance against this tyranny with which we’re being faced:

-The rewriting of the tax code, and its crafters’ maniacal laughs in the face of recorded history, which shows that the very plan they claim to have hatched from their learning from previous success – which never actually was success, but miserable failure and literal market collapse – will probably pass both the House and Senate and be signed into law by President Donald J. Trump [sic].

-The repeal of Net Neutrality, and the three quarters of the country who knows it’s fucked up for the government to do something three quarters of the country knows it doesn’t want to be done.

-The GOP championing of actual thieves, liars, racists, rapists and pedophiles when they claim to be the party of Christian Family Values.

Not only do I firmly believe that these things help only Goddamn Names, but I am certain that they won’t stand. The republicans are trying to put the fix on the game all at once. And I know, the Fix was built into the Game. I get it. But it seems to me that the way the rules were written, the underdog could easily be the favorite. What I mean is, if we’re playing baseball, we’ve got quite a big team, but as only one player can connect for the game-winning hit, the whole team wins the game. President Donald J. Trump [sic] is just Leslie Nielson as the umpire in Naked Gun. He really really likes saying and doing one very specific thing: Grandstanding. (Goddamn Names…grandstanding is all they can do). Grandstanding – especially in the way Trump does it – is quite obvious. Plus, like Nielson in Naked Gun, he’s fucking bad at it. And the GOP – the team on the right end of all that foolishness – is going to lose the game.

Why? Because they’re not a team, they’re a business. And Trump is no BusinessMan. He is and always was just a salesman. One that for some reason used to be pretty good at tricking ignorant people into believing that he was for real and so were his promises. Now, not only is he not a businessman, he’s no longer a salesman. He’s a card player. A bad one. Not only has he shown his hand over and over and over, he’s actively forcing the whole table – his GOP Elite  – to do so along with him. Everyone can see everyone else’s cards. Bluffs and lies have become fabricated reality (“No, Senator, that is clearly a royal flush and if you can’t see it, you’re the liar). We don’t have to work to see through them anymore. They’re fucking transparent. And they know it. And they don’t care, because they’re evil. 100% not men of God, like they like to think they are. Their immorality encases them and shimmers.

They are – like I noticed today – a stark contrast in relation to Us. We might not always be as informed as we could be, but those of us who couldn’t already, are learning to sniff out bullshit. It’s easy to do when it’s being thrown about randomly through disjointed sentence fragments, and the cold, Ayn Rand philosophy of legislated selfishness. I feel like those of us who are not Goddamn Names are reaching more into Kindness.

If not You, the Reader of This, then why not?

Please understand: No one knows why we’re here, and one day we will die.