The world is a riddle. Donald Trump, 78, convicted felon, insurrection inspirer, liar, vengeful man-baby and wannabe autocrat wins a second term as U.S. president. One week later, John Horgan, beloved former premier of B.C. dies at 65.
One of these two men has led a famously unhealthy lifestyle (see: McDonald’s). And he’s not the one who’s dead.
As the kids say these days: Make it make sense. Or to offer a more timeless youthful complaint: it’s not fair.
In what feels like a particularly dark moment in history, evidence of the cruel world abounds. Much of it makes no sense. The world is full of not fair.
We’re coming up to the third anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, led by an autocrat who is cozy with the politician who is about to become, once again, the world’s most powerful leader.
The same president-elect is besties with the world’s richest man, whose fortune allowed him to buy a key platform for political discourse and use it to push hard for his buddy – with his posts and algorithms favouring them.
This billionaire is the same dude whose former partner’s mother was reduced to begging him publicly on that very platform to allow her grandchildren to see her dying mother. Now Elon Musk is in the U.S. inner circle, in charge of cutting government spending. One can only imagine the level of empathy and thoughtfulness he will bring to the task.
The person Mr. Trump has selected for attorney-general has been called incompetent, reckless and “a person of moral turpitude.”
It is not possible to make Matt Gaetz make sense.
Then there’s the way we live. While Mr. Musk’s Tesla stock soared after Mr. Trump’s election win, the rest of us are surviving by the skin of our neglected teeth, as we put off expenses such as dental appointments to make ends meet.
We pick over discounted bruised fruit at the supermarket; forgo not-quite-necessities like eggs; say a little prayer every time we hit the “start” button on the not-always-functioning washing machine because who has the money to replace it right now? (Okay, that last extremely specific example might be taken from personal current circumstances.)
People are paying $3,000 a ticket – in the nosebleeds – for Taylor Swift tickets in Toronto at a time when one-in-10 Torontonians are using the food bank.
Artists are getting cancelled left and right, soccer matches are turning into pogroms.
Thousands – including children – are being killed in Gaza in an unending war. Terrorists who murdered babies and seniors are celebrated as freedom fighters.
People are dying in untold numbers from poisonous drugs. It is pouring outside in Vancouver as I write this, and there are humans out there sleeping on the sidewalks, soaked, chilled to their weary bones, probably starving.
We are suffering through atmospheric rivers, deadly wildfires, heat domes and apocalyptic flooding. In oil-and-gas-loving Azerbaijan, the lanyard-wearing crème de la crème are drafting statements over buffet breakfasts. Have we all just accepted that, while the elite talk in circles, this planet is going to burn and flood and become a hostile landscape for our grandchildren (if we have any, because Gen-Z can’t afford to procreate)?
What to do? We despair. We grumble. We drink too much (not-quite-fine wine because who can afford that?). We turn on the game for distraction and remember that we’ve been waiting our entire lives for the Toronto Maple Leafs to win the Stanley Cup. We toss and turn all night.
None of this is productive. (Go Leafs, though.)
Here is what we can do: if we are feeling hopeless, the young people in our lives might be too. Anguish can be infectious. Kids have big ears. And teenagers have TikTok. We can talk to them, help them navigate the inexplicable.
We can vote, advocate, volunteer. We can support an artist who has been cancelled for speaking with their conscience – or for being born into a particular country or religion.
We can take a break, exercise. After COVID knocked me on my butt, I returned to my boot camp class this week and was warned that it was a Trump-free zone. Sticking your head in the sand for an hour amid crunches and burpees can be good for your core in a variety of ways.
I’m writing this as much for myself as for you, fellow despondents, because it all does feel so awful right now. “I can’t go on,” a friend texted me on election night, quoting Samuel Beckett. “I’ll go on.”
Or, to borrow from Ms. Swift, whose tickets few of us can afford: “To live for the hope of it all.”
Try to have a good weekend.