Floating down the wrong tributary

Took off from work again.  My wife tells me to do it; to practice for when I get old, although she tells me that I am old.  But I'm not.
So we took off and drove out of New England and headed South.  We are here, on the water, tomorrow I will cross the Bridge-Tunnel as I have long wanted to do.

But yesterday, waking up hungry, we decided to eat a regional breakfast, but since we couldn't find that we stumbled into Denny's, a place I had only been in once before.  The service was fine, the breakfast was everything they said it would be. Except the company was different.

Two men sat behind us, and after a while my wife and I stopped talking and began to listen to a conversation that is not what we hear in our social circle, although it may be more common in yours.
One man seemed to be about sixty and the other seemed close to seventy.  They were dressed neatly in clothes that could have come from Wal-Mart. They talked openly and with feeling.  They were talking about a man they knew who was in a bit of trouble.  The man's business was not doing well and the land he had for sale was not selling.  That left him unable to support his wife, and her son, who was in a wheelchair.  But the man also was spending a great deal of time with another woman, and this was not good.  The two men having the discussion were upset because they felt that the man about whom they were talking was headed for hell, and if the moment of the rapture occurred, he would be left behind, and therefore doomed. They were not sure how to deal with him and his situation.  One of the men wanted to approach him and warn him, but he felt sure it would ruin their friendship.

Now, I realize that this conversation was a bit extreme, but it again brought up to me how much I do not buy into many of the most important mind-sets that define most Americans. My thinking is partly a result of what I do, and what I do is the result of who I am.  Despite my efforts to get along, I am still out of step, off the main-stream, floating down my own tributary towards my own distant, probably unattainable sea. This is unsettling to me in two ways.  First, how far out of the mainstream I am, and second, how loose, sloppy and lazy the thinking of the mainstream is.

So here is the part where I drive many of you away.  Where I ruin any chance I have of getting anything published, because as an agent I once had said to me: you write very well, but you are much too complex, and you don't reward your readers with happy endings.  People would much rather read about clear paths to happy endings.  That sells.  Your shit about the world being very complex and most things ending with limited compromises with reality does NOT sell.

True.

Why? you might ask, then do I persist.

The short answer lies most clearly in the things that I do not accept.  Yes, I understand the utility, the need, and the natural affiliation for certain things.  Yet, I cannot participate. I just can't.  I never have been able to.  I gave up trying in seventh grade. ( Perhaps I am still just an obstinant adolescent.)

The best examples that quickly come to mind are these: patriotism, religion and video games. These are becoming almost universal activities, and yet I have great difficulty joining in. Again, I understand them.  I see clearly why people join in. I see the joy, the fellowship and the comfort that is gained with participation.

But I can't do it.

To me patriotism and religion are just a bill of goods that are sold early and often by the powers that be to get the masses to go along with the program.  The program that is being sold is one that benefits the powers, almost always much more than it benefits the masses.  Yet patriotism and religion are sold in a way that if you don't buy into the concept, there is no place for you in the group. That is a powerful selling device, scorn and exclusion.

But why should I believe that my country is the best in the history of the world just because I happened to be born here? And this God-stuff is really about getting people to believe in the totally unbelievable.
They tell you to have faith, don't question the incomprehensible. Once they can get you to do that, then they can sell you anything.  You can fly.  You can be born again.  You will live in heaven.  You can charge it now and pay later.  You can buy that house you can't afford.  You can even believe some of the incomprehensible stuff that Sarah Palin talks about.

And yes, our soldiers are brave and valaint people, who sacrafice for the good of their country and do their assigned duty despite great and constant danger.  But I can't stop thinking that rather than their being out there defending our freedoms, they are out their defending the corporate economic structures.  These are kids that I have seen in therapy, who had trouble in high school, had trouble following the laws, and some trouble getting along with others, who respond well to the high level of structure in the military, who hope for a boost in life that they cannot find on their own, so the opt for three to twenty years of going off to foreign lands to kill people they don't know, for reasons that really are not that clear.
The reasons that are given them are often similar to the things they heard from their religious leaders.  That we are the good and the righteous, and they are the forces of evil.  Have faith.

The video game thing, is really a generational thing.  I can't get into wasting my time playing virtual basketball when I could be playing basketball.  I don't get a thrill being a virtual pimp.  Maybe a racing game or a flight simulator I could do for a while.  But, even though, as I said,  I'm not religious, I have this guilt about wasting time.  I feel that the best way to really waist time is to watch college football, especially two teams you have barely even heard of, but they sure can run up and down the field.

So that's me, sitting way over here on the side.  I can even get upset at how everyone feels good about putting on pink ribbons to fight breast cancer.  Not because that isn't a good idea, but because the money goes mostly to the big cancer research institutes that are seeking treatments for the cancer that women get, and not to prevention.  Real prevention would attack the toxins and pollutants that run rampant though our food, air and water.  But few people are is looking at that because that would point out the need for change.

Well, this has gone on too long already. I have more concerns, but who needs to listen.  As the man said (Voltaire) 'Surely, this is the best of all possible worlds.'  We are fine, you and me.   ( unless we are the ones with cancer, or the ones wounded in the army, or condemned by the church for being turned on by the wrong kind of person, or... but hey, enough all ready.

Next time I will tell you why, even though I am not the greatest follower of American credo, it would be to your advantage to consult with a therapist like me, if you ever feel the need to consult with a therapist at all.