REFLECTIONS ON LYING: I Go to Vote While Holding My Nose

When considering the state of the world, including the weird, confused state of the so-called “United States,” like many people, I’m mostly appalled at my perceived quality of most of those who inhabit and/or seek “higher office.”

Even so, I REFUSE to give up completely, and not vote at all.

So, I go to vote while holding my nose. Either I vote my conscience, which would be to leave (just about?) every box blank, or I vote “Conservative,” as  the lesser of two evils. But, to “take sides” is basically, to lie! Plus, re: those boxes I do or do not check, who knows who’s lying? I don’t know any of these people personally. If someone I do know lies, even once, and I find out, and when challenged, they refuse to admit and seek forgiveness, our relationship is forever tainted. If they lie again, and I find out, the relationship is over, done.

So, in the political world, Is anyone not lying? Isn’t lying, or at least covering-something-up-to-make-one-look-good, actually required, in order to “get into office”?

Worst of all, am I still lying to myself? Is my deliberately optimistic attitude of gratitude utterly foolish? i.e., Do I “know better”?

Well, I’d say, that even if I do “know better, I don’t care. Why am I still alive if not to express the love the fills and fuels the universe no matter what? 

Remember this quote?

Meanwhile, if we must “take sides” in order to actually live in this crazy world of deliberate political polarization, then there are some signs that we the people are getting fed up with the usual palaver. Oh, you won’t see it in the polls. (That’s for sure!) But you might see it in what just happened up north.

 

Elizabeth Nickson, for whom I have great respect, is rejoicing. See her substack, Welcome to Absurdistan.

 

 

Through it all, I remind myself:

If money is a scrim upon nature, if language is a scrim upon nature, then so is politics.

Advice to myself: stay close to nature. To my own nature, to the natural world. To my animals: Tiger cat teaches me independence; Scampi pup teaches me loyalty. As for other humans — I continue to deeply and unreservedly love those close to me personally, while extending love’s invitation to those whom I encounter in the wider, but still local world, on a daily basis, whether stranger, friend, or so-called foe.

Yesterday evening, I called a dear old friend; the night before I called another old friend. All three of us remarking how each and every morning, we wake up again stunned by the realization: “What? I’m 84?”

It’s so good to speak with old friends. Friends whom I will likely never see in person again. Not just to catch up, but to feel each other’s frequency, as refined over nearly 50 decades, having over the years co-processed memories of often highly dramatic shared experiences from when we were “‘young and foolish”!

This rich resonance between us is always healing, a salve upon whatever our current difficulties, usually involving minds that, frankly, don’t work as well as before!

However, were I to steer our conversation in the direction of “politics,” who knows what would happen! All I know is that when even close friends talk politics, it’s as if we’re invaded by an alien force that seeks to divide us. (Likewise, back in the covid con days; couldn’t bring that hot button topic up with old friends either.)

And yet, through it all . . .

Remember, remember:

Let’s face it, except for the “territory” (the mysterious infinite domain of all in all), all maps are lies, including those which aim to tell the truth! Even the earth itself, is a tiny dot from within a larger frame, a  higher perspective. And we can always go higher . . .

OPENSPACE IS A VERB