Hope and Change

In my family it was always a good idea to be skeptical. In fact, it was difficult to ever be skeptical enough. No matter what a jaded eye I cast on a situation, my father could be relied upon to see it as somehow being even less important, more laughable than my very best, sophisticated attempt at minimizing it.

When I was paid to sing in my first opera at age 14, my father pointed out that our city wasn't an opera centre and anyhow, my role was very small. He didn't come to any of the performances. You get the idea.

My mother, having spent half her life being disappointed by my father, had learned always to expect disaster. It was a self-protective measure and one that probably allowed her to get through a lot of events that might have driven other people over the edge including the death of my infant brother - problem is, habits do form. I get the impression she still thinks that way and wants me to think that way too.

I think this way of seeing the world might be more common than most people will admit. My response to it has varied over the years from trying to force myself to accept the possibility that things might actually turn out well to feeling most comfortable when they do not.

This sort of philosophical stance suits a person who works in political analysis most of the time since no matter how rotten you might think a politician's motives are they are usually quite a bit worse. I've been burned a few times by believing I am seeing sincere action from someone who is really only making a political gesture. (The paper I helped to prepare and present at the United Nations on Aboriginal Housing gave me abundant opportunities to see that dynamic in action. There are other examples but for now that one will do.)

Coming from this kind of psycho-social background, the American election has me completely distraught. Someone told me they thought "the powers that be" would allow Obama to be elected because he would be assasinated soon after and Biden was the perfect big-business Democratic president. As much as I am repulsed by conspiracy theorists - I admit, there is a certain logic in that line of thought.

I want to believe things can turn around. I want this not only for the United States of America but also because I need to see this kind of example in action on a grand scale in order to apply it more firmly to my own life. I am afraid to believe things can turn around because so often when you invest that kind of emotional incandescence, that innocent, whole-hearted belief in anything, it turns out to be the most direct route to despair.

Who was it who said a cynic is a broken hearted idealist? I don't doubt for one minute that whoever it was, they were right. I am willing to have my heart broken. I want to believe. I just don't want to jinx it by saying so.