Illusions and Delusions

This is a very powerful time we are living through, with lots of passion unleashed due to the political, economic and social changes we see around us.

It’s hard to go anywhere these days in the United States without being confronted by this. Whether you like it or not, people express their opinions on a wide variety of issues. I just came from the local bookstore to purchase some books, and there were two women at the cash register. One was processing my purchase of two novels, and she commented out loud that I was spending a total of about twenty nine dollars. The other woman, who worked in the store but was not otherwise involved in this transaction, interjected sarcastically : “Yah, that’s just what Bush hopes will stimulate the economy.”

Even though I am not a huge fan of the current president, I didn’t see where I gave this woman express or tacit permission for her to inflict her political views on me. Yet I got them anyway, just because I was a living, breathing human being within earshot!

I realized on the way home that in the current political climate, some people are looking to the federal government to provide something (hope, change-who knows what else?) that is otherwise missing in their lives. I thought back to the presidents that we have had in this country over the last twenty years, and whether my life had really been influenced by who was the heads of state at the time. I concluded that for the most part, the seminal events that have shaped my life over the last twenty years had absolutely nothing to do with who was president, and had very little to do with the federal government. Most of these personal triumphs or crises were just events that would have occurred regardless of who was president or which party was in control.

We all have illusions about life and some delusions too. I think that maintaining a few of these makes for a refreshing character, because it is disheartening(at least for me) to meet people who are totally cynical. And as John Fowles (French Lieutenants Woman fame) said in his wonderful book “The Magus, ” “cynicism masks an inability to cope.”

Another thing I have noticed recently is how some people are unduly influenced by the media. I have one good friend who insists that the current economic turmoil automatically means that everyone will suffer and that the fallout will only be bad. Btw, she regularly watches CNN. I recognize the enormous changes going on, but I will never let CNN or any other news outlet control my life, economic or otherwise. Here are just a few of my own personal experiences that show that the fallout from the current changes are not all bad: A friend of mine who is likely to lose his job at Goldman Sachs confessed to me that he is secretly glad: it will free him to pursue his true love, which is not finance; Two acquaintances who have just lost their jobs in finance found love at a dinner party-if they were working they would never have had the time; an acquaintance I met on a plane recently confessed that his consulting company, with some government contracts, is doing better than ever. Another friend I know more than doubled his money in the stock market in four days when he bought a battered bank stock that was soon taken over. I recently went to a cash machine for Washington Mutual and was pleased to find that since Chase took them over, no fee to me for cash withdrawal. Did I mention the fact that we may soon see gas at Two dollars/gallon?

I am not suggesting that some of the changes we are experiencing are without pain. I am suggesting that it is a big mistake to think that everything that is being unleashed is bad.