Birthday Thoughts

Another birthday has come and gone. Because of the coronavirus shelter-in-place business, I had to celebrate it all online - doing Zoom calls with family and friends, and receiving texts and the obligatory Facebook messages and so forth.

For all that, it wasn't so bad. My girlfriend may not be here physically to keep me company, but she sent me some very thoughtful presents, and a lovely card (Star Wars-themed, naturally) and we've been FaceTiming as we always do on weekends. The most important thing has been knowing that she's out there, safe and sound, and that I can text her whenever I need to - I don't know that I'd be handling this isolation quite so well if it weren't for her.

As far as going out and doing stuff, it kinda felt like there wasn't much point anyway - it's not like 41 is such an exciting age to be, so you don't expect to embark on global tomfoolery like I did last year. Though it would have been nice to get out to Italy and see the relatives and all.

It is funny how far it feels like I've come since turning 40. Meeting my honey is the biggest part of it, but also the way work has shaken out, and my approach to writing and all the other goals. Maybe everyone does this when they get to a certain age, but I keep wondering how much ass I could have kicked if I'd seen things as I currently do, back in my 20s or 30s. But then, those feelings of spinning my wheels or wasting time have made me the person I am now, and who knows how obnoxious I'd have turned out if I'd been too much of a go-getter back then?

(No need to answer that, it's a rhetorical question)

There's also looking forward, though. Personally things look bright, which is light years away from what I would have said last year. And the job is... well, the job, but at least I have it in this uncertain time, which is more than a lot of people can say.

The question is, what'll happen to the rest of the world? I keep seeing a lot of inspirational quotes being thrown around social media about how the coronavirus pandemic is calling into question the assumptions underpinning American society and the economy, and how we're going to move forward into a social democratic future where everyone has health care and stuff.

But I'm not so optimistic.

I'm reminded of the (apocryphal?) quote from Winston Churchill, that the Americans can be relied on to do the right thing, once they've tried everything else. Frankly, though, I don't see us doing the right thing - I see us using this opportunity to make the economy even more cut-throat and less useful to Americans than it even was before. I see us ceding more power and money to the corporations that bully us into lower living and environmental standards, and I see an entrenchment of libertarian/objectivist ideas that'll lead to us falling even further behind the rest of the developed world.

I also see us taking exactly the wrong lessons, from exactly the wrong countries. We'll continue concentrating power in the hands of a few white men, because otherwise they stand to lose a portion of the money they'll have no hope of ever spending or passing on - money that could unlock so much more creativity and innovation if it were flowing around the economy.

It seems pretty clear to me that the country is headed toward becoming a one-party state, like Russia or Hungary - nominally a democracy, but one in which federal and congressional elections can't actually change anything for the party in power. If we're really lucky, we can look forward to a day when dissidents and journalists who dare to criticize the Republican Party, or talk about preserving the environment, get murdered in embassies and consulates abroad.

None of this is planned, and none of it is inevitable. But it's hard to see a way to a sane, fair economy or government without some sudden, sweeping change in the mentality of the people. The coronavirus itself is the black swan that's put the procession of Donald Trump to his second term in doubt, but the other thing under threat is the integrity of our elections, especially since they weren't that structurally sound to begin with.

Of course, I don't want to bring everybody down. We'll just have to see what happens in the next few
months, and hope that enough states institute mail-in voting that enough Democrats can sway the important states. But while we're being realistic let's not also pretend we're going to learn anything in particular from this crisis.

At any rate, this is one of the comforts of growing older: I get to rail against all the things that bother me in society and people will be less and less inclined to listen to me!