[Previous entry: "Creative tension/human complexity"] [Main Index] [Next entry: "Fed arrested"]

10/28/2005 Archived Entry: "Why we sometimes have nothing to say"

"I'VE GOT NOTHING TO SAY," says James Leroy Wilson about Valerie Plame, Harriet Miers, or 2,000 dead Americans in Iraq.

... there needs to be passion, and I don't have any for politics right now. Passion is fueled by hope, and even anti-government and "anti-political" writers retain some hope for change in the political order. It is that hope that sustains us through all the outrageous policies and stupidity we deal with. We must believe that our words are at least planting seeds for a better tomorrow.

I don't know where Wilson's going with his writing or his life, but I've enjoyed his more reflective and inward-turning writings lately.

His response to politics is similar to my response when I read something like that dangerously fiery rant Liz Michael launched earlier this month.

I look at Michael's rant and think, "Damn, I used to write with that much eloquent outrage" (although I hope I never wrote with such potentially deadly folly). I don't have that in me any more.

But (like Wilson, I strongly suspect) I've far from given up. I've just moved on to another phase of life. I know that virtually everything the federal government does is going to be horrible. Why remain in a perpetual state of lather? Why be in reactive mode through the course of an entire existence? There is life to be lived -- live aside from politics, even if that life must often be lived in spite of the worst efforts of politicians and bureaucrats.

And there is freedom to be won. Not just talked about, but snatched directly frm the jaws of the vicious total-control beast.

Ranting makes a writer more entertaining. And yes, I worry that people will want to read Liz Michael more than me. (But then, they already want to read/see/hear Ann Coulter more than me; and I'd jump off a tall cliff before I'd envy that Hitlerian Barbie doll.)

But outrage must have a purpose. And that purpose is eventually to do something productive with your righteous anger. And that's what I'm doing these days. And that's what I hope (and believe) thousands of other freedom lovers are doing. If we've stopped waving our arms and shouting, it's not because we've given up. It's because we've moved on to the next stage of opposition to tyranny. And that next stage is, of necessity, much, much quieter.

Posted by Claire @ 08:59 AM CST
Link