Grasshopper Reader Letter, 10/18/24

Angst, fall, meditation, beauty

A tiny Hindu shrine I found in the Zen Garden on a step of the carriage house. There is a yoga center in that space.

The Grasshopper Reader Letter, 10/18/24

Dreading into the stretch

A democratic election for the leader of the country should be celebrated as a triumph of our Constitutional system, a time when Americans do their civil duty after making their cases for one candidate or another. But since the entry of Donald Trump into the process, it has become an ugly, contentious battle of ideologies.

And this time around we have the threat of his anti-democratic, insurrectionary vision hanging over us, guaranteeing that even if he loses we will still have him and his cronies crying unfair and unleashing an army of lawyers to support every made-up claim of fraud.

The result will be a nation either filled with dread or simply retreating into their lives as though this is all normal.

We have always had these hard fought election cycles and even saw the country plunged into a destructive civil war that took tens of thousands of lives on both sides. But good prevailed and so did the democracy. But now we have a candidate who openly says he will not accept the results unless he wins.

He says a lot of other stuff too but most of it makes no sense or consists of wild lies and hate speech. With less than three weeks left, the country is burned out and tired while many face the loss of their homes and livelihoods due to climate change-driven storms, biblical in their destruction and size.

Here, in my neck of the woods, we just had three unseasonably cold, rainy, and dreary days, but this morning I awoke to an apartment filled with sunlight and the fall trees outside practically glowing with color.

Besides being a news junkie, I am a walker and I forced myself outside during that inclement weather, even walking to a cafe one morning in a driving cold rain, to get out of the house. Without these walks, the weight of that news could bring me down, but the cold air has a way of washing any dread away.

The world is much bigger than all of this. When I think about those storms and the other calamities we have brought down on ourselves with our selfish and wasteful burning of fossil fuels, I remind myself that even if humans diminish, the planet will thrive

A strange way to find comfort. But I’ll take it where I can get it.

One of the other comforts is the support I receive from readers in the form of positive comments, financial contributions, and the daily attaboys, the ‘keep writing’ notes you share. They literally make my day just as much as that fall sun glittering in the trees.

One of the other daily routines is my meditation sessions in a hidden garden near my house, tucked in behind the Rochester Zen Center, a place where I rarely see another human while I’m sitting. During that cold weather it was too nasty to spend a half hour sitting outside, but as it started to clear yesterday afternoon, I managed a short session.

They ground me and remind me that politics is not the be all and do all. I think meditation keeps me optimistic in some way and I try to inject that optimism into my writing, though it is not always easy. But it is essential.

So much of American society is frivolous and trivial, especially when we look to war torn regions, places where senseless destruction is driven by petty dictators and right wing politicians. As I scan the news I have to swim through rivers of influencers and celebrities trying to outdo each other to get a daily news bite.

Junk that many live for and that we know is alienating younger generations and causing rising mental health problems and an epidemic of suicides and addiction. All so businesses can make profits beyond comprehension. All while we watch the rich become the mega richer.

Meanwhile, down here on earth, I still get to go to a quiet place and simply breathe, while watching slender yellow leaves rain down.

The next few weeks could spiral out of control but I believe we will do the right thing and choose freedom and sanity over whatever Donald Trump and JD Vance are.

Hang in there! And thanks,

Martin Edic

If you ‘like’ this, please consider supporting my writing with a small donation through Buy Me A Coffee, a site for supporting creators, or by upgrading to the paid subscription option. I realize not all readers can afford to help out and that my writing needs to earn your support, so all my content is available to all subscribers. Thank you, ME