Dearest Fellow Mourners of Love and Truth: Please Keep Searching for Love and Truth in Your Village.

Seven months gone in a blink. I’ve moaned and groaned about my personal, persistent time management disfunctions so often even I’m sick of hearing about all that. But the truth is, the last seven months–since the loss of my boi boi–all disappeared into a blur of functional depression and harsh talks with myself which I promptly forgot until it was too late, so another round of self-talking was necessary, then another. Those harsh talks don’t seem be very productive. So I’ve tried a new tact: inspirational self-talks after jotting down Pro Lists.

Saturday’s went something like this: You’re fine, Kathy. See! Just look at this list! Great job, benefits out the kazoo, friendly coworkers, food, shelter, yada yada, a hubbyriffic, a sweet six-year-old puppy who tolerates your bad habits, recent re-connection with fun cousins, a tank full of gas in the very affordable little black car. These are good things. These are the basics on which a life can be enjoyed. ENJOYED. E-N-J-O-Y-E-D. No. Don’t look at the time. Look at the list. Why … why would you want to list failures again? Let’s talk about accomplishments … Okay …you’re right, technically getting out of bed today isn’t an accomplishment. Task? Expectation? Back to the Pro List.

… but instead of focusing on being hella awesome at my job, or the fact that the puppy now obeys Speak!, I allowed myself to get distracted by the internet.

At first the distraction was a welcome joy. The first time I heard Rich Men North of Richmond, by Oliver Anthony, was actually on a reaction compilation video that showed up in my Facebook Video feed. It was JOYOUS! People of different age groups, races, and genders all reacting passionately to the lyrics sung by a soulful, mournful, poetic, country musician who seemed to appear out of nowhere all of a sudden. I watched dozens of reactions. Then … I made the mistake of reading a few articles. Then, I started thinking about the life of my parents, my own experiences struggling for food & shelter money in my early twenties. Then … what I spend on streaming services, how groceries now for two adults and one pup cost the same of what a family of twelve would have spent per week three years ago … the BRIC bloc, and the proposed Central Bank or whatever the fuck that’s called, and the war in The Ukraine, and the last few paragraphs in Candide …

The Pro List is bullshit.

No it’s not.

Yes it is.

No, it’s important.

So, back to Candide, a novella by Voltaire published originally, I believe, in the 1760s. In the concluding pages, after much adventure, heartache, working the system, working against the system, feast and famine, the protagonist and his accidental little group of friends and acquaintances inadvertently form a village. The members of their village divide work according to what they’re best at, and they plant a garden and tend livestock that feeds the village. The village becomes their focus. Enough is plenty.

Now, I’m sure that there are countless people a great deal more educated than me out there who could get together and argue this satire encourages insular, nationalistic, blabbity blah blah. Or, that the story itself is morose, or intentionally misleading, or whatever. If life has taught us anything during the age of social media it’s that anything can be debated from every imaginable side.

Another lesson over the past few years that should have hit home with everyone who owns a smart phone or … ears and eyes … is this: WE HAVE TO STOP ASKING THE GOVERNMENT FOR STUFF. While petitioners may have the best intentions and the absolute purest expectations, please understand that politicians will just fuck up all your ideas and turn them into absurdities because they’re too busy with their own agendas to pay attention to things like integrity, and basic human rights which should be obvious from the outset.

The government doesn’t have any money. So, whenever funds are requested for one group or one project or another … where do you reckon that money comes from? The government doesn’t have any money. So, they print it, which has repercussions far beyond making the money worth less than the number printed on the paper. Then they tax working folks because lord knows they’re not going to foot the bill, and certainly not their rich corporate buddies. PEOPLE in government have scads of cash and other assets. That’s how they got there. The road to the capitol is very pricey. Who sets the prices? I really have no idea.

Back to the taxes. The lesson that we should have all learned in the past few years (because obviously we didn’t pay attention for the decades before 2020), is that government programs, legislation, etc., COST US MONEY. NOT THEM. It impacts our lives, not theirs. Working people pay for everything. Stimulus checks? Read the FICA and Medicare tax portions of your pay stub Friday vs three years ago. Read your property tax bill. Read your bank statements from this year vs. three years ago. How much more are you paying for the same groceries vs three years ago? Yes, that’s directly related to stimulus checks.

Call your Congressperson’s office and ask ’em WTF. They won’t have a reasonable answer. And I’m not even skimming the surface. Most of this tax revenue/government spending/corporate tax breaks/banking-commerce statutes blabbity blah is way over my head.

But just on the surface, the facts most relevant to every day working people life is enough to make the song Rich Men North of Richmond hit right in the gut.

Back to the video reactions: How many times have I seen that many “different” people react so similarly to a single topic? Topic being the video of Oliver Anthony singing in the woods? How many times? Uh … never. Everyone has a different spin on any given topic any given day. Ask 10 people, get 10 answers.

That truth diverged a few days later, of course, when political whatchacallits decided to claim the song, and the singer, and the “truths” within the lyrics as Right Wing.

(I’m speaking to capitol hill folks now)

THERE ARE NO WINGS. There’s one lumbering stinky beast. And you are part of it. Now, the shame of it all is this: We allowed y’all to become the one lumbering stinky beast. We allowed “government” to become something other than its true definition. The government is meant to keep our borders safe from invasion and protect every citizen’s right to make a living.

That’s it. It’s that simple.

And we’ve allowed you to become a bureaucratic hot mess of bullshit that spends months debating whether or not same sex marriage should be legal or if public restrooms segregated by gender is unconstitutional, while there is absolutely no consideration given to the absurdity of spending more money on a war across the globe than solving medication and housing crises within our borders. Those first two arguments are just not Congressional or Supreme Court concerns. And yeah, our streets first, theirs second. Period. You all suck at your jobs. And it’s our fault.

(I’m speaking to folks not on capitol hill now)

I suppose you might be wondering what my initial rattling on about time and depression have to do with a rant about the government bleeding working Americans dry?

After years of battling depression, I’ve come to a conclusion. I’m not a doctor, nor do they let me play one on TV, so I’ll limit this statement to my personal bouts with depression … I have about 6% control over my life. That may be a generous estimate.

That 6% includes deciding what time to brush my teeth.

Yip. I really believe this. On any given day, at the very least, a minimum of 6 other people have a say in how my day is going to go. That’s not counting the hubbyriffic, or those yahoos making legislation about how to spend my money.

I can’t fathom what it must be like for working mothers driving home from a 10-hour day realizing there’s no milk in the fridge. I can’t fathom what it must be like for people with health issues that are in abusive relationships and still have to deal with shit like earning a living and paying the bills. But that’s what our country is made up of, right? People dealing with all sorts of stress and physical pain while hoping their kids don’t grow up to be rickety-boned sociopaths all while paying the government for the privilege to work for a living. And frankly, there are a LOT of Americans that have forgotten that welfare is supposed to be a hand up, not a way of life.

That song that’s rampaging across the internet is speaking the truth for us. NOT THEM. It’s not meant to be right or left wing. It’s for all of us stuck in the middle tired of the spectacle.

I’ve only done it a few times, admittedly, but I’ve prayed for those folks in the Ukraine. The regular people who just want to go back to their gardens, and pet their dogs, and say hi to their coworkers and their favorite bakers on Monday. The people who don’t have a garden, or a dog, or a job, or a neighborhood baker anymore because “world leaders” (greedy ass politicians) felt the need to create another spectacle.

(Do you really think Mother Russia couldn’t have stomped a hole in that little spot on the map within a week?) Moving on …

My depression, my inability to manage time and stay focused stems from having very little control over my life decisions. I really don’t own the fortitude or lack the integrity to shout for revolution. I couldn’t back up that shout or last through four or five rallies, but I do hope to build my own flavor of revolution. I want to be part of a village. I want to spread the word about the importance of a village. I can do that.

I want to grow my own potatoes. I want to loan my lawn mower to a neighbor who can’t afford to buy a new one. I want to share my fuel discounts with my sister and my cousin. I want to gift banned books to teenagers. I would like to encourage my family to do our own version of Go Fund Me programs to help an aunt get car repairs or pay doctor copays. I’d like to buy fish and venison from those cousins who hunt and fish, maybe trade a few potatoes for some onions or tomatoes. Maybe I’ll learn how to grow a medicine garden, and someone can teach me how to preserve headache powders and antibiotics that grew in my back yard. Maybe I can share an article with a coworker that helps them understand that investing in BRIC currency is about as stupid as quitting your $50k a year job to get on welfare because fuck ’em. (I mean, yeah, fuck ’em. But don’t shoot yourself in the foot while shooting the bird. Did I really have to clarify that?)

I’ll keep paying stupid taxes in hopes that some weary mother on welfare for the last five years finally gets a great job and her eldest child can go on to get a great education and discover a cure for pharmaceutical companies being greedy assholes. I’ll keep putting up with having six bosses because they give me the opportunity to hire and train people who’ve never received that kind of break before. And I’ll keep praying for places like the Ukraine and all those regular people stuck in the middle of the spectacle.

And I’ll watch my village get bigger.

And I won’t forget that all these people who are so different from me outside the village are so very similar. And you can bet I won’t vote democrat or republican for the rest of my life because fuck ’em. They’ll do the circus without me.

I’ll keep having those talks with myself.

Today’s accomplishment: I wrote down my thoughts and feelings for the first time in seven months.