Fantasy Life

It’s really interesting participating in Family Zooms, because it gets you in touch with folks you can’t see any longer in person.  We even did a zoom call recently with a friend living in Germany. And our grandson had a Zoom graduation and follow-on Zoom celebration.

And in Zoom, people keep appearing in pop-up little screens, when they talk, then popping off again.  And the entire show, to me, resembles a dream. You know how, in a dream, people can wander into view, do something, then wander off again.  That’s life in today’s Pandemic world, or the World of COVIDIOCY as I now like to call it.  Trump keeps doing and saying monumentally stupid things, reminding us daily of what an immoral, incompetent asshole he really is.  One day he announces that he is taking hydroxychloroquine to prevent COVID striking him, and the next he is firing one inspector general or another, before telling us he really doesn’t know the guy he just fired.  And then there’s the mask thing. He won’t wear a mask in public. I guess he doesn’t want us to think he’s really just one of us. No, see, he really is not just one of us. No one else on the planet is quite as big an asshole as our president.

And meanwhile,  we can’t see any of our friends or family, and we can’t/shouldn’t  go out shopping or anywhere if we don’t absolutely have to.  So, we Zoom. And our fantasy life continues in this dreamlike state.

Because we (my wife and I) are now way past our sell-by date, I am caught in this “Waiting for God” state (I know, that’s the name of a really funny British sit-com, but still . . .). We’re not working, so we’re waiting. But waiting for what exactly? Well, I guess for a vaccine. But that’s a year or so off, regardless of what Stupidhead wants us to think.  So, until we have an actual tested and reliable vaccine, we really can’t/shouldn’t go anywhere, or see anyone close to us.  Mainly, the problem is our age. If we were 30 again (ahh, yeah, the good old days), even if we got the COVID thingie, we would likely survive, even if after a nasty disease state—worse I guess than the flu. But if we get the COVID, we likely don’t survive. Enter the fantasy world of Zooming.  And life itself becomes a dream-like state. Nothing is quite real, except for Stupidhead.  And even he is really just a character on TV playing our president, like some Sitcom character. Maybe there is no reality any longer and there is no actual world. Maybe we’re all just characters in one of my more realistic dreams. And maybe I will awaken someday to realize that I’m 10 again, and I have just been dreaming this whole life thing.

But wait, how about all those wars? Were they real, or were they just part of my never-ending dreams?  And did Ronald Reagan actually succeed to the Presidency, a B-Movie Actor becoming president of the United States? No, surely that was part of my dream. That was not possible in the Land that gave us Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

And where did that land go, the one that gave us victory in World War II, and that elected Franklin Roosevelt, not once but three times? Does that land still exist in some actual reality, whilst I am stuck in this fantasy world with a pandemic and a TV Apprentice host as President? So, when, then will I awaken? And will I really still be only 10?  And if so, will I remember anything, well at least enough to make me smarter this time?  And what might that do to the world, were I actually smarter? Would we be able to not only create a United Nations World, but avoid that Cold War stupidity? Would we all get smarter, and decide that guns were not an answer, when we could instead use our brains to devise moral solutions to the world’s problems?  And therefore, we would no longer begin shooting people in Korea, and Vietnam would become again just a piece of Asia that folks might wish to visit when they had the time and could travel.

Oh that would be so nice, wouldn’t it? But am I now just conjuring another dream to replace the one in which I seem to be stuck? Maybe, but it’s a nice dream. In it, people are born, grow up, become educated, and learn to live together in peace, regardless of whether they are white or black, or straight, or Gay. Well, I guess people might still be born narcissist and not care about others, but we would never elect them to be President.  No, they would still exist and still live their lives by blaming everyone else for all their problems, but they couldn’t kill the whole world.

Hmmm, maybe I’ll just stay in that dreamlike state, instead of this other dreamlike state I have been occupying. Then I wouldn’t have to think about an immoral idiot in the White House. Maybe instead, we would have a smart, moral woman. Yeah, that would be nice.  So, dream on Richard, but pick your dreams carefully, huh??