March 10, 2017 — Eden Swartz

1935 (Old) Cactus Garden. Balboa Park, San Diego, CA. March 5, 2017

Today the sun came out and it was glorious. It melted me, a little. I feel bored and embarrassed about how depressed I have been feeling this winter. And to that I say, "Fuck off".

And then there is the subject of politics, which is hurting me. Am I more aware of politics then I have ever been, or, are things more horrible, more desperate, more depressing, more maddening then they have ever been in my adult life? The more I read about politics, the more utterly disappointed in humans I am. I don't understand, fundamentally, how we are all born on the same planet, we all breathe air, drink water, eat food. We all feel the sun, the rain, snow, ice. We all have bodies. We experience this world using our senses, our feelings, our hearts our minds. However, we all feel such infinitely different things. For me, treating people with respect, dignity, as equals, makes complete sense. I am shocked by how differently people can feel about this. And how did they get that way? People learn things from their families, but people learn things from all kinds of places. Books, TV, movies, community, neighbors. So, if your parents, for example, are anti-semitic, does that mean you have to be anti-semitic? Why is it so hard to people to think for themselves? Why do these people in Congress want to take away health benefits from millions of people? How does that make sense to them? Why do they want to take away mental health benefits? How does this make sense? Nothing makes sense anymore.

What should we do? Should we stay and fight? Should we flee? Freeze? I'm thinking of fleeing. I listen to Mark Maron's podcast called What the Fuck. He recently talked about going to Canada to do a couple of gigs, he does stand-up. He talked about the relief he felt just because he was outside of America. Flee. I want to flee.

I feel like one of these cacti. On the inside, I need to introvert now, for a while. Probably just tonight. I need to go inward, to go away, to take a break from everything. On the outside, you will get fucked up if you come near me.