It’s been a hard week. Well, ‘hard’ is not an adequate descriptor. It’s been a soul-searing, heartbreaking, depressing week. None of it of my own doing. 

Or perhaps it’s all my own doing… not that I feel responsible for the madness of the world (other than my own little corner of it) but I do realize that I could tune out…I could turn off my devices and simply BE in my own personal NOW where there is no murder, no fear and no Donald Trump…where there is love and kindness, simple chores and natural beauty. 

But instead of opting for sanity and stillness, I bite on that addictive racket-of-a-reality-show known as the NEWS, that endless parade of tragedy and stupidity, of hopeless opinion and dark projections. I willingly enter this arena where I know the emperor is sitting, grinning, with his thumb in the air, listening intently for cheers from his hapless, pissed-off, hell-bent followers before gleefully turning his chubby digit down on yet another bit of American social progress. 

So, it is in that regard that I accept responsibility for my own state of mind. 

I must say it takes weeks for me to recover from some of the bloody horrors I subject myself to; last Sunday’s Las Vegas murders being this week’s challenge. I have by now, to my credit, at least enabled my thumb to quickly move along when I graze by yet more ‘discussion’ by endlessly baffled talking heads about what America is to do about itself. I can’t help…I know it, and like countless people the world over I must watch in despair as the lights of the ‘Shining City on the Hill’ go dim and flicker. 

Free, fun loving, fabulous America, refuge for the oppressed, safe haven for those who would stand up to injustice, peaceful, generous, powerful, reliable, sane America is flirting with becoming a global nightmare; a powerful, dangerous, unpredictable, bully nation capable of extreme reaction to perceived slights, a nation capable of suppression of the press and the manufacture of a completely false world view, a dysfunctional dystopia where mass murder is accepted as ‘the price of freedom’. 

And I guess that’s why I watch…why we all watch… in spite of the fact that devoting time to this ‘watching’ diminishes the quality of our lives, disrupts our sleep and brings forth a cynicism about the durability of the democratic notion itself. 

And yet we all must realize that we are living and watching a historical battle for the very idea of a free society… and as America goes, so go the rest of us. 

Heavy…yes? 

Now for the good news. I have found an antidote to the cynical view that The US is doomed. Just a week or so ago, after noting it’s many Emmy nominations, Lori and I decided to have a look a tv show called ‘This Is Us’. It’s appeal is that it paints a completely believable picture of what is still daily life for the majority of Americans. The show is about the common yet intense and fascinating drama that is the daily experience of the many kind and loving people that fill up the houses all over the United States… American people. 

This Is Us states it’s case in the shows title and I am either naive enough  or faithful enough to believe it to be a true statement. I believe that the vast majority of Americans live quiet, decent lives and want to keep it that way. 

The show is simply about real people and their struggles and triumphs. So far there have been no killings and no guns, no secret agents or super-heroes, no lionized police, doctors, lawyers or politicians. The heroes are Just Us. 

This show has brought home to me the recognition that every life, no matter how nondescript or seemingly unimportant, is brilliantly written, directed and acted out by the very minds that experience it. It is helpful to consider then, that the power in each individual mind to effect it’s own circumstance, must  be extrapolated  to the  general well-being of the world. 

Perhaps this new take on Americans is just escapism and the horror show will eventually darken all of these lives…but maybe not. We all know that light will always displace darkness…darkness being nothing more than the absence of light. 

Perhaps humanity is at the critical stage of it’s re-birth…and let’s face it, making the process as painful and messy as possible is only human…and peculiarly American.