Laugh at Them

I have written before on the tyranny of hopelessness. It was always in the context of politics. Since things seem to be getting worse and worse in this country, I wanted to send the message that giving up or pretending it’s not happening are the wrong course of action for anyone who believes in liberty. Well, some of you may have noticed that I haven’t been exactly stalwart in my writing this past week. I admit that just reading the news exhausts me these days. I find stories that could be addressed, but the fire of anger is giving way to the fire of sadness.

Of course, it’s not just the political directions of the country. For the past few months, I have been struggling with physical exhaustion. It’s something that’s happened to me before, when I was diagnosed with mononucleosis time and time again over the course of years. Each time, a nurse would call and tell me the test was positive. She would follow with something like, “But you should be feeling a lot better in about 6 weeks.” Each time things would get worse over months until I went back to the doctor to be told the same thing again. I don’t know whether this is the same thing, but I know I have felt unable to do any of the things I love to do.

Somehow, this physical struggle has brought to mind the few discouraging moments I’ve had in my life. There was a time I thought I could succeed at anything. Lately, I’ve realized that I will never be the published author that I aspired to be. I can’t even manage to get a publisher to read what I’ve written. I don’t dwell on this and it doesn’t interfere with my ability to do the things that are most important to me. Still, with the direction of the country getting worse and worse, my ongoing struggle to get through the day without collapsing, and my personal failures managing to float to the forefront of my mind when they are least needed, I have been in a bit of a slump.

This last week, I received a package in the mail from my mother-in-law. She had sent me what she called “the worst book I have ever read.” She went on to explain that if it could get published then I should never lose hope. She suggested that we should start the “Bad Book Club” and share all the horrible things we’ve ever read so that we would know someday I would get my chance.

What’s the point? It made me laugh. That’s exactly the reaction we all ought to have when we are overwhelmed by the idiocy of the things going on around us. As conservatives, we believe in people. And the real problem is that when we hear socialist nonsense being spouted, we often get defensive and discouraged when we ought to be amused. When Janeane Garofalo called the tea parties, “Racism, straight up,” I was waiting for the punch line. It had to be a joke, right? No one is THAT stupid. Perhaps there should have been a little more laughter and a little less anger.

The point is that our cause is just, so we don’t need to jump to anger, offense or depression. Reason and right will triumph. I still believe in this people. Every once in a while, I am going to highlight something especially idiotic that someone has done, to give us all a chance to laugh at stupidity instead of let it turn us to hopelessness.