"Optimistic Nihilism" - that's the philosophy one of my dearest friends is urging us all to develop as the USA continues to rapidly unravel around us in ragged streamers of red, white, and blue. We've been having some discussions as to just what it means and what should be included but it more or less boils down to remembering to enjoy the little things and the good in the world as politics, economy, healthcare, and society all dance off into an oblivion created by what could best be described as a coup in the nation's capital; unprecedented things are happening through extra-legal and downright illegal mechanisms, one after another like a well oiled machine while those responsible for the checks and balances are either unwilling or unable to mount even a tepid verbal response. So, for today, my optimistic nihilism was grateful for spring like weather, a weekend of music making, an impromptu party at one of my favorite restaurants, and getting through a whole day without a new viral symptom of some kind.
I hadn't pegged Elon Musk to be quite as dangerous as he is but, as I put the story together, the new cabinet picks have allowed him and a cadre of engineering grad students to march into the OPM (Office of Personnel Management - basically HR for the entire federal government) and the Department of the Treasury and access their central data bases and computer systems. So, a foreign born billionaire who seems more interested in salving his ego through enriching himself into the stratosphere, who is unelected, unvetted, unconfirmed now has carte blanche to pull your social security records, your Medicare files, and your tax returns. The close association with Peter Thiel suggests that we're going to have some big data set analysis on the scale of Cambridge Analytica. It wouldn't be that hard for them to parse the population into as many slice and dice pigeonholes as they see fit. And what if they start to manipulate the data. Sorry all of you transgendered individuals who we have easily identified by changes in gender markers on government documents. We've decided you no longer deserve Social Security. Push the button and the data's all gone. And good luck trying to fight to get anything restored from the outside when the entire system's hostile. The people of San Francisco are supporting leftist policies. Let's just prevent the treasury from sending any sort of disbursement to any California zip code. If what's going on now isn't giving you the heebee-jeebies, all I can say is you have a lack of imagination as to where this could go.
On top of this, after nearly two hundred years of peaceful coexistence, Trump has picked a fight with Canada, our closest ally, and is busy proving on an hourly basis that he has no understanding of what a tariff is or how they actually work. He's also sent Marco Rubio off to Panama to threaten their sovereignty over some half baked idea to try and take the Panama Canal back. Then, on the public health front, there's a measles outbreak in Texas, the biggest TB outbreak ever in Kansas, avian flu H5N1 is continuing to spread to various farm herds and bird populations leading to mass culling and a sharp rise in the price plus a shortage of eggs. It's still not effectively spreading human to human but with the taking of a significant portion of NIH and CDC off line this past week, it's not the easiest thing to tease out. But I'm sure if Robert Kennedy Jr. is confirmed next week as Secretary of Health and Human Services, these problems will all take care of themselves. And for even more good health news, there's been an outbreak of Ebola in Uganda and of Marburg in Tanzania. The policy in the past has always been to fight diseases like this (and the filoviruses are some of the nastiest diseases on the planet) over there so they never have a chance to come over here. The wide swaths of destruction in the Foreign Policy arena including the illegal disbandment of USAID is likely to prevent that sort of maneuver moving forward.
Tomorrow starts a new week - I'm sure it's going to have additional lovely surprises waiting for us. But optimistic nihilism will win the day. I'll have fond memories of my Scottish grandmother as I eat my oatmeal in the morning. I'll try to make a major difference in a patient's life by tweaking the healthcare system just enough to make something work better for them. I'm supposed to have dinner with Tommy's mother and brother. Coming up on seven years since I lost him. That somehow doesn't seem quite possible. That means I'm approaching seven years since I began these writings which have become many things to many people, even though they started out as sort of private therapy to fulfill my role of elder shaman storyteller of some sort. I don't know where these writings are going. I'm feeling the compulsion to write to help myself stay afloat in the same sea of existential dread many of us are feeling. But what should I be writing about. In some ways, this last two weeks feels a bit like the second and third weeks of March, 2020 when everything changed. I don't have the knowledge depth to analyze current happenings in the way I did then so I doubt I'm heading into The Accidental Political Diaries, but one never knows does one.
I have a ton of writing to do outside of these essays for books of various stripes. I'm behind, but I have no performance obligations for the next few months so that may help me catch up. Not this weekend, though for I had to put on my tuxedo, tuck my choral book under my arm, and spend a number of hours in the choral balcony at The Alys Stephens Center for the Masterworks concert. The chorus hasn't been used yet this season so this concert was built around us - an eight part Schubert piece for the men and string orchestra - a long Debussy piece for the women and full orchestra, and finishing up with Borodin's Polovtsian Dance's from Prince Igor to give the audience a little something to sing along with and a big presto fortissimo ending designed to bring them to their feet.
I really don't want to go to work tomorrow.