Selling Souls (the essay)

Trump is so proud. Here he is boasting again: “I cut regulations.” That is like a permissive parent declaring. “I give my teens carte blanche!” Big banks can cut corners: industry can pollute with impunity. “Laissaz faire” all over again, and the stock market soars. Retirement accounts shoot through the roof. Money, money, money! That’s America. More money than anybody, and more COVID cases to boot. Does one have anything to with the other? Not in a practical sense. But, on a metaphysical level, they are bound eternally. (“It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle…” etc., etc.) 

 

How is it the stock market continues to climb even as a pandemic decimates our lives? It laughs in our faces – the stock market – kind of how Lucifer, in the old Hollywood films, laughs in the face of poor farmer who, having bargaining his soul for riches, at his most wealthy moment, cruelly comes face-to-face with his doom. 

 A Wall Street analyst on Fox’s Neil Cavuto, predicts the Dow Jones will rise to 150,000 points – five times higher than today’s record numbers. Does that mean we will all be rich? No. The rich, rich, rich will get richer. Salaries will rise; so will prices so that the rich, rich, rich can make more, more, more. And, the poor, poor, poor will get priced right out of their homes, their cars, and their shoes.  

President Trump is a product of our boredom – bored with the same politicians posturing, bloviating, and going about with such phony abandon that we had become cynical, and sickened, at once. We kept voting them in because that is all there was. Then, along came Trump. Now we understand why we voted for the others. 

Boredom has always been safer. In its absence, the ground shook beneath our feet. That is why we voted for Trump. We wanted some “shaking.” We felt we could handle that action. We could cast aside boredom, and not only survive, but thrive. (After all, we’re “exceptional”). And, we made money, (so says the stock market). But, we do not thrive; we die – not because of Trump, but because of our choices. 

Excitement is exciting. It is in our blood. We would rather die than be bored. Yet, we picked Biden to be president (lest the earth open up), though he is boredom incarnate. No worries. We only want to catch our collective breath…give ourselves time. Death can be so exciting.