Lake of Fire

The state insect of NM is the Tarantula Hawk, a rapacious wasp. Its reproductive regimen includes stinging and paralyzing a tarantula, dragging it to its nest and depositing a larva on the still-living spider. The developing larva feeds off the spider’s living but immobilized flesh. When I encounter this kind of thing (I remember meeting and loving the Magnificent Frigatebird in Baja, only to learn it is a kleptoparasite (you see where I’m going with this)), I have a routine reaction. I think that such an insect is gross and mean and should strive to be more like us. Then I use my brain and feel shitty and embarrassed.

I feel that way because it’s been obvious for so long that we really are a petty and mean spirited people despite our endless potential and resources. We could have been somebody, but chose instead to build this endlessly unfolding tragicomedy inside the still breathing – or dead – bodies of a permanent tide of actual people. I have learned that when I see something small in scale and think about how it fits in, I am humbled and strive (badly) to be less of a destructive asshole. But I try, and that matters. It humbles me also, for example, to learn that the redwood tree is held up – all thirty stories of it – by a tangled mess of roots only two feet thick. They live like this for thousands of years. And we don’t know shit about life in the forest canopies of the world; they’re as little understood as the seas.

And yet, we marvel at the stupidity and meanness basking in the sun of an electoral victory as if it’s not us. ‘How could this happen?’ ‘Who are these racist incels who voted for this infestation?’ It’s us. Of course, it’s glib to paint the US as an unabashed menace, but it’s just as glib to reject the idea. As the Japanese say, even the reverse side has a reverse side. I go back to the original condemnation of the US as a hypocritical land grab and not some noble experiment, and I examine that now over and over. My conclusions horrify me. Our core failure is to think we are something we are not, even bask in the lie so much that we think the warm glow on our skin is reward, not a lake of fire.

Place names tell story – Mississippi, Connecticut, Dakota. We paralyze the victim and feed on its still breathing flesh. This is us. Until we remove the chains of fear and ignorance, we are all complicit. Fear leads to ideas like embracing incremental change and moderate centrist thinking. Dr. King understood that. He wrote about it from jail. He knew his greatest enemy was the white moderate – those who decry the direct action of lifting other human beings in the name of order. If we examine just one moment of our history – the transition from Carter’s presidency to thatassholereagan’s (credit Mikel Jollett) ascendency – we see the lionization of hate and greed and mockery. I could analyze the psychology (insecure men digging hopelessly in the empty well of masculinity), I could take the long view (we’ve seen and survived worse), I could blame others (Democrats have hidden behind fake compassion without doing the work). But who gives a shit? The system adores itself, gazing longingly at its own reflection even as the skin blisters and falls and reveals the monster underneath.

I am in a lucky position. I don’t have to worry about employers. I’m not in school (don’t get me started). I can hide in the desert. I have a partner on this ride. I have the luxury to do whatever I want, wherever I want. I don’t have to deal directly with MAGAts if I don’t want to. But still, my hearts breaks and races at the damage now unleashed on endless number of good people, who, given a chance, would all do the right thing.