I’ve Made Friends With an American

The best-laid plans, blah blah blah and all that rot.

You see, my problem is that I can’t put my brain to sleep simply because doing so would make my life easier.

It would be much easier for me to write off everything American, including all of its products, television shows, travel destinations, and of course the American people themselves.

But it’s just not that simple to do, unless one wishes to become like the ones one loathes…you know…the ones who see everything in term of absolutes, and who can simply disregard the invonvenient truth when it threatens expose a flaw in their reasoning.

I can’t do that…I’ve never been able to do that.  I’m mentally ill.  I see things as they are, not as how I wish they were.

And I’ve recently become friends with an American.

And I like him.

He’s young, married and a new father.  Like me.  And he loves his wife and family.  Like me.

And the things we discuss have nothing to do with him being American and living in So-Flo, nor do they have anthing to do with my living in Canada.

He’s white, probably of the lily variety, whereas I have, ahh some colour…yeah, I’m half-white, but I prefer… non-white of European descent, if you must…yes, I’m snarking.

Bottom line is, in any other situation, we may never have even given each other a second glance, had we met on the street.  We’re from different worlds, his being mainstream American, mine being Canadian pyschopath…

I don’t even know his politics.  I’m afraid to ask… I assume, since he knows my background, it can’t be something to which I’d object…but I’m assuming here…

All I know is, this week, he was having difficulties with the whole wife/new baby/everyting Fubar/head up the ass thing that we all go through with the arrival of our first children and, having been there, I gave him some advice.

It was good advice, apparently, for he told me I should publish it in Men’s Monthly or something…regardless, the fact is, when we correspond, I don’t think of him as an American.  I think of him as as good guy and a friend.

And then I watch the American news or read American news, and listen to American idiots on television, and read the writing of American idiots, and hear yet again of yet another evil perpetrated upon the world by idiot Americans, and I get very angry/disgusted/whatever.

And I say, “Fuck America, I hope it goes down the toilet faster than a used condom.”

And then I think of my friend, and I ask myself if what I’m saying is fair to him, and to his family, and his little newborn baby girl.

And I admit, no, it’s not…

And then I ask myself why everyday, average Americans can’t do the same for the hundreds of thousands of lives that have been destroyed by the actions of their government, and the only thing I can say that makes sense is, “I guess you have to be American to understand American Exceptionalism.”

I don’t understand it, I think it’s obscene and ultimately the cause of the decline of America…the bully can only bully for so long before schoolyard gets together and kicks his ass, but good…

And, when I think of the ass-kicking America is sure to receive in the near-to-mid future, economically, politically, and perhaps even militarily, if America turns on itself in the dark days ahead, as it did in 1865, I can’t help but think of my American friend and his family.

And I know that, whatever I say, feel or think about Americans, if he showed up on my doorstep seeking refuge, I’d take him and his family in without a second thought.

I can’t imagine doing anything other than that…

Does that give us hope?

Or am just the world’s biggest sucker?