Eating the Bitter

We are who we are…progressives/liberals/radicals/democrats…because we care. Because we feel. Because we have the capacity for empathy, the capacity to feel the pain of others.

This is a curse.

The curse of consciousness.

Like, we don’t have enough pain of our own, we need to have more pain? The pain of others? Puhleeze. But that is just who we are. We want everything to be wonderful for everyone…and are willing to suffer to make that so. Compassion, empathy. We join with others to try to ease the suffering in the world. To some extent. Until we reach our individual limit. Or until someone pisses us off and we bail. Or lash out. Or blow up.

We work hard and struggle to build a Progressive Utopia…until it gets too hard or someone says something we don’t like. We are full of high ideals and noble goals. Until the shit hits the fan.

Then we are just humans again, having to face our own pain, instead of the pain of others. Having to face our own limitations, instead of bemoaning the limitations of the wingnuts or Bush or the enemy du jour.

Working for high ideals and noble causes and making a difference (and believe me, we do) is sweet. Having to face our own limitations, our own pain, our own humanity and all its failings in the course of that…is bitter.

We are good at eating the sweet.

In order to survive in this world, let alone succeed…. we have to pretend. We pretend to be strong. We pretend to be confident. We pretend we know what we are doing. We pretend that all of the hurts and pains don’t hurt as much as they really do. We pretend not to need each other as much as we really do. We pretend not to be vulnerable. We have to. In order to survive.

We build grand structures of self to shield us from the world.

And then they blow up.

Always.

It is sweet when the grand structures we build work, and succeed. It is sweet that after years of pretending, we find out that we are strong and confident. When the grand structure blows up….and in the midst of the explosion when find out that we are not quite as strong ad confident as we thought, when we find ourselves in the rubble of that grad structure with what appear to be grievous wounds…it is bitter.

We are good at eating the sweet.

When we have a common enemy to fight and we can all band together and fight the noble and righteous fight, when we can display our strength and confidence and courage to those we admire on the field of battle, when we have that chance to let the best of ourselves shine…and see others that we admire shining as well…..there is nothing sweeter.

When we defeat that enemy, when victory is at hand ….and we realize that now there is no more external enemy, when we have only the enemies within ourselves and our comrades before us and we find that we cannot stop ourselves, after all the years of fighting and building grand structures from which to fight….. from now fighting them….

We are good at eating the sweet.