The Impossible Yearning To Be Young, Flexible, and Steady Again
Please, Joe, do the right thing.
Humans can learn a lot from sitting on a back porch.
At least, this human did.
He thinks he’s superior, somehow not a part of nature, because he surrounds himself with wire mesh and sits 15 feet above the action in a cushioned chair while watching a parade.
Today, there was a coyote, fox, turkey, squirrel, and a herd of deer: doe, buck, and two fawns.
The fawn in the photo lagged. And then she hinged, chomped, paused, reset, and gamboled after her family.
The mother and father did not need such antics. They’d been there and done that.
Unfortunately, he can imagine himself 50 instead of a month away from 75. Or even, on a good day, with a knee bend or two, 15.
He knows the lies he tells himself.
And wants to believe the lies others tell themselves.
And tell us.
If they can do it, so can he.
But he has friends who are 80 and can’t do things they could have done five years earlier. And he knows what he can’t do today, what he could do five years ago.
He’s a Democrat who thinks Joe Biden has been a good President. Until the night of June 27, he thought Joe Biden was like LeBron James, the exception that proves the rule. At 39, James is playing the game of basketball outside the normal boundaries of age.
Instead, he saw Joe as the formerly great Willie Mays at 41 misplaying two fly balls in the 1973 World Series.
He knows what he saw on June 27; he’s no fool.
So now joins with most Democrats who believe President Biden should step aside. (source)
The temptation is for all of us to believe we are the exceptions.
We see ourselves, again, like that fawn.
Fortunately, we can also imagine a different outcome where we see our lies for what they are.
We can imagine ourselves on a back porch, observing how nature works — admitting our yearnings.
Seeing how these can so quickly morph into self-deceptions.
And then thinking:
The other guy lies to us all the time. Probably to himself as well.
I should be different.
Note to my readers: I am torn about the “Should Joe Biden step aside question.” I take one side in this story. Robert Hubbell provides a compelling argument for why President Biden should remain the nominee.
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