I am
much too young, and so, undoubtedly, are you, to actually
remember Ted Lewis, the band leader whose catch phrase, "Is
everybody happy?," spoken in his high-pitched madcap-ecstatic
voice, furnishes me with the ironic title of this month's
essay. Be that as it may, the conversations I have these days,
socially and professionally, range in mood from, oh, say
Shostakovitch's 8th Symphony, to Chaplin's "Smile, though your
heart is breaking...". Happy days are not here again, yet, and
they seem like they are more likely to be somewhere over the
rainbow than to be just around the corner. (If you want the
citations for all these song phrases, email me. And if you
don't feel depressed enough yet, listen to Shostakovitch's
8th.)
At the
low end of the spectrum, there are those who have lost or are
losing a job. The more over 35 you are, the more this hurts,
in every way - it's demoralizing. Then there are those who
worked hard, saved well, and are seeing their retirement funds
go down the tubes while their health costs, even with
Medicare, go up up up. I am going to stop talking about
financial matters here because it's too depressing.
But before I stop, I have to
mention obsessive watching of cable news shows and political
talk radio. That's another thing that seems to be angsting up
the zeitgeist, big time. It seemed like it might finally be
balanced, maybe even fair, when MSNBC came on the air to
challenge Fox News. Now, whether you are on the left or the
right, watching this stuff is like taking daily doses of
terror and rage pills, which gradually accumulate in our brain
cells until we are all walking around like we're in a Freddy
Krueger movie crossed with a weather disaster movie, waiting
for someone to say something on the left or the right or about
the weather that will send us screaming in terror as we wend
our way through floods, tornadoes, hurricanes, monsoons... and
then droughts. Good times!
Well,
for people whose lives were already pretty traumatic, you can
imagine how keeping things together could be harder than ever
right now. It's hard for most people today. Our government is
like two bitterly divorcing parents, Republican Dad and
Democrat Mom, fighting constantly, making the kids (us) feel
torn in half, like nothing is secure, nothing is safe. I won't
say which one I think is less guilty, and which one has lost
its mind, but the former starts with a D, and the latter
starts with an R.
So how
do I finish this up with a ray of sunshine and a gleam of
hope? Well, this is a good time, if you have friends and
family, to repair damaged bonds and ties, as much as you can,
and find time for fun, for connection. It's a good time, if
you are alone, to reach out for support where you can find it
- maybe through some religious or spiritual affiliation, or
from a mental health professional. It's a good time, if you
are able, to pitch in to some constructive effort that might
help a cause you care about, or maybe the less fortunate; or
if you're out of work, in between looking for a job, take care
of all the organizing and repairing you never had time for
while you were working. It's a good time to turn off the radio
and the television and read, play a game, cook a meal.
It's
getting darker and it will be getting colder soon. If you can
find some warmth and some light, take it in, and spread it
where you can.
