Eduardus Jacobus: Despair (after 1698)

"I'm frantically seeking an exit."

I am learning that indecency was never the opposite of Decency. That ignoble association belongs to Despair. Decency represents the difference between hope and Despair, rendering Decency a rough equivalency to hope. Decency provides a context within which hope might thrive. When Decency disappears, Despair rushes in to fill the void, rendering it even emptier than it had ever seemed before. The miscalculation the MAGA crowd made might have been neglecting to factor in what happens after all accustomed hopefulness disappears. It’s not a win if the reward amounts to a vacuous void. It’s not a win if you leave your opponent with nothing left to lose. Then’s when the opponent becomes most dangerous.

Lawlessness induces desperation. It discloses the lawless’ desperation, too. They have no recourse, either, but to resort to Despair. Their plans assumed conditions and powers never evident. Their fantasy tussles with a more tenacious reality, too, and probably even more desperately. They induce desperation in their opposition by engaging in it as an offensive weapon. The clueless engage in stunningly stupid stuff, shit nobody could have possibly dreamed up. Their offensive becomes a moving accident, a default—their fault, but not their intention. Since nothing went as planned, everything failed. The effort to deny acknowledging the depth of the resulting catastrophes encourages ever greater calamity. If this doesn’t seem ridiculous to you, you’re not paying close enough attention. If you’re suspecting that you might be the crazy one, you might be paying altogether too close attention.

The counterintuitive response might involve averting my gaze. I cannot continue to invest my days failing to stay informed of what’s not going on. The news might not be fake, but many of the activities reported seem less than genuine. Rumor prompts more investigation than genuine suspicion used to. The following day’s news begins by debunking what had been previously reported as probably occurring. It didn’t. Something much worse might well have happened instead, but it’s too late by then to avoid the resulting catastrophe, though that outcome, too, happened differently than initially reported. These results reverberate through our system, inhibiting understanding and justice. No volume of information will resolve the perpetual confusion, much of it deliberately sown in abject desperation by the failing administration. They know they’ve failed. They’ve turned fay!

Some days, I swear I cannot face another onslaught. Thank heavens we don’t subscribe to cable, so we avoid any temptation to subject ourselves to cable news networks. The noise we experience seems plenty bad enough, with little space left for hopefulness. I feel desperate. Have I become a desperado in response? No telling what any cornered cat might do. When even going to the grocery store takes on life-or-death shadows, I’m moved to stay locked in my room. I swear I’m gonna blow up my phone! I should not be left alone, yet I want nothing more than to be left the fuck alone. I no longer seem to own my future. Self-determination has been replaced with self-recrimination. I feel like Charleston Heston raging against whoever produced this Planet of the Apes.

Decency has not forsaken me. I feel as though I might have forsaken her, though I know conditions beyond my control have been actively trying to smother her. My Decency generator’s wounded and its spare parts are backordered. I’m uncertain when, or even if, necessary repairs will be completed. Will I need to exist without its reassuring presence? How might I pull that off? Have I lost my courage or merely misplaced it? Will Decency ever again serve as the currency of our social interactions? Will the future ever again seem even distantly attractive? Despair has no future, only a past. That past has been amplified under a false flag posing as greatness —and greatness again —on absurd premises. The opposite of Decency is nowhere, the place where only despair thrives for both sides. Now that I’ve arrived, I’m frantically seeking an exit.

©2025 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #Decency, #PureSchmaltz