Photo of stop light by Ian Anderson UnsplashLet’s say your spouse or partner or best friend or boss told you to let him/her be your voice, that they knew more about everything than you did about anything without giving any reason for that to be the case, that he/she was a genius beyond the imaginable – no need to provide evidence for that obvious fact either, it’s clear, check it out at his/her imaginary bank account – give  him/her a blank check to buy you treasures you didn’t even know existed, they only downside is that you would eventually get tired of winning, of getting everything you ever wanted or could want, that you – oh, you lucky person that he/she is here to save you from the carnage and disaster of your life – make him/her your president, your savior, your idol, your…yes…your everything – and if he/she stands in the middle of a street, any street, with an automatic rifle and shoots people at random, no worries, they were killers, bad dudes, and he/she just saved your life.

So, you took a chance, elected that person as president, and he/she destroyed everything you ever valued and set you on a speedway to nihilism…oh my god!

But the next election rescued you from imminent disaster. Finally, a normal person comes along, a good dude, miraculously wins, becomes president. Yes! It might take a mighty effort to fix all the damages, maybe some are even beyond fixing for a generation or two, well that happens, but you have hope again, you roll up your sleeves in order to get to work, you have your life back, he/she is history, you see light at the end of the. dark tunnel, yes, yes, thank goodness, you’re not in a cage of despair watching the world burn anymore, you will find the parents of those kidnapped children just as soon as you find them. Hurray!

However, the defeated villain doesn’t say, “I’m sorry. Good luck. I’m behind you all the way. Please come to my White House home so I can show you where I keep the Hershey bars. Yum, so good.” That never happens. Instead of an olive branch, he/she grabs a golf club and says, “See, I won. Smashed par like I smashed everything else. I’m a smasher! No worries. I’ll kill a few more and everything will be fine again.”

That’s what preoccupies you. He/she pretends to be in charge again, as before, prepares for the future triumph, maybe not at that exact moment, but in a real or metaphorical few days. Losing is winning! The focus remains on him/her, after all, that’s the world as it has become.

Really? No, of course not. Certainly not for me. I don’t worry about what’s in the trash. I never was a big fan of the gutter. I think about what I can do with what I have. I remember that all the bad dude ever said were lies, falsehoods, fabrications, untruths that some delusional person called alternative truths. What’s such a big deal if the defeated president doesn’t utter a few meaningless phrases that doesn’t mean anything anyway. We know that every word is a lie, outside the bounds of reality, and who cares anyway?

You won! Count the votes! You dodged the bullet!

The stoplight has turned from red to green. I don’t need a policeman’s blessing or a driver’s manual to know that I can push the accelerator and continue my journey.