In the crumbled financial institutions of this land...

[evilhippo]

Let this first line stand as a warning that this entry is going to be rambling and probably very pretentious.

I mean, okay, I don't even know where to start. I got most of my massive brain farts out of the way in a massive e-mail to one of my friends (we have a habit of exchanging pages-long e-mails every few days). But... I mean... holy crap, guys. Even looking forward from a week ago holy crap. What are we living through? What is going on? Maybe I'm feeling this more acutely because my job ties me so closely into this, but, um... wow. I knew we were in a mess. I'd felt the rumblings of it (or what I assumed were the rumblings) more than a year ago when I started searching for a job. But that may have just been Chicago being its dumb self.

I guess, to step back... the massive world financial system, built on shouting, pieces of paper, and misplaced trust, is crumbling around us and taking everything down with it, digging long claw marks into the drywall. We're swinging strongly towards electing our first black president,a man some people still believe is a Muslim (like that's a bad thing, anyway). Our government is turning "socialist" and possibly buying ownership shares in our banks. And small-town people are shouting "terrorist!" about things people did forty years ago and threatening death for those who don't share their ideals because some of them think gay marriage and not overturning Roe vs Wade will destroy their way of life (somehow moreso than unregulated financial systems and corruption). Our current president is a complete lame duck that can't get his own party to vote with him. His party's successor candidate doesn't agree with them at all, yet lets the party run his campaign into the ground. His running mate is a power-hungry/power-abusing wolf-shooting Alaskan, whose fans are working to reclaim the phrase "Caribou Barbie" from her detractors. The underdog in this election is a freaking old white man career Senator from Delaware. It's mind-boggling. It's unimaginable, looking through the lens of the Bush era. And yet here we are. And where the heck are we going? And what will it mean for the optimism of so many if Obama is unable to make a dent against this wall?

Maybe I'm just seeing this as a sudden change because I've started reading the New York Times regularly (curse you, liberal media!). The world stock markets kind of imply something different, though. Suddenly masks are falling off everywhere, and we're staring at a world that's pretty scary, but a world we might be able to start pushing in the right direction, now that we've got a better look at it.

And, oddly enough, there's something kind of comforting in seeing the kind of chaos I've been encountering in my directionless post-college wanderings reflected in the world at large. Something is going to change. Something has to change, and something is changing. (I'll say I'm not really big on another Great Depression, least of all because then we'd have to rename the first one and all, just like we did with the Great War.) It makes me more comfortable with pursuing the sort of change I plan on pursuing. Getting out of the country seems less like a safe bet, since everyone is in this mess together now, so I feel less like I'm selling out by fleeing, and more like I'm going off to see other things (which is what I'm doing... unless we elect McCain. Then I'm just plain fleeing, but without selling out.) And teaching, at least for a while, seems more like something that can be done with noble purposes in mind, because now is a time for noble purposes. It wouldn't just be about passing the time until I figure out my purpose. (At this point, I'm starting to think my purpose is more to do as much as possible, and amass as much experience as possible, and become some sort of maverick jill of all trades... which really isn't going to make me more employable, but at least I'll be more interesting.)