I dare to clash with some of OEN's brilliant writers and readers today by expressing joy that Biden won today, the lesser of two evils by far. Hillary was the lesser of two evils in 2016 but lost. First we needed a woman VP, then a woman prez. The nation is still male chauvinist--witness the most recent SCOTUS hiree.
Male chauvinist? Antichoice. Among other wholly un-American beliefs.
My view here may actually be the most radical on this page today, believe it or not.
I am a Bernie Democrat but with this cynical belief: that people are human and, as I've said many times before, things all boil down to human nature.
I maintain that if the hourglass of the population were turned upside-down, the new HAVEs would become as greedy as the present ones. Most humans want things and envy material wealth. Few people don't want to fly in private planes from one lavish residence to the next all over the world in tony resorts.
Do I want that life? Not really. But most people do and, as Emily Dickinson wrote, "success is counted sweetest/by those who don't succeed." Wealth may be sought after with as much ardor as the billionaire class is clinging to it andmultiplying it even in the throes of covid if not because of it.
The happiest people in the world have governments that take care of them: the Finns, according to a Forbes magazine study published on the International Day of Happiness this year, March 20. Sunlight in the midst of a pandemic, they acknowledged.
But none of the reasons Forbes gave for the Finns' happiness related to the government, except that without this form of benevolence, perhaps they couldn't take a walk in the woods so peacefully and love art so much and be the most highly literate people in the world.
But how can they be so happy in total darkness half of the year? Not that they'd want this old bag, but I couldn't migrate there. I need lots of sunlight. Maybe my pituitary gland is overly demanding.
Am I contradicting myself by pointing to the Finns' happiness after claiming that we all want to be billionaires? Do the Finns dream of having millions?
Maybe.
My father always said that he'd rather be rich and miserable than poor and miserable. He was only really happy when at work inventing things.
How did we get to this primitive and intuitive analysis of happiness?
Who's happier, billionaires or the Finns? Has that study been done? That might answer my question.
I've allowed myself a window of happiness, as have many fellow "liberals" today, despite Trump's threats to recreate Florida 2000 with his gerrymandered SCOTUS.
So I contribute this happy-talk today hiding the most radical and cynical thought on this page today: that we're all the same and we all crave the good life, the American Dream on steroids.
Beshrew me, or, more colloquially, "go do me something," as my mother used to say. Both she and my father would have rejoiced today.
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