Two Tickets To Paradise
This post is a stream of consciousness discourse, the contents of my mind today. I have memories of my day at the race track, wonderful memories, with some left-over photos to share. This is prefaced and framed by the unhinged comments made by the President. Life is nothing but a mixture of good and evil, both nightmare and the dream….
Yes, that is the lyric line to the Eddie Money song. The tune was playing on the radio when I arrived at Starbucks. I was tempted to linger in my vehicle to soak up more of the effusive, youthful-energy of the tune and lyric of this song.
The music was a contrast to the NPR news interview with a White House 
public relations servant. He commented upon the Presidents racist Twitter tirade of yesterday slamming four female women of color elected to Congress. The interviewee 
insisted — the President had no need for regret or apology for his language suggesting these women return to the countries of their origin if they were unhappy. Hearing this man’s servile endorsement of the President while eating 
my breakfast cheerios, cast a pall over my morning.
Upon further reflection I realized that the President and those that surround him have a reservoir, year’s worth of unexpressed rage 
that feeds into raw racism. …. Life is a stressful experience, fair enough cause for anger; at best, adapting to “life” is work, and things do not always go well. Do we not come into this world with a scream?
Pleasure, a joyful response is possible only after our discomfort, yes, our rage is expressed. Joy comes after the work, the suffering is expressed fully 
and honestly. The pent-up-indescriminate-rage of racism is none other than fury unexpressed, a misshapen surd of a disordered life.
It’s lightning seeking a convenient target.
We are obligated to the work, to endure the stress, expressing our indignation at life’s unpredictability at the time and place those sensations arise within us. Afterward comes the pleasure of being alive, right here and right now.
If while walking around the pits at the drag strip and you happen to speak with a crew member of a race car, they will certainly tell you that they are there to have fun. Fun is the ultimate reason for their months of preparation-work The payoff is experienced when the motor fires to life, with a few minutes of warm up roars, spinning the slicks, generating clouds of rubber smoke. And then the launch; the big slicks catching the asphalt, the drivers body griped by the torque of ascendant horsepower — the car leaves compressing time to cross the finish line a few seconds later.
That is paradise, the dream. That is what we are meant for, in some form or other.
I’ve got two tickets to paradise, pack your bags we leave tonight….anyone?
2 thoughts on “Two Tickets To Paradise”
Besides the racist undertones of Trump’s tweet and his follow up defense of his tweet, what is lost in the coverage of this madman is his literal message of if one doesn’t like it here one should leave. This specific message is in direct conflict with what any well intentioned, patriotic, intelligent citizen in actuality works to do in this country…that being to work to improve it. To better it. To work to make it a better place for us, our children, and our children’s children.
For the president to communicate if one doesn’t like America to leave it rather than to communicate if one doesn’t like it to work to improve it, is reason enough for this president to not be elected for another term.
Jeff
I agree. I find myself asking when does rhetoric become more than just words? When does verbal intention become nothing less than state imposed exile? I recall that Socrates when accused of disloyalty was given the option of exile, or death.