encountering a sleazeball car salesman<\/a> at what is no doubt an equally sleazy faux “liquidation sale.”<\/p>\nNot a person of goodwill there, either. You know it. I know it. Clearly the best course is not to set foot on that lot again until the vermin have scattered back into the crevasses and crannies from which they emerged. And that’s easy to do because I’m only in the most casual, tentative stages of thinking that one of these days I might want a different vehicle.<\/p>\n
Yet there was one car on the lot — an older, high-mileage Toyota RAV4 — that sticks in my mind. It’s one of the only ones I might even come close to affording. I find myself fighting the urge to go back and say, “Look, I’m interested in taking a closer look at that one. But no pressure tactics, okay? I’ll talk straight with you, you talk straight with me. Deal?”<\/p>\n
The urge is ridiculous. I have no special desire for an RAV4. It’s not the time for me to be buying, anyhow. If I ever did want to buy another vehicle, there are thousands of them out there, some with honest sellers. The gypsy car sellers conducting the local circus are never going to talk straight to anybody. So why would I even consider re-entering that den of snakes — hoping for non-snaky behavior?<\/p>\n
The mad old wish that reasonableness will beget reasonableness — and that somehow, through my own behavior, I can be responsible for Turning the World Reasonable — emerges again.<\/p>\n
—–<\/p>\n
I don’t claim to understand the impulse. But one thing I know: It’s the same impulse that drives hopeful souls to write letters to their congresscritters, pointing out that such-and-such bill or law violates the Constitution and actually imagining that might change the perpetrator’s mind. (Um, don’t ask me how I know that, okay?)<\/p>\n
It’s the same fevered hope that leads people to believe — to truly Believe — that if they can just elect the “right” people to office that government will become clean, honest, fiscally prudent, and self-policing.<\/p>\n
It’s the same thing that drives people to attend politicians’ townhall meetings and wait patiently for the opportunity to step up to the mic and explain why Politician X really shouldn’t have voted that way and wouldn’t<\/i> have voted that way, had he or she possessed all the relevant facts.<\/p>\n
It’s the same delusion that, in its extreme stages, prompts people to say things like, “The government is US!” Or “If you don’t vote, you can’t complain!”<\/p>\n
It’s the same hope that a snake (and no offense meant to actual serpents, some of whom are quite elegant and useful) will behave unsnakily if we<\/i> just “do the right thing.”<\/p>\n
(Which is, parenthetically, the same impulse that both everyday abusers and politicians use against their victims: “I’m sorry I beat you, but it’s your fault. I wouldn’t do it if you didn’t act that way”; “I’m only obeying the will of my constituents.” Yada yada.)<\/p>\n
So what is it? Why do we — and this seems to be an affliction that bedevils some of the sincerest and most wannabe decent folks — keep flinging ourselves in the face of stark, freaking reality? Einstein called it the definition of insanity, to keep doing the same thing while expecting different results. Yet some very sane people (and dare I include myself in that number?) are the worst victims. And when I say victims, I don’t mean of abusive partners, crooked car salesthings, or corrupt (but I repeat myself) politicians. I mean of our own absurd hopes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When I was younger and attracted to the Bad Boys, I wasted a lot of emotional energy trying to explain to them how their more egregious behaviors hurt me. Or trying to fathom why they did certain things so that I could help “heal” them. (Yeah, go ahead. Roll your eyes.) “Why do you keep lying when you know I’m going to find out?” “But if you say you’re going to pick me up at 7:00, you should call if you can’t. Leaving me waiting until 8:30 without a word doesn’t make sense.” (Or in one case where the miscreant…<\/p>\n
Continue readingMad hope: The crazy wish to change reality<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5552","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mind-and-spirit","category-practical-freedom","ratio-natural","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5552","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5552"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5552\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}