It’s so hard to be happy these days

My dad was a very kind person. That was his nature. He was kind and friendly and considerate. He really set a tone for being a kind, friendly upbeat person.

I think I have tried to be that kind of upbeat person in my life and I hope that people that I come across see me as such. But, I have a deep inner dilemma in that when I see injustice or corruption or innocent people being killed or violated, I get very upset and indignant about it and it goes against the kind and friendly and always happy demeanor that I like to put forth to the world. I'm not sure how to be but I know that it's very difficult for me to just be passive about colossal displays of base level human behavior; well below any standard I thought imaginable. A president who rapes children and "grabs em by the pussy"?

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Let's just take the unprovoked bombing of Iran a few months ago where 160 school girls were killed when a US bomb struck the school for no reason. The government tried to deflect their involvement and in the end there was no responsibility, apology, or remorse. The UN has now deemed it as a war crime but the U.S. doesn't care. We are intenational outlaws who do what we want, when we want to, with impugnity Living in a country that dropped a bomb on a school on a sovereign country for no reason at all bothers me almost every day and it makes me want to punish and hold accountable people that left 160 parents without children, dead forever because of the insanity of an administration of "evils". Do I just ignore it and not let it bother me and go about my day and play tennis? That's probably better for my mental health but it's something I'm not able to do.

I observed Barack Obama during his presidency, and he had a very good temperament, a very kind great natured person, but there were several things that he let happen during his presidency that I found disturbing. There were times where I thought he should've been less of a doormat to the Republican senate majority, more tough on the opposition than he was. For example, when the Senate majority leader stole a Supreme Court pick from him he just did nothing. He didn't have the strength and toughness and relentlessness to stand up for something that was so important. A seat on the Supreme Court was just taken away from him and he did nothing. He whimped. He probably smiled most of the time, but I don't think a lot of things necessarily get done if you're always smiling and putting up no resistance. Sometimes you have to get down in the mud and get really upset (like Republican congressman Thomas Massey) and show that you're not backing down on principal about the law. I don't know how to "be". I know that I'm miserable if I'm walking around, thinking about all the corruption and lies and injustice and racism and child rapes that are going on completely punished. It can drive me crazy to think that we live in a country where no one cares about child rape, or racism or stealing money or making yourself rich by being in public office or just total total corruption. How would I have handled being a German living in Nazi Germany knowing that my country was slaughtering people all over the world and exterminating people in my own country. Would I have just gone to piano lessons and had sauerkraut with my family and been good natured and happy and friendly to my group of friends? Sometimes you have to get indignant and un yielding and you have to punish those who are destroying laws and people's lives (and our democracy) etc.. But how do you do it without losing some of your spirit and some of your soul. I love Mr. Rogers and he was an amazing person but how would he have handled living in Nazi Germany as a German? I just don't know what the best approach is if you allow corruption and lawlessness and the killing of innocent people then you're just gonna get more and more and more of it and this administration is proving that. If we just smile and go about our day, nothing's gonna change.

i remember as a kid watching the movie "Billy Jack". This guy would not tolerate racism and corruption and he would punish the perpetrators. Sometimes you have to just punch people in the face. I say that metaphorically, but it has to be like a punch in the face otherwise life seems pointless. Life seems chaotic, random, out of control, completely unjust, and it can zap you of your spirit. There are times in my day when I can be distracted and just feel happy and connected with friends or acquaintances but then I see, within minutes, the society that we live in via social media, etc.. It will pull me into all of the outrageousness that's going on and the suffering that's going on and I'm captured by how wrong it is….being happy is much more difficult.

It's a constant struggle. There always have been imperfections and injustices in society, but nothing that ever approaches what we have now which is complete INSANITY. It's constant, day after day. They never take a break and I have to say that I've become a person who leans on alcohol for the first time in my life. I'm not proud of it. In all my life I never had alcohol, never!, but watching the way the world is evolving now …genocide and pedophilia and protecting criminals and pardoning people who attack our Capitol, and the destruction of our democracy by completely greedy billionaires…. I need a lot of drinks to deal with that sometimes and I'm not proud of that.

Ignorance is bliss. That's what childhood afforded me. I was able to focus on things like butterflies and baseball cards and the pure joy of a Coca-Cola with ice. I could go on carefree walks, listening to my transistor radio, and thinking of simple thoughts. Those days are completely gone. I didn't know about greed back then; I didn't know about corruption. I didn't know what a billionaire was. My parents never talked of money and now that's the only topic that I hear every day of my life. I hear it in every conversation between adults. The current administration with the media's cooperation has got everyone obsessed with net worth and being a billionaire and tracking who's the richest person. When I'm overhearing people speaking at a restaurant, etc. they are so often talking about money. There's an obsession of money in this country that is almost going to spell the end. It's such a low existence to be constantly focused on money.

I wanna be like who I was as a child where I had so much less information in my head . We are absolutely corrupt to the core now! The world then wasn't run and controlled by a very small country in the Middle East. We had free speech. It was never perfect then, we still bombed countries for no reason but it's gotten way worse. We're more racist now. Trump bombed eight countries this year (so far). Thats a record. Who could imagine a president with 34 felonies, including a rape conviction and clear evidence of child rape. If that doesn't ruin your day then you just don't have feelings and you are dead inside. It's a tough time to be alive right now I think we are living in the worst timeline. I Imagine we will lose our democracy and it's because people are corrupt, people are evil, people don't care. Tbey are indifferent. They think of themselves only. They are greedy and there are very few people willing to stand up for the principles upon which this country was founded. Because of that we will become a dictatorship run by racists and billionaires and numerous pedophiles. Complacency made it inevitable.