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Trolley Holiday

Andrew Miller
@AndrewMiller
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Sometimes all you can do is see the way the world is going and ask: Can I have my handcart back?

Not least because riding frantically along in the next lane is the old line about escaping, finding yourself in the ranks of the insane.

The more politics is allowed to seep into life, the more miserable we seem to become – and the less room there is to be truly human, and truly alive.

There has to be more to life than this. Not so long ago, there was. Maybe it’s time to take the politics out of life.

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  • John H.@JohnH

    I’m doing my part. Not quite to keep politics out of life, which is trivially easy for me (remember, politics is civic anger, with the civic part meant to excuse the anger part, and I’m too lazy for either), but to keep foreign affairs out of life. A small but not insignificant contribution to overall domestic tranquility. Where others think of diplomacy in terms of personal relationships, I try to do just the reverse. For example, I never think of any country as my country’s friend. Countries aren’t friends; people are. Rather than pretend that a diplomatic corps smoothly effects human interactions, at their harshest just imposing a three-cup limit on tea, I pretend my more unwilling human interactions are being mishandled by a diplomatic corps. If someone asks me to do something I don’t want to do, I say, “I’ll have to refer that to my Ministry of Rituals and get back to you.” Or, “I’d ask my Quai d’Orsay but they just laugh at my mispronunciation of ‘Quai d’Orsay,’ so, you’re out of luck.”

  • Paul Stinchfield@PaulStinchfield
    Andrew Miller (View Post):

    The more politics is allowed to seep into life, the more miserable we seem to become – and the less room there is to be truly human, and truly alive.

    The problem, of course, is that government intrudes into so much of our lives--and there are many people who want it to intrude even more.

  • Blue Suede Shoes@OldDanRhody
    Andrew Miller (View Post):

    Maybe it’s time to take the politics out of life.

    Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help.

    His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish. [Psalm 146]

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