The signs are all around, for those ready to be alarmed by such signs.   I’m not speaking now of the obvious ones– cutting food stamps for millions of hungry American children (“takers”) while limitless money is spent sending armies to kill vaguely identified enemies, along with massive, classified ‘collateral damage’ and things like that.   I’m speaking of the subtler ones, the more personal signs, like the ones I gave in yesterday’s post here.

Sekhnet recoiled slightly from the immodest idea that someone would recommend oneself for a MacArthur grant.   An act of supreme desperation, clearly, to say: even though I have no idea how to monetize my idea or bring it to market, to truly scale or even sustain it, I nonetheless deserve half a million dollars from a gigantic foundation to show what I could do if I didn’t have to worry about those things.  The reason I deserve it?   The idea is genius.

“Wimp!”

“Coward!”

“Braggart!”

Yes, of course.  I can see it so clearly now, and am slightly red-faced to see it so clearly.  I wrote the words yesterday to give myself a bit of hope during a discouraging time.  I will now sprout a few more signs of lurking insanity as I conclude.

What is hope but an act of imagination?   If we cannot imagine something different, and work to make it happen, where does hope come from?   Hope is faith, based on the percieved soundness of an imagined outcome and the steps toward it that have already been taken.   Does the idea seem to work in practice?  Grounds for hope.  Without hope, baby, game over.

As surely as one can find reason to be hopeful, there are many more reasons to lose hope.  I have a few right in front of me now, cackling with bad breath as I type, a couple behind me, coughing with vague menace.   Do you need further proof of the desperate situation I find myself in today than this attempt to climb out of a greased pit?

“The People rest, Your Horror.”