EARS AND SOULS

     "Put your ear down close to your soul and listen hard."    Anne Sexton
     Everyone with a thinking working brain is trying to figure out how we got this country into such a mess. We call the President names that would have been unthinkable for other presidents, yet it seems as if they are not enough to truly express both our outrage and our fear. Yes, fear, for we no longer are sure of ourselves, who and what we are as people and as Americans. Do the terms we call the president actually also define us or does it define us in another way, asking how we allowed this disaster to happen, how we let this tragic figure of a man become our presumed leader.
     And no, it is not enough to say, "well, I did not vote for him." Perhaps you did and are ashamed of it. Or on the other hand, perhaps you did vote for him or you did not vote at all and thus you share primary guilt in this particularly American tragedy. So what happened?
     First of all, we have a ridiculous system of elections, an outmoded system that was meant for an elite group of people to decide for the people who would actually become President. It was feared that the masses would not be informed to the level they needed to be for this decision. Agreements were made to divide the power, so a state of 750,000 has as much say in the Senate as a state the size of New York or California. It is such that the loser of the popular vote actually became the President thru the Electoral College System. Bad going there. Time to change the system but why would there be reform when it benefits those in power, enabling them to retain power and impose their views, no mater how unpopular or dangerous, upon the people of this country, and indeed, by effect, upon the people of the world.
     Bad system indeed. So what to do? First, reread that quotation at the top of the page. That is what must be done first and foremost. I believe if we actually listened to our inner selves and questioned these inner thoughts with full heart and soul, we would realize the true right and wrong of things and be ashamed of those faulty and bad? evil? outmoded? thoughts that we were secretly harboring. Put our ears, our inner ears, the ears of our souls close to each other nd listen hard, very hard. And honestly. No more lying to oneself. No more trying to hide the error of judgement. No more of this abyss that is the growing division of the nation. If we do not heed the ears, the souls and the hearts, then we are doomed.
     Choices will have to be made. Listen to the words of the candidates. Hear who spouts words of hate. Who kneels before Trump? Who has changed views so as to get elected and how can this person be trusted? And while I am very leery of Republicans, especially the women for I have no understanding how a woman true to herself can vote for a party that has Trump the pervert, the morally dissolute individual as its head of party.
     But I am also leery of those newfangled ultra left wing candidates of the Democrats. We need to insure that they are honest, that they have no hidden faults in their past and watch the words of hatred that they spout and espouse. Extremism on either side is not good and while Barry Goldwater said that "Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice" or something very similar, I believe that extremism of ANY kind is destructive. We must make that clear to all. We must make the ear to the soul hear the truth and understand the middle of the road virtues.
     I believe that I have had my ear to my soul for quite some time now and I hope I am on the right track, voting for and supporting those with whom I can place my hopes for the future, those who understand that they are to serve the people, and not the other way around. Can we  all say the same thing. Listen. Hard. Even if we think we are already doing so. It is easy to fool oneself if it makes life easier for us, even if only in the short run. But the future needs long term thinking. It truly does. Ears and souls. Ears and souls.