Blimbo

a : a place or state of restraint or confinement b : a place or state of neglect or oblivion c : an intermediate or transitional place or state d : a state of uncertainty

As the White House plays musical chairs, all that seems clear is they ’re all just suspended in a parallel universe, confined by an acquired deficiency syndrome of self-image, self-interest, PR flacks, and pecuniary lobbyists—not to mention decluded journalists. If all four of the estates have been refracted, then this must be an altered state we’re all in now, and it seems to have little or no relevance to the realities of everyday life for the citizens of any nation, least of all ours.

An alternate school of thought, more sympathetic, would simply point out that all this is simply symptomatic of “the human condition,” which has always been at best fallible and subject to fatigue. Of course this begs the question of whether or not we invest our leadership, our elected representatives, with some weird trust in their infallibility, or at least in their judgment, to do the right thing, follow the rules, and keep us duly informed. After all, their mandate is to serve the people. If so, we all remain aloft, up in the air, so to speak, high and dry, unable to fly, or land. In reality, that trust is just hope, the hope that our trust will be validated by their actions—not their ambition, greed, or avarice.

But of course they believe they’re normal and upright—right, not altered—and their critics are not. The ultimate irony, of course, is while many of them actually practice basic precepts of natural selection, survival of the fittest, in short, evolution (God forbid) in its most naked form of economic and social control through political power, they may even invoke the Lord as their shepherd, who made us all holy through “intelligent design,” as their moral compass and divine justification.

Some might call this hiding behind smoke and mirrors or not allowing the left hand to see what the right hand is doing.

Where does this hubris come from? Where do these miscreants incubate? What fertilizes their profligacy? They make an omelet or a quiche by breaking eggs, like everybody else, yet the yoke’s all over us. The question is do they really believe they’re trying to do the right thing, or are they slippery serpents on a grassy knoll? In God’s name was the beginning, many of them will say. For God’s sake, then, in whose name will it all end?

Or are we doomed to be in this suspended animation forever because it will not end? And that altered state we’re in is not just out there; it’s in here, in our heads, our altered states of consciousness.

Yet another view would reveal that we’re all just trying to get along, to survive, with the limitations of the equipment we have at our disposal—hereditary, genetic, educational, and economic; skills, goals, desires, and ambitions. And while all this propels us forward (or not), it also often confuses the issues, and us, leading to rationalization and the need for justification, both for the sake of others and ourselves.

Throughout history, elaborate frameworks of thought and action have evolved (there’s that word again), revolved, and devolved, and that process keeps rocking the boat and altering our states—national, natural, corporeal, emotional, and intellectual—not to mention our estates. Nothing stays the same, some say, while to others, the more things change the more they stay the same. History does seem to repeat itself. One thing seems clear though: there are no absolutes, really, except that we all just keep hurtling through space and time, little molecules that we are. Or, as the president might say, whatever.