Roger Marolt: Sick and tired of being sick and tired

I’m tired of arguing over the vaccine. I’m exhausted debating masks. I am out of energy refuting conspiracies. It’s not that I think it may do no good. I know it won’t. I would have better luck changing the weather.

Everybody knows the talking points on both sides. Everyone repeats worn out dueling retorts. Evidence has no life. It lies listless, speaking for itself in gasping breaths, powerless against being manipulated grotesquely against its will. Nobody will change their mind. As the sun rises every morning, so sprout the weeds of conviction in the desert of overconfidence.

I still have convictions. But, it has become as wearisome sharing them with the like-minded as it is issuing blistering critiques of those way out beyond the other side of reason.

I ask myself why I am continually calling out the anti-vaxers, anti-maskers, flat-earthers and Q-Anons. I thought you were either one of these or you think they are stupid. Was I disparaging them believing ridicule would make them see the light? Was I doing it because I was genuinely concerned for them? Was I mad? Most unspeakable, was I hateful?

Anger, resentment and hatred wrapped in an airtight package will not bring the world together. Even if it could lead to legislation effectively thwarting those who we firmly believe are wrong in their thinking, we will never heal the human condition through force of will or war. Resentment, anger and hatred directed at anyone results only in more of the same being lobbed back.

If we want people to get vaccinated, we need to convince them it is because we love them; same with wearing masks, same with solving global warming. Love is not a political solution, which may help explain its lack of popularity at the moment. We have become a regimented, zero sum, win-at-all costs, politically rooted society. Love cannot be strategized or spun.

It is possible to keep going the way we are and fight vehemently and bitterly on all issues affecting humanity. And, there is a chance that this may lead to solutions. But it is fairly obvious to me that if this fighting is the way we decide is best to solve our problems, the world of bitterness and enmity we create in the process may not be worth saving.

I tried blaming the world itself for what it has become. Now I know I have been spinning around on an angst-filled planet of my own creation. The larger world certainly has big issues to deal with, and they are, for the most part, the same issues I am dealing with in my own self-absorbed existence of increasingly seeing more ugliness and less beauty through cataracts of stubbornness. I refuse to live there any longer!

It will not be easy to leave this place. I’m used to it. I know where everything is. I have employed personal tastes and style to make it comfortable. But the rent is suddenly too high. The views have become obstructed. The noise is unbearable. I have to get out, not because I think I am losing my mind. I am losing my heart.

Refusing to wear a mask and get the shot are polarizing acts. But ridiculing and trying to shame people are acts just as polarizing. We, all of us, are the biggest problem.

I will never lose my passion for things I believe are right. In fact, I will try to have more confidence in my convictions, so I can back off and allow others more breathing room to seek truth their own ways. Nobody needs to be beaten over the head with facts. It’s time to free them from the death grips of our prideful certainty. Truth can and will stand on its own. Trying too hard to prop it up sometimes conceals it in my drooping shadow.

Conspiracy theories are sustained by the vigorous opposition to them that they accurately predict in their creation. Roosters do not lay eggs, so who would argue with anyone who claims they do? A vigorous assault on absurdity only creates slivers of doubt.

There is too much noise in the world right now. Truth stands taller in calmness. Contemplation thrives in quiet. Justice resides in hearts, not lips. Joy blossoms under the clear light of revelation. We have polluted the cerebral environment of self discovery. Modern politics fuels our worst inclinations. We can be better by caring less about issues and more about each other.

Roger Marolt believes the best thing he can do for the planet right now is to make sure there is love wherever he is standing on it. Email at roger@maroltllp.com.