I stayed home today

Mortadella in Bologna, Italia

I stayed home today

I voted third party. So I didn’t partake in any protest today. But I don’t disapprove the idea of protesting; although I’m sure if particularly extreme examples of that protesting were presented to me in a biased, dishonestly-framed context (as this country’s institutional and individual-social-based media tend to present such things), I’m sure I too would disapprove of those things presented.

I confess to being in the habit of saying things like, “yeah, protesting in the streets may have worked in the 60s, but it doesn’t do dick these days….” But as I get older and learn to be more attune to my body’s aches and pains, I know that for corporate political bodies (like those protesting today) as well as for corporal individual bodies (like my poor hungover aching-self) that sometimes it feels good, indeed, cathartic (in every Aristotelian sense of the word), to purge oneself of anger and frustration the same way one would purge oneself of gas or snot the way one does when farting or belching or sneezing.

Yes, many onlookers–particularly many onlookers from very far away–see such farting and belching and sneezing as disgusting, but that has nothing to do with the individual need to expel the anxiety and frustration and infection that has been physically or mentally frustrating certain individuals with regard to the current political situation.

But spare me the holier-than-thou arguments: if Hillary had won there would still be rioting in the streets. The original tea party was a protest, the neo-tea party was a protest, and today’s marches and gatherings are but a protest.

So go ahead protestors. Fart it all out. It won’t change the status quo. But it may nonetheless be necessary in order to maintain our political health.

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