By Tobin Barnes
It’s tough to get excited about anything in January. Know what I mean?
After all, it’s the Monday of months.
Makes your head feel hollow. Agree to something you don’t want to do, which is almost everything round about now, and you hear stuff rattling in there like your skull has become someone’s maraca. The mental beads are your loose mid-winter thoughts searching for motivation.
And like Tuesday follows Monday, February follows January. Whoop-tee-do.
Gees, I’m depressing myself, let alone you, huh? Stuff like this is all you need. I almost hear a fuse fizzle in the background.
So let’s ratchet it up a bit, shake off the winter doldrums, and blow out the cobwebs. That’s right, let’s celebrate reliance on hackneyed cliches as the currently preferred method of communication by talking heads, politicians, curmudgeons, and other divines.
No. Wait. I can’t do it. Let’s stop right there. Shift those gears, buddy. We’re getting out of here.
Instead, we’re going to talk about idealism. Uh huh, it’ll be like a vitamin B12 shot. Admit it. You need it, I need it, and for the love of Mike, conservative guys like Bill O’Reilly need it, too.
When life’s practicalities become over-bearing—you know, like cold weather, gray skies, lethargic domestic solutions going nowhere, and Iraqi quagmires getting quaggier—it’s time to turn over a new leaf and become giddily idealistic in spite of it all. Allow optimism to wash over our glacially frozen thoughts like papaya juice over a coconut. Er, or something like that.
So let’s talk about the fascinating appeal of Barack Obama, shall we?
There’s a certain something about this guy—a guy who’s come out of nowhere—that’s turning a lot of cranks. And I have to admit, my crank is one of them.
He’s kind of like the western character Shane, in my mind, a mysterious stranger who appears out of the horizon ready to save the good-hearted homesteaders from the evil-minded gunslingers.
Something ethereal about him makes you maybe think that at some point in the future, we’re going to lose him and be like the little kid in the movie, shouting, “Come back, Shane!” And we didn’t even know who the heck he was in the first place. But we want him just the same.
Or, at least, the idea of him. That’s what we’re really looking for, isn’t it?
Been a long time since we’ve had a charismatic leader with talented intellectual and stylistic moxie. Some would go back to Reagan. Some would say, “No, it’d be the Camelot days with Kennedy.” And some would insist we go all the way back to the Roosevelts.
Nevertheless, we’re looking for someone we can admire. Be proud of ourselves for picking him. Know that we looked all over this country and finally found the best we could produce. (Isn’t that what’s supposed to happen?) Be happy we didn’t have to just settle for someone this time.
Seems like we’ve been doing a lot of settling lately. And we’re kind of sour about it. Some have given up. It’s January in more ways than one.
Of course, coming out of nowhere is the key. It’s the mythical way leaders come to be in our favorite romances. Like Luke Skywalker out of the sands of Tatooine. The long tale stranger thing.
We like to imagine our leaders rather than know them. Imagination is inspiration. Knowledge is...well, it’s just plain-old mundane. Matter of fact, it can be disheartening.
I don’t know much about Obama, but I like what I see. I’m hoping he’s what I want him to be.
Then, just maybe (Oh please!), anything’s possible.
Only hope he’s not all smoke and mirrors, like some magician out of those same romance tales that produce the mythic heroes.
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