Amherst NY – My life, it seems, has been one of resistance. From resisting the draft to resisting fried foods, I find I’ve spent a good portion of my life resisting this or that, standing opposed to one thing or another. These days, when I hear the call to “resist” the current president, I cannot help but ask why. What will come of more resistance?
I am sure there are many people out there who would be more than willing to offer me a whole host of reasons as to why. Good reasons, too. I would probably find myself nodding in agreement often as they went through their list. But at a deeper, more fundamental, more existential level, I would probably be thinking about the futility inherent in their positions.
I have been entertaining the notion that the path of resistance inevitably leads one to a gradual withdrawal from society. I have been puzzling over what to do with myself to fill the void left by retiring from my job, and more and more the answer I come up with is – nothing. Nothing at all. I have several options open to me, but none of them are, to me at this moment, very attractive. Part of it has to do with my sense of the futility of action, and part of it has to do with my sense that very little can, or will, change human behavior.
Perhaps it is because I have spent so long saying “no” to so many things that I am now incapable of saying “yes.” Perhaps I have said “yes” to too many things I should have said “no” to. Like a resistor in an electronic circuit, perhaps the very act of resistance can only lead to burnout.
I have been sitting in a grocery store cafe for about an hour now, killing time, having had a small meal in preparation for opening night for a show. For the past 25 minutes, I have been observing an older gentleman, perhaps in his mid-70s. His physicality and movements vaguely remind me of Art Carney. He has been fussing with a handle-less plastic coffee mug he has in his small shopping cart. He spent 15 minutes at a sink obsessively washing the mug. The past ten minutes have been spent meticulously arranging and re-arranging the elements of the mug: the plastic top, the foam pad insulator. He has inspected the mug upside-down and right-side up over three times. He has now filled it with water and is heating it, I suppose for tea. I am imagining that these are the type of moments that fill his life. I think he has nothing he needs to resist. He’s done.
And I envy him. -twl