Shallow Be My Name

Honestly, I never thought it would come to this. If there was anything I was ever committed to, it was my commitment to being shallow. Flashback five years ago. Way back then I prided myself on having spent one whole week writing this blog. One. Whole. Week. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would still be here five years later. Five. Years. Later. (I’ve never truly understood why people do that but what the heck.) I know. You’re going to remind me that paying my 24 buckaroonies every year around this time was at least half the reason I stuck around. Perhaps. But I truly believe it was more than that. I had a mission. I wanted to share with people what it was like to live life as a shallow person. I wanted them to know that it was ok. That one could live a rewarding and meaningful shallow life. I went so far as to let people know that it was possible to be shallow and sad, shallow and irritated and even shallow and a little scared. It was this dedication, this steadfast belief, that kept me going, posting each and every week, and then each and every other week and finally each and every month. What I didn’t anticipate those five years ago, was that it is not possible to be shallow and angry. And that’s what I am now. Angry.

Some of you are going to say “I told you so”. You’re going to confront me with some alternate facts. Facts that you think are definitive proof that I was never really all that shallow in the first place. You’ll label me a “so called” shallow person. You’ll tell me that the very act of writing this blog, of being as introspective as I have been about my shallowness, is testament to your point. That my deep thoughts about being shallow are the very antithesis of what I have professed to be over all of these many years. To you I say balderdash! Because whether you think I’m shallow or not is entirely beside the point. If I think I’m shallow then I am shallow. Sure, you might have evidence to the contrary. So what? I have better evidence that I am, or at least that I have been, shallow for the better part of my life. And I know this to be true. I mean would a person who is not shallow admit to having watched almost every reality TV show (and let me tell you that’s a very big number)  that has ever been foisted on the viewing public? Including “The Apprentice”. Before Arnold. Face it. I saw Omarosa get fired not once, but twice and even though I may have missed that lucky third time, I do believe that I have made my case. And now I expect you to think so too. And anyone who tells you different, well they’re just wrong. Probably getting some fake news from some fake person from somewhere fake.

Sorry folks. That last paragraph was just too easy. Perhaps even a little self-indulgent. It’s just this. From where I sit (literally) it is very clear that these are troubling times. The fellow that’s now calling the shots (or should I say fellas) seems to be more than a little problematic. He’s caused me and a whole whack of other people reason for concern. On very many levels. From this vantage point I would have to say we are in a kind of  time machine heading at warp speed towards the 1930s, to a place on this planet that many of us are not going to enjoy very much.  This is a guy who doesn’t trust the mainstream media, doesn’t trust the “negative” polls (which at this point would be most of them), doesn’t trust a majority of the people who live on this earth of ours, certainly doesn’t trust his political opponents, and really doesn’t trust those who have been entrusted to uphold the laws of this land of the free and home of the brave. On the flip side he does seem to trust the guy who thinks he has disguised the white supremacist movement by renaming it the “alt-right” (does he think we don’t read?) as well as the current leader of Russia who I understand might not be as trustworthy as our fella seems to believe. And here’s the thing. It’s really, really hard to be shallow when the guy at the helm who trusts almost no one can’t be trusted to do, well pretty much anything we might actually want to have done.

Perhaps not surprisingly, all of this has made me angry. And, I have to be honest with you, a little less shallow. I have abandoned “Survivor” for CNN. “The Voice” for MSNBC. I feel as though if I ran into Anderson Cooper on the street we would be on a first name basis. Rachel Maddow might as well just move in. In the past 3 weeks I’ve learned more about the U.S. Constitution than I ever expected to know and I think, if given the chance, I could probably take a reasonable stab at arguing the “merits of the case” with regard to the recent stay on the Muslim ban. (Did I say “ban”?). Quite frankly, this whole thing has pretty much turned my life upside down.

All of this, as you can plainly see, has led me to the crossroad on which I now stand. How do I continue to write about being shallow in a world that deserves some very serious attention? How do I ignore the alternate facts, the discrimination and loathing that I now see every day? And that’s when it occurred to me. This is my blog and I can write what I want to. If I want to write about being shallow, I can. But if, as has happened today, I’m feeling a little less shallow and I want to write about that, I can. I’ve written about non-shallow things before and it hasn’t worked out all that bad. As a matter of fact, people seem to like my non-shallow posts. I know that’s true because I see the numbers. And let me tell you, they’re fantastic.  Huge. Really huge. But you’ll just have to trust me on that.