Too much thinking... or not enough?

Oh good grief. I've been wanting to blog for days, thinking about little things like the amazing mulligatawny stew I made the other day, or the yummy birdseed bread...

and thinking about big things, like mitzvot (commandments) and all the obligations we are called upon to think about during the High Holidays. One of the greatest mitzvot, sort of the heading underneath which many of the better-known ten commandments fall, is simply: give a damn about how your actions impact those around you. Every day, in every way, big choices and small, we are creating the world we live in. This is so fundamental to Judaism. We are not stewards of G-d's creation, no, we are co-creators. We are here to add our bits, our colors, our weavings, our songs, to the grand spectacle of this world, this life. G-d has given us the materials to work with and the rules for how to use them, and through our actions and our mistakes we are culpable, responsible ~ every little thing we do is linked in ways we can or cannot see to everything else around us. Even when we are wronged we play a role and are responsible for it.

I did so much thinking... and so far too little writing. But the thoughts are there... banging away inside my head. Bees and flies and ladybugs caught in the bottle of my mind.

And I've been thinking about other big things, like dirty, mud-slinging campaigns and why anyone would think it would be a good idea to treat your opponent like an enemy and link him to traitors and terrorists... and what have we become, this country, when the puppet masters pull the strings and we froth at the mouth so much it seems we could never come together to solve anything. At the library I work with good people from across the political spectrum. We all get along well. We all find good things in each other. We all smile and stand a little taller when it's a warm sunny day in the fall. We all cringe at the thought of winter heating bills.

Even when we all know we vote for different candidates.

But you'd never know this from watching television. No, there you find the news-makers and news-shriekers, stomping about like so many adrenaline junkies, willing to do just about anything to raise the ratings and key up the horse-race with their daily doses of outrage.

I shake my head. I have to wonder why we can't seem to do any better than this. This isn't news. That isn't a campaign. This is the WWF. That is theater, over-acting, big hair and winking for the camera and the guys who would laugh at VPILF jokes. Whip up the mob and send 'em running off to the voting booths.

And while this may make for great ratings and fundraising now, where, seriously, will it leave us on November 5th when the votes have been counted, the dust has settled, and we as a country have to turn our attention from the mesmerizing horse-race to digging ourselves out of this hole?

It's beyond sad. It's a disgrace.