Where We Are

There’s an old Eagles line in a great song, written by Jackson Browne, ironically enough.

“Don’t let the sound of your own wheels drive you crazy.”

I spoke to a couple of friends, via text, and essentially, I was talking them down about the state of the country.

Both friends were on the edge, feeling that there wasn’t a way out of this mess.

“The Epstein files don’t matter. The stealing of money means nothing. No one says a word about tearing down the White House.”

That sort of thing.

And neither of these friends are doing very well financially. They’re around my age, and instead of thinking about retiring, they feel that they may need to get another job.

“I’m going to work until I die.”

That brings tremendous despair, of course, and the fact that they were sending me the worried texts on a Sunday morning, struck me as more than sad.

It’s tragic.

Instead of enjoying life as we enter the back 9, they’re driving themselves crazy as they wait for the world to go back to what we knew before 2015.

My advice to them was to worry only about what they can control.

No one is coming to save us.

This is where we are, and unfortunately, it may get worse.

AI may change everything permanently as we become even less important in the grand scheme of an ever-greedy corporate world.

“It’s going to get worse,” wasn’t the comfort that they expected of me.

“Decide to be happy,” I mentioned. “Worrying about this isn’t helping. Wondering if they’re going to try and steal the election.”

“How can I possibly be happy then?” One friend asked.

“That I don’t know,” I said. “For me, I cook a little, play golf, read and write, and keep an eye on the Yankees.”

“It’s all so depressing. They declared the country to be insolvent and yet everything is being covered in gold.”

“Don’t think about it,” I said.

“I’m one bad blood test away from being bankrupt myself. How is that possible in the richest country in the world?”

It shouldn’t be.

But here we are.

Trapped in this moment in time with very few things under our control.”

“Think happy thoughts,” was met with a resounding silence.

This is where we are.