Not fretting about the Pope’s politics

Something I used to do more often than I do now. Turn on Voice Recorder and sound off by myself to myself. The FB POST I did about Chris Christie disdaining Trump’s experience of theology reminded me of these old YouTube clips in particular. Why I feel some kinship with Trump about his midnight outbursts. He wakes up with some idea and because he’s a showman he has to get it out there. Not always the politic thing to do, obviously, but it’s a glimpse of the opposite of what of the 25th Amendment drones are targeting. He’s still capable of getting fired up about things, he’s still there, still free-sociating. The little explosions he shares are not his identity. They’re notions that capture him for the moment, but they have their little life too, and help keep the big things that most people think are the big things accountable to the whole universe of possibilities and permutations. Imagination pops off, and maybe gives rise to some other idea or opportunity that wouldn’t have been surfaced any other way. Mistakes are one of the possibilities, but all explorers court risk and some are good at negotiating risks. That’s the bet we make by trusting them even in their flawed humanity, as Steve Bannon keeps reminding us is the state of Trump’s humanity.

Flawed humanity is an oxymoron. We all have a case of the flaws. The most dangerous among us are those who have it all figured out from soup to nuts, which can only be done by those who have locked themselves into a self-sized world where nothing matters but your own list of bullet points proving how right you are.

So here are some clips of me talking to the sound of my own voice with no one around to hear. I mostly don’t disagree with what I’ve said here, and the overstatements are attributable to the intention I recall having in recording them. There are so many people out there who are not culturally literate at all and aren’t even up to faking it, just dismissing it or ignoring it. They have inferiority complexes, they hide their ignorance, and are afraid of those they suspect of having a key to some secret society of knowledge.

Why I’m suggesting that it’s possible to shortcut the process, to learn a lot about a lot of fine minds and works by building their own equivalent of Jim McKay’s Wide World of Sports, “spanning the globe” to discover more than you knew existed, without getting lost along the way.

That’s it. I’ll let the recordings speak for themselves. No value in explanations of psst idling thoughts. All I’ll add is that it didn’t end there.

At some later date, I actually outlined the course material I would assemble into a Kindle book and mocked up a cover for the MS, but then it took its place in the queue along with April Island and The Neanderthal Conspiracy. These are works for which I have content materials I add to from time to time as the mood strikes me, but have a long way to go to the finish line. Having a cover makes it a thing. Actually, this one has two covers, so I know I’ve taken more than one pass at the idea. It’s a time-consuming project, though probably one worth doing…

So far, all it is is the clips I’ve shown you here, plus some list-ish Notes in the iPad utility for storing such scraps.

Who knows how many such scraps have contributed to Trump’s worldview, including a relationship with the Almighty he’s under no obligation to share with us. He’s a President, not a writer.

I’m a writer, not a President. Different jobs but hopefully aimed in the same benevolent direction…