“If you’re going through hell, keep going.”
Like so many pithy lines attributed to British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, this is yet another he never actually said. However, it does echo his famous speech to the British people as they suffered through Nazi attacks: “…we shall never surrender.” In a speech at Harrow School in late 1941, he further exhorted them to “Never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never…”
Well, it certainly feels like the devil, himself, is gleefully watching us slog through the Hell he has created, using the wreckage of the White House, the Kennedy Center, our leadership in the world, our good relationships with allies, and the Constitution. Never have we needed to heed this advice more. Never, never, never give up.
Many stories tell the tale of those who, for some reason, tried to find a way to escape from Hades.
Sisyphus, the master trickster, cheated death twice. First, he chained up Thanatos, the god of Death, so that no one, including him, could die, and, secondly, having been dragged into the underworld, convinced Persephone to let him return to the living world. Of course, having been captured, yet again, he is condemned, for eternity, to push an immense boulder up a hill, only to have it roll down again and again.
Orpheus, the legendary musician, who walked into Hades to bring his wife, Eurydice, back to life, almost succeeded. Unfortunately, he broke the one condition imposed upon him to never look back, turned around at the end to see if his beloved was still behind him, and failed at his task.
Theseus and Pirithous attempted to kidnap Persephone, wife of Hades and daughter of Zeus, and were trapped in chairs of forgetfulness. Interestingly, the two lessons seem to contradict one another, either look back and fail or fail to look back at history and fail in the present.
Many of these stories are innovatively drawn together and retold in the current bestseller by R.F. Kuang, Katabasis. The story begins with two students who have accidentally botched a spell as part of their graduate work in the magick arts at Cambridge and inadvertently sent their professor to Hell. They then try to figure out how to get in, rescue the prof and get out. Along the way they explore the ancient tales of those who have tried, attempting to learn from them.
Well, here we are now. Lost in hell and looking for a way out. Katabasis holds some clues for us. Have a plan. Execute faithfully. Be flexible when it fails, which, of course, it will. (As boxing champion, Mike Tyson, put it, “Every one has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.”)
Let us do what we can. Prepare to work in polling places or join a group defending the ability of voters to access the polls in the face of possible interference. Vote. Donate to those groups organizing poll defenders. Protest. Vote. Have a “take a breath” party for you and your friends. Breathe. Keep walking and don’t look back or, perhaps do, and gain important tips from history, even though these two pieces of advice seem somewhat contradictory! Try them both!
Nature loves a contradiction.
The Wheels On The Bus
Even though it’s a bit like dancing as your house crumbles around you because, finally, someone will believe what you’ve been saying about your contractor, I can’t help but be happy to see the faux king president’s regime tanking, plummeting, flailing and failing on all fronts.
The voters are increasingly angry and frustrated at the rate of inflation and especially its influence on gas and food prices. Because of this rise, the Fed just defied him and raised the interest rate, possibly making it even more difficult to buy a house or a car or simply anything.
His ego-driven, ill-conceived, and botched war with Iran has only strengthened that nation’s resolve, as well as weakening our long-held place as a strong ally and unbeatable foe. He is clearly the big loser, something he likes to call others. The House has voted three times to order him to stop the war. The House also faced a move to impeach Pete Hegseth, the architect of the loss, and the Speaker was so freaked out at the prospect, he discontinued all voting until after the midterms and sent everyone home again. The Pentagon has been ordered to cover up the actual numbers of deaths and injury stemming from the war along with the extent of damages and the unforgivable weakness of the defense of our military bases and the great diminution of our stockpile of weapons, as the war spins more and more out of control.
The Supreme Court refused to allow the orange guy to screw up mail-in ballot procedures. They have also rejected his efforts to end birthright citizenship.
Our one-time strongest and most trustworthy ally, Canada, retaliated in response to his insane tariffs and insulting behavior by raising their own tariffs and asking to affiliate with the European Union, thus increasing their clout. He posts desperate pictures of himself as a military hero, looking more and more like a cartoonist with Tourette’s. But we are not fooled. The number of those questioning his sanity continues to grow every day.
It is also interesting to see the ways in which AI includes these rose-colored posts as a part of its overall research and simply feeds it back to him as though some independent authority has actually assured us that things are fine.
He looks weak and confused and has become a liability for Republicans running for office. The wheels on the bus are not going round and round, they are coming loose and rolling away. Like the president’s mental health.
Ultimately, his bus will wobble to a full stop and he will find himself alone, in the middle of the night, posting and posting to an ever diminishing audience. We are winning.
