Oil Spills and Things That Take Time

Through circumstances beyond my meager control, I find myself with the time to watch more of the daytime (at least on the west coast) political shows on MSNBC. Apart from them, I watch the news on TV and peruse several online news sites and blogs.

We live in a marvelous age of instantaneous everything, news, shopping, watching movies and TV, registering for this or enrolling in that. We turn on our computers, smart phones and iPads and there we are. It’s wonderful. It’s also deceptive. We have come to expect everything in live to be instantaneous. We want it today. We want it now. Wait, we want it yesterday.

Problem is that only part of life is instantaneous. Most isn’t. A lot of it takes weeks, months or years. If it can happen at all. While I am all antsy and anxious and impatient for the world to change, for life to be better, I know I have to wait. Grrr

Back to the point. I have been watching some of the political shows and one thing really stands out very quickly. The over the top impatience is front and center. The President should be here, the President should be there. He needs to be doing this and taking over that. The list is long and arduous. It includes, in no particular order, but is not restricted to:

- the oil spill in the Gulf
- the war in Iraq
- the war in Afghanistan
- Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell
- illegal immigration
- the recession
- unemployment
- healthcare reform
- financial reform
- corruption in the MMS
- big oil
- big coal
- big banks
- terrorism/terrorists
- undoing 8 years of Bush

That’s a lot of pretty big stuff to deal with, but, wait, I’m not finished. There’s the constant sniping, second guessing, hissy-fitting coming from both sides of the aisle, the media (absolutely salivating over all the turmoil and sound bites) and the public in general.

Oh, God, now we have a new catch phrase to go along with the horribly over and misused “perfect storm”. “Top Kill” is the new thing to say. *groan*

One thing to remember here. The people of this country played a big part in some of the huge problems we are having right now. People not able to afford to buy homes deciding it was okay to go into unaffordable loans (yes, I know a lot of people were duped and defrauded and they don’t count), people deciding that they really do need their gas guzzling SUVs and Cadillacs to drive to work and back everyday, and the soul destroying greed that drove the financial institutions to do what they did. We all have to look at our own behavior and desire to use until nothing is left.

Why do we think that the troubles in our country and all over this world would be an overnight fix? Or even take a year or two to fix? A minor cut on a finger takes at least days to heal, even with antiseptics and bandages. The deep gash across this country is going to take very careful, long term tending to heal.