Deja vu all over again

October 10, 2008

Filed in: The Way We Live Now

What does it remind you of, this past week? Why do these days feel so … familiar? The stock market bleeding out so shockingly, Bush nervously addressing the nation to no positive effect, crowds being whipped into a frenzy of fear and hate (see you in hell, S.P., for that one), regular people barely working as they obsessively refresh whatever news sites they follow, all of us wondering what more could possibly happen.

And meanwhile the weather mocks us with its pacific, ironic crystalline blue early autumn days.

It finally hit me as I was walking Pip on a morning that was so peaceful and clear it was literally unbelievable—the light made things look unreal. Look around you, I told myself, this sky is not falling. The real real world—the natural world—has not changed, only your perception of it.

And that’s when I figured it out, because that’s the exact same thing I told myself in the week after Sept. 11. It’s exactly the same Zeitgeist (note: use of that word = inside joke) as after the towers fell—the rabid, inaccurate news cycles, the clueless pundits, the man on the street spouting and angry, people worried about their money and their kids’ future, everyone wondering what’s coming next.

I’m going to go out on a limb here and say this is not a good thing.