I can’t seem to get anything done today. I can’t keep my mind on anything. Yesterday, I felt myself getting into classic campaign mode. The classic hyper running all the time, eye twitching, stomach in a knot campaign mode. And this isn’t even about a candidate! This is about a sales tax! I consciously tried to slow myself down and take a few deep breaths. I used to be the serene one in the campaigns. People would marvel at how calm I stayed in the face of one crisis or another. Maynard’s second campaign is the first one that really beat me down. I closed my eyes and tried to put my mind somewhere else, as I tried to figure out what it is that gets to me now that didn’t use to. I think the basic thing is just that now I know that all of it is hollow. All of it is just posturing of one sort or another. Righteous indignation. Outraged moralizing. Sublime contentment with “the world’s next great city.” All the ideas that I used to help craft so carefully for the TV cameras; all the catchphrases and buzzwords that I would write into speeches seem shallow and absurd in the face of what I now know to be true. In the face of how little change really comes about. In the face of the strange missed connections in the people who present themselves as whole and become the leaders. The first black ones. The chosen few. The talented tenth. It just seems pathetic and silly to me. And being caught up in it, writing for it, thinking about it, is such a waste of energy and time. Enough! End of the whine.