You’d think with people being told daily of the looming depression and the multiplying dangers overseas, they would at least be gloomy if not downright testy. They’re being told that their retirements are in jepoardy, that their jobs are likely to be slashed, that income is stagnant and credit frozen, that their sons, daughters, husbands and wives may be shipped off to Afghanistan as soon as they get home from Iraq.

Yet in spite of all that, the joy was infectious at the post office as everyone celebrated an adorable 3-month old child sitting in a carriage wondering what all the fuss was about (and growing up in a politically colorblind world).

Permit this writer of empiricism the lyrics of postulation…

I, too, have been unable to grab hold of depression. Try as I might, there’s just too much potential being articulated day in and day out. The headlines are grim, but they are always overcome by the can-do spirit of our government now, which daily seems to have a new shoe to throw at the problem. There’s something inspiring and uplifting about that.

I keep thinking about this historic campaign built on community and it strikes me too that for the first time in my life, people are genuinely proud of one another. They have a stake in this President, in this future we’ve all now invested in, and they are bound to each other like never before. Unlike the Bush years, where the citizen (and her or his rights) was the subject of scoffing, we are reminded not of a White House, but of a People’s House; not of the government, but of our government.

Who knows?

I may be reading far too much into the nice California weather today.

I listened intently to a disgruntled professor from Yale today on the radio stirring up worry that these modern tools of communication were actually serving to drive us farther apart. I couldn’t help but muse that someone must’ve said that about the telephone too.

This is one of those times in history that we’ll tell future generations about. The seeds of nostalgia are being planted excitedly and I’m rushing to change my Facebook status accordingly…

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