Coming through the storm
A little while ago - this afternoon, in fact - I was asked to describe my feelings about the Obama victory for a magazine article. I struggled a bit and came up with this:
"After almost two weeks, I still find it difficult to put the feeling of this victory into words. The first thing I’d say is that it didn’t feel like a victory – it was not a feeling of triumph over an adversary. It was more a feeling of immense joy combined with relief."
Relief is an underrated feeling. When one feels it, it means that things have reverted to how they are supposed to be, or how one hopes they will be. Relief is a type of happiness, in effect. But it's a type of happiness that is easy to overlook and easy to take for granted.
Relief can only be measured in terms of some type of distress that has lately vanished, but whose impression is still strong. Relief is as much an absence as a presence. It is the sudden absence of fear or worry or perplexity or pain.
As I muddle through the aftermath of my immense relief at the outcome of this election, I am coming to realize something new - namely, that this election was actually about the past as much as about the present and the future.
Here's what I mean: our nation has always been about hope and change (I wrote this on election day without fully recognizing all the implications). Our nation has always been about optimism and toleration and ingenuity and courage and exuberance and generosity. Barack Obama is so new a figure on the American scene, and yet he is typical and traditional in his appeal to these essential qualities.
Obama's campaign and election represent a return to perennial American themes as much as the progress towards some great and promising future. At least for me. When I say it's a relief, I am not saying something trivial or light.
I think we had lost our way as a nation. And now I think we have come back to our proper course, like a ship that has come through a typhoon. The ship is battered, the sails are shredded, the main mast has snapped in two. But the seas today are calm and the sun is glorious. And we are alive. Alive!
"After almost two weeks, I still find it difficult to put the feeling of this victory into words. The first thing I’d say is that it didn’t feel like a victory – it was not a feeling of triumph over an adversary. It was more a feeling of immense joy combined with relief."
Relief is an underrated feeling. When one feels it, it means that things have reverted to how they are supposed to be, or how one hopes they will be. Relief is a type of happiness, in effect. But it's a type of happiness that is easy to overlook and easy to take for granted.
Relief can only be measured in terms of some type of distress that has lately vanished, but whose impression is still strong. Relief is as much an absence as a presence. It is the sudden absence of fear or worry or perplexity or pain.
As I muddle through the aftermath of my immense relief at the outcome of this election, I am coming to realize something new - namely, that this election was actually about the past as much as about the present and the future.
Here's what I mean: our nation has always been about hope and change (I wrote this on election day without fully recognizing all the implications). Our nation has always been about optimism and toleration and ingenuity and courage and exuberance and generosity. Barack Obama is so new a figure on the American scene, and yet he is typical and traditional in his appeal to these essential qualities.
Obama's campaign and election represent a return to perennial American themes as much as the progress towards some great and promising future. At least for me. When I say it's a relief, I am not saying something trivial or light.
I think we had lost our way as a nation. And now I think we have come back to our proper course, like a ship that has come through a typhoon. The ship is battered, the sails are shredded, the main mast has snapped in two. But the seas today are calm and the sun is glorious. And we are alive. Alive!