Remember that person you fell in love with back when you were young, the one who was so exciting, the one who had potential.
I mean, that’s who you fall in love with when you’re 19 or so, the person you think they might become when they reach the point where they can do something with all those ideas they have.
For me it was the guy I met when I was dating his roommate. He was sexy, he had deep thoughts, he was an artist. The roommate seemed stodgy by comparison.
So I dumped the roommate. I went for exciting potential.
My judgment was pretty lousy when I was 19. Fast forward twenty years or so and it was very obvious which one of these two men had become someone you’d want to know and which one was still stuck in potential.
I mention this not as a cautionary tale on youthful romance (though it certainly is that), but as a metaphor for my relationship with my country. We have just passed the 4th of July, following sharply on several Supreme Court opinions shredding even more of the rights people of my generation fought for. Where the United States is headed is on my mind.
I came of age in the late 60s and early 70s, and while that was a time of turmoil in this country (and in others), it was also a time when the United States was more than a little exciting. And it had potential. Oh, god, did it have potential. Continue reading “The Curse of Potential”…