The Acne of Our Times

Life in the Boomer Lane has always prided herself on being able to derive humor from the ordinary events of life, as well as the fearsome antics of those we elect to public office. But, like a small, warm spot on one’s cheek, that eventually turns into a raging pustule, the events that began in 2016 continue to grow, unabated.

Historians teach us that no event stands in isolation, and no human, no matter how powerful, can suddenly emerge from a vacuum. Wars are simply more serious versions of the never-ending Hatfield-McCoy feud. Great or despicable leaders emerge from a chain of events that begin long before they do. Jesus was the result of events that occured at least 64 years before his alleged date of birth. Hitler was the result of French occupation of German lands 100 years before he was born, combined with a pretty solid history of anti-Semitism in Europe for hundreds of years before that.

The inexplicable political reality we are drowning in now has been building up for at least 50 years, when none of us who were alive then could have predicted the direction it would eventually take. It’s like we could feel a small, warm spot on our collective cheek, easily ignored until an awareness that the spot was getting bigger and was quite sensitive to the touch. Most of us believed that, being well past the age of teen acne, it would go away on its own. It was simply too ridiculous to pay attention to. But the pimple, being the cockroach of the face, just kept getting more intrusive in spite of our attempts at creams and wishful thinking. We woke up one moring to discover that the pimple had now become the focal point of everything above our neck. Worse, it seemed to have inspired other pimples to appear.

Day by day, events, both political and climatological atrocities that would have seemed not possible a mere 10 years ago, have now become normalized. Humans can get used to just about anything. If you normally eat gourmet food from carefully curated porcelain dinnerware, you will easily and gratefully slurp down some fetid mix of rancid vegetables and bits of fat from a dented tin cup, in the event of famine.

Those who know about such things tell us that humans are in the best shape in history. We live decades past young adulthood. We no longer die of rotten teeth or a random animal bites. Wars no longer have the casualty rates that they always had, and only the heartiest souls made it to old age. Miraculously, we now survive into adulthood in spite of having allergies, asthma, and an endless number of ailments (measles, bronchitis, pneumonia) that would have meant near-certain death in the past.

But knowing what great shape we are in, statistically, or knowing why we got to this point, doesn’t matter when we are confronted with an endless barrage of evidence that the planet, and most of the countries that inhabit it, are in serious trouble.

It’s important, here, to understand that, as horrific as the acne looks as it takes over our faces, or as it destroys our social lives, most of us will somehow survive it. Acne has treatments that work, not overnight, but eventually. It won’t be easy. We might have to change how well we wash our faces, how well we use the products that exist, the choices we make about the food we ingest. The bottom line is that acne, like roach or rat infestation, and the turn that politics, human decency and responsibility has taken, is horrific, but not lethal-horrific.

In the coming months, LBL is committed to continue to ferret out humor (at the risk of her own sanity) in events that are anythoing but funny. But she is also committed to detail the opposite: the news sources that can be trusted, the social media that is responsible, the companies that should be supported, and the actions ordinary folks can take that cost nothing, don’t take a lot of time or energy, and don’t involve a radical departure from the lives they are already living. These options exist and should be publicized.

This brings us around to January 2025. We say things like “Happy New Year!” to each other, hoping for a clean slate or great luck or a continuation of whatever riches we have. But, in reality, each year continues seamlessly from the one before. The acne of the planet, as with rats and roaches, did not start breaking out all at once. They were so small as to be overlooked, while we went on with our lives. Changes, whether good or bad, are mostly incrimental. And, unfortunately, so can our response to them be.

So Happy 2025 to everyone. LBL is neither a pundit nor a seer. She’s just one more speck in the sea of humanity who is wondering how the hell this humongeous pimple appeared while she wasn’t looking. Now she’s looking.