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Donna Otter's avatar

Totally get it. The pull to Mexico. The drive away from the horror that is currently America. The desire to know where you're going. Sometimes you don't know, until you know, y'know? A friend calls this, "living the question."

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LaVonne Ellis's avatar

Thank you! I feel better now. ;-)

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Sue Spencer Mitchell's avatar

I'm so glad to have a term for what I have been doing recently -- living the question! Thanks for that, Donna. It's so tempting to make a decision prematurely just to remove the ambiguity, but sometimes a period of exploration is necessary. It feels much better to think of it as living the question than being indecisive or stuck!

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Maryanne Stroud Gabbani's avatar

If I didn't live in Egypt, I would probably live in Mexico. For all the "insanity" of the Middle East, I feel safer here than I would anywhere in the US, and I wouldn't have that feeling of needing to be "in this place" that I do here.

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LaVonne Ellis's avatar

Sometimes I feel like we are all asleep here. One shock after another after another, and we’ve become numb, thinking nothing has changed. But everything has changed.

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Doug Moore's avatar

Hi LaVonne,

Firstly, your sentence "Predators are out there, and it pays to respect their space." caught me as so graceful. Nice.

As for Trumplandia vs Mexico, I feel the pull as well. Although I look forward to visiting our friends to the south, I'm staying a citizen of the "U".S.

Seems to me if all the good guys and gals leave, America won't have a chance. So, I'll grit my teeth and fight with my votes and what ever dollars I have and maybe some other advocacy things.

And when I need a vacation from that, I'll head down to Baja to camp on the beach.

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LaVonne Ellis's avatar

Oh, I plan to stay a citizen and vote! But I get your feeling and have debated that very thing myself – stay and fight! Flee! Still deciding.

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Lisa's avatar

Did you write this before or after the most recent supreme court ruling?

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LaVonne Ellis's avatar

Before I heard about it but I knew it was coming.

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Jenny Thomas's avatar

You're so adventurous! Enjoy the winter in Mexico and make your mind up from there.

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LaVonne Ellis's avatar

Thanks Jenny! That is the plan.

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Ed Helvey's avatar

Interesting thoughts and feelings, LaVonne. You're not alone in your thinking and feelings. I relate to them and the are a lot of others, too.

I just read an interview with an NYU Prof who is a social scientist. He was talking about the crumbling of the American Empire. And, yes, while we don't consider the USA as being an empire, it has all the characteristics of an empire.

The average life of an empire (hundreds of them since the beginning of recorded history) is 250 years. The US will be 250 years old in 4 years. We reached our peak several decades ago and we are following the pattern of all the failed empires of the past. The decline has been speeding up exponentially since Y2K.

Congress is a mess and full of greedy, corrupt, power hungry, self-serving narcissists. We don't have any real, serious leadership candidates for the POTUS. And now, the SCOTUS is in a downside.

The US is on the decline side of the empire lifecycle. It most likely won't collapse during our lifetime, but if we could come back in about 150 years we wouldn't find a country called the United States of America. Sadly, we can call ourselves a republic or a democracy or a democratic republic - it doesn't make any difference - human nature is human nature and the US is becoming, yet, another failed experiment in civilization.

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LaVonne Ellis's avatar

Yes, human nature is our downfall. We just don’t seem to learn from the past and keep repeating the same mistakes over and over and over.

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Maryanne Stroud Gabbani's avatar

I think that a huge number of people worldwide are fast asleep. Some of them may have small inklings that things are wrong but rather than worry about something they feel is too large, they just hide. A few others are awake and aware, but that is also worrying because the problems are so huge. There are tiny spots of light in the night sky and hopefully we will be enough. Meanwhile I've been toying with the idea that there is only a certain amount of consciousness in the universe, and as I see humans getting less and less intelligent and conscious, I see animals becoming more so. Or I might be just imagining it all.

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LaVonne Ellis's avatar

Interesting you should say that about animals becoming more intelligent and conscious. I have just lately become more conscious about how intelligent animals are. Honestly, I had no idea.

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Maryanne Stroud Gabbani's avatar

I'm really wondering how much of it is my awareness of them ...like were they always aware and I was clueless? or is there a change going on?

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Maryanne Stroud Gabbani's avatar

They will need all the smarts they can get with the problems that we have made.

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