What is getting better, America?

When I started this hefty blog site at the beginning of last week, I wrote and rewrote everything to go with it, from it's "Welcome to" blog (see below) to my profile, but I especially tinkered with the subheading below the title, A Better Nation.

I must have revised that line over a dozen times, trying to make it look good, fit on one line and yet sum up the essence of my approach and perspective here. The phrase "deeply" hopeful didn't occur to me until the end of the week. I'd used "hopeful" but hopeful sounds naive by itself, and even though I care a lot for many aspects of this country, I realized that my darker angles, my being prone to moralizing and my edgy skepticism might far outweight mere "hopefulness." If you're hopeful, you've got to have a good reason, I'd say. Your evidence for hope has to be substantial and substantiated.

About four years ago, in an ideas salon, I sternly asked the group, "What is getting better? Name some things that are getting better."

Racial tolerance, tolerance of alternate lifestyles, medical care and technology all got votes. But these days, it seems all of those things as well are in recession.

It's my birthday today, and so it's one of those few days of the year we are prone with some poignancy to assess the state of where and how and why we are in life. Are we better off than we were a year ago? What has changed? And oh, boy, what seems like it just won't even budge a slight change no matter how much time and life passes by?

I think if you are passionate you are hopeful. The energy of passion must somehow be related to the energy of hope. And hope seems necessary. But all too often, the concept of hope escapes me. I have incidental joys, some fun, some success, even make some progress. But the overarching theme of "what's getting better, REALLY" and HOPE still seem elusive.

And so, underneath all the weight of this blog is something that is also heavy, something that can lead to plenty of heavy heartedness as well, and as of a few days ago I am calling that Deep Hope. It's not a solid foundation, and it's not constant or reliable. But it is an undercurrent - the essential idea that we try, even as so much seems to fail around us. (I'm sure some can sense the intrusion of the dark mood of progressives in my blog these days - the initial adrenaline rush of loosing November 2nd has turned into a longer term dread.)

And so I carry on, deeply hopeful. And it's a heavy thing.