Someone described my hedging as a "Fox Mulder" problem, which at first seemed off to me. It doesn't feel like "I Want to Believe," it's more about understanding the grounds for that belief.
But a little reflection allows me to reclaim the analogy. Mulder did in fact believe, he simply wanted to understand the object and context of that belief, to color the space in between its contours. And that's where I am.
There are things I've grasped intuitively that I feel the need to retrace, articulate, bring into explicit justification. I need to be forearmed against those moments when Obama will doubtlessly disappoint, perhaps cruelly. I think my reasons for supporting him are stronger than that, and I need to keep working on their foundation.
Obama makes me not to trust my self.
I've never known what it's like to respect a sitting president. Nor, for that matter, to feel pride in my country's place in the world. Obama gives me a glimpse of what it might be like to feel that way. And I don't trust it.
Call it cynicism if you will - I think Obama himself would - my apolitical nature has felt like an insight. I've not voted in over a decade, though that's a hanging offense in many circles. I certainly don't volunteer the information. I haven't felt like I've been presented a meaningful choice, and I'm not into symbolic gestures (especially in an electoral system where my state's results had been a foregone conclusion).
It seems different this time. No, it *feels* different this time, and that's what I don't trust. Obama satisfies a need, but it is too desperate a need, too clinging and distorted.
I need my cynicism back, my perspective. Or at least my sense of humor.
