Sick of partisan political conflicts? Join me in taking a 90-day break

I’m sick of smug and condescending politicians. Maybe even more than that, I’m sick of their naive and arrogant followers. I’m sick of grown men and women shrieking at each other and calling each other names.

I’m sick of people waving a Red flag or a Blue flag and pretending that they’re anything more than two sides of the same failed and broken system. I’m sick of watching people on a sinking Titanic fight each other for control of the dead bridge of the ship.

So for my own mental health, I’m going to completely boycott the entire sick mess for at least 90 days.

For the next three months, I’m not going to read any news about current politics. I’m not going to listen to any discussions of the subject. I’m going to avoid the inane shouting matches on Facebook by people who think they’re engaging in thoughtful political debate. And I’m certainly not going to write a word about it.

If you think it’s a good idea, you’re invited to join me. I’m sure we can find plenty else to talk about. There’s the future of the world. There’s my future and your future. There’s love and need and anger and a million emotions. There’s philosophy and religion. There’s art and beauty. In other words, there’s real life — which doesn’t include partisan bickering.

When I started writing here two and a half years ago, I wanted to help steer people away from the partisan political jungle that had preoccupied me for so many years. But I found that in order to attract an audience, I needed to talk in those terms. I discovered that hardly anybody wanted to read thoughts and ideas about moving beyond that. There were certainly a few, but not enough to start generating a group of people who wanted to move to a different kind of world.

I don’t have any illusions about saving the world. I just want to find other people who are interested in looking to the future — as I am — past the broken-down system that I believe inevitably must collapse. I don’t have any interest in “fighting the Man” or helping to bring any system down. I think it’s broken enough and corrupt enough that it has to collapse in time, under the weight of its own debt and of its own promises that it can’t fulfill.

I think that collapse is going to be ugly when it gets here. I don’t have any idea what it will look like in specific places, but I do think it will be chaotic. I think it will lead to worse conditions in some places. But it might lead to better conditions in others — if those of us who expect the change have a plan for ourselves. I still hope to find enough people who are interested in talking about seriously planning how to handle that potential day. Arguing about whether Republicans or Democrats are less bad today doesn’t help us at all.

A couple of years ago, I’d written something about this subject and I’d referred to wanting to find a “tribe” of people who thought similarly about being prepared for the future. A young woman from out west sent me an email and talked about wanting to be part of what I was talking about.

“Tell me how to join your tribe,” she almost pleaded.

Two years later, I still haven’t figured out how to respond to her. In order to build an audience, I got sidetracked into writing about partisan politics — things that I don’t believe matter — in order to attract people who maybe could eventually see the rest of what I’m talking about.

As I’ve talked about several times recently, I can’t do that anymore.

I’m still looking for a solution. I’m still looking for a “tribe” of people who are as interested in finding solutions for the future as I am. I also want to find people who are interested in looking at the world in a different way, a way that’s very unlike the ugliness that comes from being in the middle of partisan Red vs. Blue fighting.

I want to “invent” a future where we can all build cities or communities that use the rules that we want. I want socialists to be able to live in their socialist utopia if they want to build it. I want theocrats to be able to live in their religiously governed communities if that’s what they want. And I want people like me to be able to build free communities that match our needs. I want us to find a structure that allows all of us to live our own ways and leave others alone in peace, to whatever degree possible.

The kind of partisan thinking that dominates today’s political discussion will never produce that. I hope to find people who are intelligent, thoughtful, open-minded and creative — and who know how to get along with people they disagree with as they try to find solutions that work for everyone.

Is that utopian? I don’t think so. I think the real utopians are those who expect the current system to ever be anything but what it already is.

So let’s try to move away from the existing system. I don’t know if you’re willing to try to shove it aside, but that’s what I’m going to do.

For the next three months, I’m not going to read about, talk about or write about anything concerning the current mess. I’m not writing about ObamaCare. I’m not writing about faux government shutdowns or debt ceilings. And I’m certainly not writing about who’s responsible for what. None of that matters for the future that comes after this.

What is there to talk about? As I said earlier this week, I’m busy with some projects that won’t allow me to write as much for the time being, but I’m sure we’ll find things worth talking about.

I’d like to get back to talking more about real life, not the artificial world of entertainment that we call politics.