It's over. Life as you and we know it is gone, and it won't be coming back, ever. Yes you may be allowed to eat indoors, sit at a bar, go to a concert in a stadium sometime, but that will only be in person, not in spirit.
We have lost our way. Lost what makes us Americans. We used to be tough, or at least tougher. We are now trying to become a Woke an Cancel culture, because thats what we think has to happen. We can no longer agree, or disagree, without having to offend someone. Our skin has become thin. We are living in a world now of hypocrites. What one party, group, or generation believes has to be followed, or you are the opposition.
Never before have we judged each other more than we are doing now. You see it, if you dare with it, on the news, in the "media", and in social media. People don't talk, people don't comment, people surf, people observe, people have lost their voice. It has become us vs them in every aspect.
Things are in and then in a flash out. I see Cuomo was "in" last year, but now not so much these days. People surrounded him, lauded him, exalted him, not they run. They run not because of him, or something he may or may not have done, but what that will do to their own cause, voice and image. Its fashionable to be in with the in crowd, and that goes for politics, protests, riots, cancel, and beliefs.
I saw this yesterday on a Facebook page, you can see the original article HERE. I'll leave it up to you to come up with your own conclusions. On Facebook, mostly the only comments you will see are those in support of the article, having "the guts" to write it. Any opposing views make you out, eval, in cohoots....and those people will be cancelled before they know it.
The cancel culture will to only affect movie and rock stars and politicians, some of the biggest hypocrites alive, but will filter down through your town, your schools, your families, and yes even into fly fishing. Today I learned that the movie "Grease" is now on the cancel list, and Mr Potatoe Head will be no longer. A few years ago 50/50 On the Water was born, to increase womens participation in fly fishing, but at the same time manufacturers and advertisers sexualized women in a male dominated sport, that still occurs today. The fat bearded PBR drinking guide from Montana is as equally as fashionable as the scantily clad and maked up near supermodel throwing a fly rod in the Bahamas. Hypocrisy at its best.
What is hypocrisy, a fly fishing gear and apparel manufacturer spewing about pipelines and mines and water quality and America, but having 70% of their products made overseas in, lets say, not the best workplace conditions where people are not paid a living wage, but the company signs on for. $15 minimum wage here in America.
I look at social media, again wanting to quit Facebook, but I am addicted to The Marketplace, so I stay. Hard left fly fishing friends, hard right fly fishing friends, vocal in every extreme way, I mean extreme, attacking, positioning, cancelling, and do they think they we "just forget that and fish together?". Not in a million years.
That fly tier, that guide, that friend you think is a friend, has distanced himself from you and your beliefs, and would never think of having you over for dinner or have a family get together. Yes, they may bum a ride on your boat with you, take some cool pics of you, sit in while you tie a fly at a show or lecture, but deep down inside, where things used to just unify us, the division in all aspects of our lives, have permitted into things that unified us, but no longer.
We call for diversity, equality, equity. That is long done and gone, and will never return. It ha become a time where like minded people have and need to be together, in morals, in beliefs, and even in person, through our masks and in our vaccine lines getting herded together.
You cant agree or disagree anymore. You can't be anymore. Because it is all over.