Seduction

I watch the presidential race, and I am struck by how many people want to be seduced by a candidate.

They want someone to promise them their dreams will come true, that they will be taken care of properly, that they will be happy. They want someone who pulls at their heartstrings, who knows their secret desires and will make them manifest. “Oh, yes, I will never have to see another Mexican checker in the Piggly Wiggly and little Willie won’t even know what gay is, let alone be lured by the homosexual agenda!”

I find it hard to believe in seduction. Maybe that’s because I don’t really believe anyone knows what my dreams are, let alone how to make them come true, or maybe it’s because I gave up trying to hold onto standard-issue conventional dreams so long ago. To be conscious and come from the head means you come gimlet eyed into life, always with a question & a doubt, rarely with a hope & a dream.

Since I find it hard to believe in seduction, I find it hard to believe in seducing people, too.  I watch the newage healers, and I see the game, see how much people crave poetry that enervates and soothes, even if the meaning behind those words is cracked and twisted, laced with rationalizations and dissembling.

Still, well, still, well, that doesn’t mean I am not somewhere, deep inside, a romantic who wants to believe in the power of love, the transformational instant magic that comes when our heart leaps to a new person, a new idea, a new possibility, a new love.

I’m just cynical that most times when we have that leap, we leap to an old vision, an old dream, an old desire and project that onto something or someone in our line of vision.  We imagine that this new vision will complete old tropes, making us healed and whole and perfect in the way we always wanted to be.