In days of yore, back in time, way back, bronze age, stone age, back 10,000 years and more, before the last Ice Age began to recede, and water levels rose, washing away whole swathes of land, following cattle, or seeking a better life, wanting more for themselves, humanity has been on the move, really, since we all crawled down from our trees back on that Savannah in Africa.

We may look different, speak differently, with different creeds and faiths, religious or otherwise, we need the same things, and in degrees, that separate us, want more, just like we always have.

More for our children, more for our pocket, more love, more hate, more war, more heartache, more anger, more laughter and tears, to assuage our collective fears, of who we are and what we are and, if we ask at all, what is our purpose here? So we buy and spend what we don’t have, for things we don’t need and ignore what it is that we really want. All of us. Since we came down from those trees.

They clamour at the door for more, each story a sad and tragic one, and each plucks one feather off the wings of an angel, each weakens the knees, and shines a light on each private plight, on someone else’s hunt for more.

What is happening now in the U.S. is tragic, and in my own heart I feel certain there is a better way, but, dry platitudes are insufficient at softening a concrete floor for the night, squashed in a cell block with others who look like you, want what you want, need what you need, and you lie awake anticipating the hours, days, months ahead, as you dream about more.

This story has been told again and again, the stranger at the door asking for more, turned away because of the condition of his ordinary clothes, shabby and worn from the road, a person with nothing asking for nothing but compassion and a little caring for a fellow human, giving even when one may have little themselves, because that good energy is banked and comes around when in some future crisis you may have need yourself. No one is immune to tragedy, loss, crisis and fear. No one.

Anyone who believes otherwise is deluding themselves, but far be it from me to warn them since they wouldn’t listen anyhow.

Far more concrete to acknowledge that we are all suffering, in one fashion or other, and there is no cure at all, and there never was.

I believe it is our endurance through, our empathy, our forgiveness, compassion, and striving to live with more gratitude, more intentionally, more mindfully, with less self and more holistic, honestly, faults and all, that will give us strength, and purpose. We are not immune to the ills of the world, as they travel through the web of life, even if as just a slight pull on the thread that connects you. We can’t change the world, or even maybe have any real noticeable ripple, but threads plucked, truth told, not just turning away in disgust, but instead be a smile in the crowd, say thank you, be kind, be thoughtful, and thank the spirits that be as much as you can.

I suspect that the next few years are going to be difficult for many, as this presidency systematically disconnects its nation from the world, piece by piece dismantling decades of work by other men, those with vision, strength, and weakness’ all their own. As decades of climate research is dumped down the drain, and rich men beholden to oil make deals, and migrants can bring a higher political share, and the average American won’t even see it coming, when the markets fall, the die is cast, and there is no going back.

When? How? Who knows, but I can almost smell the edge of fear, the distraction of many, the knowledge that as the U.S. turns in on itself, and an incompetent authoritarian dictator is born from the chaos, the geopolitical landscape shifts continents away from each other that once were allies, in favour of those that swelter in the heat of a demonic son with a murderous hand.

Within the clasp of more, the boredom of having more sets in, and more is never enough, and with a collective look down one’s nose at another who too desires more, we turn away with scorn. How DARE they want MORE too? Appalling, as we have barely enough for ourselves, they say, as they gobble down another pizza slice, throw the crust in the can, and slurp their diet Pepsi from a plastic bottle. Wearing clothes made in China, and shoes from Bangkok, they grumble about lost jobs, when they can’t even make a living wage working at their local Wal-Mart.

And give the rich a break, they have a lot at stake, maybe a little tax break too. Their second vacation home in Costa Rica won’t be done till next spring, and their Golf Club fees are due. Their second honeymoon trip to the south of Spain, well it will just have to wait till fall, as the stock market losses due to Trump’s grumpy day, and womb womb to that festering migrant plague, well that was the best laugh you’ve had all day.

Ok, fine, maybe I do get a little angry at the indifference I read, in the comments. See, I gotta stop reading the dang comments, depressing as all hell.

In nature, as in life, a famine generally follows a feast. Which means, that a time of more leads inevitably to a time with less. A government’s duty is to be successful at conducting the flow of ups and down, so the populous doesn’t get seasick.

They are supposed to be conscious of the lives their decisions will affect, or, at the very least be good at pretending. This administration, if nothing else, has exposed the lie that American’s have been telling themselves for decades, that they are better, because quite frankly, obviously, they are not. They are no different from all the others.

Holding so closely onto this greatness, of being more, well, that is a conceit warned of in the oldest stories as the first signs before the fall, as you gobble up more than your fair share, as all the values and ideals one once held so close float quietly out your door, unnoticed, as the promise of the feasting is your very hearts desire, how did he know?

More is never enough. More leads to more, and inevitably, more becomes less, and less, and there is no more.