John Mayer has penned an article for the Huffington Post about his hope for the future of America under presidential hopeful Barack Obama. Like a lot of things that Mayer does, it seems unnecessarily self-referential, but he at least keeps it short. He does make some good points about what Obama’s candidacy means for our faith in the way things can turn around for the country:
I was 23 years old when the nation was attacked on September 11, 2001. I can remember hearing pundits say “this changes everything” and “things will never be the same.” Obviously it was a tragic and traumatic event, but that sentiment has carried on through the better part of my twenties. If you were 43 years old on that day, I would imagine it was a difficult concept to get your head around as well, but if you were a young adult just entering his or her individual life, there was an added twist; how can you process the idea of everything changing and things never being the same when you have no point of reference for what “everything” and “the same” is? I was just beginning to put my hands on the world around me, to interact and engage with it, and to actualize the dream of being an adult in a free society. To wait in line for 23 years only to have the “sorry, future canceled” sign flipped in my face was depressing, to say the least.
The social and political narrative of the last eight years, if you’re a young adult, has been “you are the first generation of the second half of the rest of human existence.” That’s a huge psychological undertaking, and I believe it’s one that will someday be diagnosed on a massive scale as having led to a kind of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. (Something has to explain away our premature obsession with 1980s nostalgia.) My generation has come to know itself as the generation that should have seen the good days, my, were they spectacular, now take off your shoes and place them on the belt.
What Barack Obama says to me is these days are good for something. Just when I’d thought my only role as an adult was to help shoulder the nation through its darkest days (known to us as “the rest of them”), Obama gives me the feeling that I could be alive to witness one of the most brilliant upturns in a country’s history. Imagine that — a young adult in this day and age being given something to someday brag to his children about having being alive to witness. What a concept.
That’s why hope is a worthwhile commodity. To those who question whether hope is a tangible product worth building a campaign around, I’d say take a look at despair and how powerful that has been in reshaping how people think and live. I believe the definition of the “hope” that Barack Obama enthuses operates on the unspoken thesis that there has to be a polar opposite to the despair of 9/11. Because if we accept that there’s not, the will to live becomes forever altered. To adults who will vote for him, Barack Obama represents a return to prosperity. To the youth, he represents an introduction to it.
[John Mayer’s blog in the Huffington Post]
I’m optimistic for a future with Barack Obama as president, but cautiously so. To me Obama represents someone who may help to bring back some of the optimism and prosperity we had as a nation under president Clinton. I’m a bit older than Mayer and I remember Clinton’s presidency fondly. Clinton had a way of speaking and framing situations that made it seem like everything would work out for America – and it did. Sure we had some hard times under Clinton, and a sex scandal, but it was also a time of great progress. Some might argue that Clinton was just in the right place during the Internet boom, but he was also a strong, smart leader who made us feel better by just talking to us. Obama has that ability too, and you can’t underestimate how powerful it can be when a President charts out a positive and productive future for a country.
It’s not about me, though, or my generation being disappointed in the leaders of the past. It’s about what we’re all going to do together to make things better. And that’s exactly what Obama is saying.
John Mayer is shown on 10/29 and 10/30 out in Hollywood. Credit: WENN. Barack Obama is shown campaigning with Hillary Clinton in Orlando, Florida yesterday. Credit: Fame
Didn’t John Mayer sing a song about just sitting around “waiting for the world to change”? I don’t spend alot of time listening to Mayer music, but the lyrics to that song seemed to say that people his age cared, but no one would listen so they’d just sit around and wait until things changed before they’d even try.
I could be wrong, like I said, I don’t listen to John Mayer music.
I don’t like Mayer or his music, but what he’s saying here is thoughtful and, although not necessarily original, the final point about how hope (even if it doesn’t always deliver) shapes people for the better, is always a good message.
He’s a psuedo-intellectual. But he does have a big head and a voice that sounds like nails on a chalkboard (to me.)
Stuff like this is what makes me like him. Not his music or his love life or his skanky has-been girlfriends. This.
Alright, I’ve re-read the thing like three times looking for something to pick at, and I can’t find one.
For this, I give him a pass. Begrudgingly.
I’d like to give my take on the part of John Mayer’s post that I don’t necessarily deem to be political. No one will ever forget 9/11/01; I know I’ll never forget the utter devastation and mourning felt on a national (even international) level for all the beautiful lives that were senselessly lost that day. That day we not only lost 1000’s of our fellow citizens, but also the false sense of security that “it couldn’t happen to us” that most of us carried. From that perspective we lost most of that little bit of innocence many of us didn’t realize we still had, and in that way it is somewhat appropriate to say things will never be the same again. This is especially poignant to me, as I lost my beloved Mother very violently 5 months later and every therapist basically told me the same thing. Things won’t ever be the same again, BUT that doesn’t mean that they can’t be good again – just different. I feel the same way about the 9/11 tragedies. I wouldn’t want the world to be the same after that; I hope we can learn from our pain and use it to fuel our efforts to make a better future for ourselves and the generations to come. I think Mayer’s article comes to the same conclusion, but arrives at it in a different way, and for that I certainly can’t fault him. Sorry this was so long; I tend to post more when something really moves me! 😳
Damage control.
John is jumping on a bandwagon. His career is hype. I can’t see this jerk caring about nothing but finding his next Hollywood ho to front with.
Least we forget “he only shag stupid women.”