Every election cycle, midterm or presidential, the political theater broadcast by the Swamp and Beltway insiders — the candidates themselves, their surrogates, the operatives working in the shadows, the greasy consultants, the shameless PR flaks, and partisan cheerleaders — becomes almost unbearable. It’s P.T. Barnum’s circus, on steroids, written, directed, and produced by the Machiavellian nerds and pompous elites of Washington, D.C. They work up the American electorate into a frenzy, squeezing out as many fundraising dollars as possible, practically begging on their hands and knees to vote them into office for another 2, 4, 6 years, only to return to business as usual — screwing over normal people — the following morning, a Wednesday.
Politics might be a “total sham,” as Aaron Rodgers put it, but it can also make people mad — angry and mentally unwell. This week, unfortunately, we had a double whammy — two events capable of triggering manias: the 25th anniversary of 9/11 and the first anniversary of Charlie Kirk’s assassination. For ghouls who spend every waking hour rage-baiting on social media, yesterday and today were like Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. If you want to get engagement on social media, celebrate the 9/11 terrorist attacks and mock the way the bullet struck Kirk’s neck, then spread conspiracies about the real culprits behind each tragedy. To say nothing of the Lindsay Clancy trial, which has become politicized into a “Culture War” battle between liberals, feminists, and right-wing influencers.
This is what Friedrich Nietzsche was getting at when he wrote, “Madness is rare in individuals, but in groups, parties, nations, it is the rule.” How many times do you come across a raving lunatic on the streets in your day-to-day life? Never (unless you live in New York City or Los Angeles). But how many instances throughout history have swarms of people collectively gone mad? How many people today go mad because of online politics, X, and TikToks? Too many to count.
So, how to escape the madness of crowds? How do you detach from the midterm election panic and nonstop stream of online slop that stirs up the worst impulses in people? I’m sure you have ideas – some practical, some idealistic. Limiting screen time. Moving to a cabin in Alaska. These could work, to be sure, but I found over the past few days that the simple act of standing by a body of water and casting a line in hopes of catching a fast, silvery creature lurking beneath the surface is the best antidote to the madness that seems to engulf Americans almost every day.
Over Labor Day weekend, I fished for the first time since 2020, surfcasting from a beach in the Outer Banks of North Carolina with my father-in-law. The last time I had fished, I was dropping my line into a lake in Vermont, and it didn’t take much effort to catch something. You could drop a naked hook into the water, and a fish would bite almost immediately. Fishing into the cold abyss of the Atlantic Ocean is an entirely different experience, requiring more patience, skill, and knowledge of the tides, the sandbars, and the lures than dropping bait into a shallow lake stocked by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
After mindlessly tossing a lure into the water, reeling it in, over and over, I soon realized that the only hope of catching a fish is having a bit more patience and discernment and waiting for the right time – dusk or dawn – and scanning the water for schooling fish or flocks of sea gulls eating the smaller fish jumping out of the water because of the bigger fish. Otherwise, you might as well play the Powerball.
Although I would like to think that at least one fish hit my lure, I cannot say for sure. On multiple occasions, I convinced myself that the clump of seaweed generating tension was a monster Spanish Mackerel that had fallen for my shiny trap. It wasn’t, of course. It was just … seaweed. I kept casting anyway, because hope springs eternal. At least a dozen times, a fish jumped out of the water, not 20 yards offshore from where I was standing. They’re right there, I thought to myself. I can see them! One more cast. This one has to be it. I can understand why fishing is addicting – thrilling, even.
Nothing came of it, ultimately. I didn’t catch anything. Admittedly, I don’t think I came close. But those were hours blissfully spent, detached from the insanity of it all, detached from the madness of crowds. It was like the feeling you get after running a long distance: your mind goes blank. You can only focus on the moment. The best part was, you didn’t have to run at all. You could stand virtually still. Casting your line. Reeling it in. Over and over. You didn’t even have to break a sweat.
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