Walking to Work, Listening to Hamilton, and Sobbing

Yes, okay? Yes, I was embarrassed. I mean, it's cringe enough to admit. Let alone write about. Tell you all.

But maybe I was also choking back anger, and the cultural humiliation I invite now will only get heaped on the bodily humiliation of my... wearied faith.

Yes, I was listening to Hamilton in 2025. It was a year ago. Looks like a year ago exactly. And yeah, it was some stupid grasping thing I tried after Trump's second inauguration.

I was angry, and numb. Kind of shaking, but also really tired. And when I finally made myself get dressed and walk to WeWork, I thought maybe I'd put on the Hamilton soundtrack. To access some of that lost faith.

Mr. President, they will say you’re weak
No, they will see we're strong
Your position is so unique
So I’ll use it to move them along
Why do you have to say goodbye?
If I say goodbye, the nation learns to move on
It outlives me when I’m gone

I'm not really a soundtrack guy, and if I was... It's not like I've had Hamilton on repeat since 2015, okay? This was an act of desperation.

A dumb act. And yet, I heard those lines and started sobbing. On the street, walking along the lake, joggers running past, dog-walkers, a guy carrying a boombox on the back of his bike, people on the way to work.

I'm gurgling, and Lin starts reading the last paragraphs of Washington's farewell address.

I am [...] too sensible of my defects not to think it probable that I may have committed many errors.

Until then, Lin puts himself in the understandable position of asking the president to stay as a powerful leader. "You could continue to serve..."

Instead, Washington wants to warn the people against the dangers of political parties. Parties that lie about Americans in one part of the country, to gain influence in another.

You cannot shield yourselves too much against the jealousies and heart-burnings, which spring from these misrepresentations; they tend to render alien to each other those, who ought to be bound together by fraternal affection.

Now I'm just reading from the damn text. I listened to the soundtrack again today. Cried again today. Got here, pushed my work aside, and googled the farewell address.

Was this a good idea? It feels so futile, but it also feels like we should all have these words branded on our chest?

The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism.

I'm not sitting here staring at this cursed historical document because it's one year later. Because I should have written this post a year ago. I'm reading it because in Minneapolis this week, unarmed American citizens are being gunned down by masked and armored stormtroopers.

The disorders and miseries, which result, gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of Public Liberty.

Is it embarrassing to cry? Is it insane not to? Is it funny that it only comes in waves? So often it's just looming out there. In here. On top of us.

What is funny is when I can't cry, but my heart still hurts. It's funny that the scripture Lin quotes in the song, about Washington wanting to "sit under his own vine and fig tree" comes right after the sentence in the Bible about beating swords into plowshares. "And none shall make them afraid."

It's funny that Washington starts by saying it is our faithfulness – the constancy of the American citizens, who otherwise could easily have been misled – which proudly inspires him to pray for our union.

To pray that:

Your union and brotherly affection may be perpetual; that the free constitution, which is the work of your hands, may be sacredly maintained; that its administration in every department may be stamped with wisdom and virtue; than, in fine, the happiness of the people of these States, under the auspices of liberty, may be made complete, by so careful a preservation and so prudent a use of this blessing.