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Mind and Body - Page 65

Dr. Keith: The High Drama of a Presidential Election
November 27, 2015

Dr. Keith: The High Drama of a Presidential Election

Barack Obama's historic election as president caps an unprecedented campaign that broke through racial and socioeconomic barriers and has changed America forever. His victory will fuel the self-esteem and hopes of many millions - not only minorities, but all those who yearn for the kind of interconnectedness that can only be achieved when each of us is judged for his or her inherent potential, not prejudged by prejudice of any kind. Obama's victory also comes at a time when truth and reality are under assault on many fronts. Americans are suffering the fallout of economic fictions that took hold of the mortgage and banking and financial management industries, much as they once distorted the valuations of Internet companies. The Internet itself and other technologies-like instant messaging-are cleaving us from the human nuances of face-to-face and even voice-to-voice communication. We are using prescribed medications at ever-increasing rates to quiet our unwieldy anxiety and mood swings and insomnia and distractibility. Illicit drug use is up, transporting increasing numbers of young people away from the facts of their lives, toward illusion. We are trading off insight for more and more potent doses of entertainment-obsessively tracking the chaotic (and often staged) lives of celebrities-rather than dealing with the real complications of our own lives. And we are editing our life stories into made-for-the-Web "profiles" that require that we become editors and broadcasters of who we are.

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