First of all, Happy 60th Independence Anniversary, my friend but your question is irrelevant at this time

Why would you say such a thing?

You want a conversation on patriotism but we have since gone past that stage

Says who?

Says you and the rest of the crowd that think patriotism is something you demand of people and not something you model

Do you love your marriage less when it yields more cheerfulness to you or do you love it more when it yields less cheerfulness to you?

Why are you wasting your worry, my friend? I told you we’ve gone past that stage.

What stage are we now in?

Timaya’s stage?

Timaya what?

I said Timaya’s stage. What do you call that ability to identify a prevailing idea and craft an anthem or song to express it?

Genius!

You see why I always love to banter with you. You’re almost a genius yourself.

Am I supposed to thank you for that?

What do you think?

I think you are a genius.

You are very kind.

And you are not. You were happy to be called a genius yet you call me an almost genius. Why?

Don’t mind him.

Don’t mind who?

I can’t kill myself o, I can’t kill myself. Allow me to flex o

What are you talking about?

Passing the buck, passing the buck. It is that season and time in which everything wrong with us is in the other person or group. If you say there is something wrong with me, I pull out the victim card. These days, asking people to consider the country and how we may paper the widening cracks, is akin to pouring water on the back of a duck.

But that is not right. We don’t walk away from our family because we find less cheer there

Oh, what have you been reading? Haven’t you been watching the news? We have moved very far from where you are talking about

That is precisely the point. It is the reason we seem to know so much but have so little impact. We communicate almost continuously but lack real connection. This must be the age of humanity’s biggest paradoxes.