I leave it to the pundits and the warriors of the left and the right to decide what kind of President Donald Trump will be. I hope he is a successful President who does at least some of what he says, and brings good jobs back to America, I hope he decides to unite us as well as divide us. I wish him no harm.

None of us succeed if our leaders fail.

I am not a Christian, but I believe I understand better than many who say they are devout Christians what it  means to be a Christian. I practice empathy and patience and hope, not argument and judgment and hate. I would love to feel great again.

What I do know about Donald Trump is that he loves himself, cannot bear scrutiny or criticism, and often speaks in a hateful and divisive way. He does, in fact, argue like a 9-year-old in a Middle School playground, and as he often points out, a lot of people like it.

Many people love him, and many people fear him. As a leader, that would make me uncomfortable. But he is not uncomfortable, he is clearly a genius at understanding media, and an addict for attention.

He seems unable to live without it. That, unfortunately, places him in the center of the consciousness of many people, he is in many heads, and every time I glance online, I see people who have better things to do wrestling with this thing that seems imprisoned in their minds.

They can’t get him out of their heads, and since he is never quiet, that is a spiritual as well as a psychic challenge.

Because whether or not he will be a good President, it is clear he will be a very angry and often cruel one. And he spouts more self-serving bull than I can bear to be in my head for four years.

The hallmark of the people who label themselves as being on the left and the right is obsessive and eternal argument. Once you label yourself, change and growth and connection becomes almost impossible, except with the like-minded. Labeling is a disease, and one of its symptoms is small mindedness.

Our new President is a carrier of extreme labeling, he hates ideas that are different from his, he is a creature of the new politics, his very veins and mind tap into the new and polarizing Matrix of our civic life.

He was inevitable.

You are, after all, what is in your head. If I keep watching that stuff, that will be in my head, that will be me.

In America, less than one half of eligible voters voted in November.  Of those, 25.6 voted for Hillary Clinton, 25.5 for Donald Trump. About 90 per cent of  people are on Facebook. We are what we show up for.

But my response to him – and all of this anguish and controversy –  being in my head is not inevitable. I won’t let it happen, it is them or me, literally.

Our politics now are the opposite of truth and knowledge.

I have never known a truly intelligent or thoughtful person who didn’t know how to listen, or say “I don’t know. You may be right.” Labeling myself is the fastest way I could imagine to being stupid. It is literally the opposite of thinking.

From my perspective, Donald Trump has gotten into the heads of too many people whose heads deserve better than having this often disturbing life force embedded in their brains. How about meditating instead, or walking the dogs, or hiking in the woods?

This morning, this almost happened to me, when I was curious about Mr. Trump’s press conference and his response to the suggestion the Russians had compromised him beyond anything George Smiley imagined at MI6.

I was writing, and writing well, and I did not imagine I would feel good or enlightened after listening to yet another Trump rope-a-dope or lecture on his own greatness. There are a wall of angry illusionists all around him, he is their Great Wizard.  I watched for a half hour, and I swear I felt him literally popping up around my ear and heading for the passageway that led to my brain.

I cherish my head, it is my creativity, my work, my livelihood. I don’t care to share it with anybody else, or permit anyone else to drive me onto Facebook all day, spouting my frustration and rage.

I can only imagine what my head – or my blog and books – would be like if I let this stuff inside of it for months or years. There are no ear plugs big enough to keep all of this bullshit out of my head, so I will have to do it myself, and be disciplined and steady and strong. And I will be, I love writing every bit as much as Donald Trump loves himself.

I had a revelation. I turned off the live feed of perpetual disturbance, the journalists huffing, the panelists arguing, the Trump dissembling, the flunkies flunking, and I  swatted at my ear, to get the thing away. I took my camera and went out to the pasture with the dogs.

When I came back it was over. I glanced at the news. I hadn’t missed one single thing. It is, of course, a circus, an incestuous show and you have to be a clown or a juggler to get inside of the ring. I don’t wish to get in. Maria came in to tell me she had just sold another quilt, minutes after sharing it on her blog. I’d rather be proud of her for that than raging against Donald Trump on Facebook or Twitter.

We have in our country embraced the idea that if you can go on TV or Facebook and scream at one another, then we are vibrant and free. But we are neither vibrant or really free. For me, listening to this is just another kind of prison. I intend to be free.

So I went back to work. And my head was not full of posturing and bravado and outrage, but sheep and donkeys and dogs and a warm and sunny day. For a writer, that is what ought to be in my head.

It is a dreadful thing for me to let somebody who is shameless and selfish and angry into my head, it is my sacred space.

Especially for four controversial and very loud years. It is just not the way I wish to live. When the time comes, I will do what needs to be done, I will do good whenever I can do. I believe there will be an  Army Of Good all around me.

I leave the politicians and reporters and the panelists and legislators and lobbyists and posturers to their work.

And my head to its work.