The news hit me in the gut… “Our beloved Allen is gone, Sose is in a coma.”

It’s time to take away the levers of their perceived power. It is time to eradicate the uneducated, morally bankrupt, economically powerful, groveling, sniveling mob of young men and boys and silly, vacuous girls who think they will determine the destiny of my country.

Springtime in Yerevan is my favorite season. As the city crawls its way out of winter, spring reveals itself with such grace and splendor in our city.

It is that time of year again when Armenians around the globe commemorate the Armenian Genocide of 1915.

While it is business as usual for the rest of the world, the Armenian people have been embroiled in a political process that might appear to be imploding. But is it?

Tranquility, stillness, and serenity are words that no longer define our lives. They were obliterated from our collective narrative decades ago, maybe centuries ago, perhaps millennia ago.

The man in this picture is from Kapan. I don’t know his name, nor do I know anything about him. I don’t know if he is married, or has children or is employed.

We are sitting at Café Vergnano on Northern Boulevard with a group of friends, drinking coffee watching the clock. It’s almost 5 p.m. and we know where we have to be. We pay the bill, gather up our belongings and begin making our way to Liberty Square.

This will hopefully be my last opinion piece about the presidential elections in Armenia. By the time this article is published, we will most likely have a new president who is the same president we had for the past five years.

Anyone who visits, volunteers, works or lives in Armenia understands that it is a country of extremes. This is not a revelation, we all know it, have spoken about it, discussed and written about it.

It is 4 o’clock in the morning and my son is driving back from the hospital. He has been there all night covering the assassination attempt against presidential candidate Paryur Hayrikyan for Civilnet.

We are now in the middle of the 2013 presidential election campaign in Armenia. At least that’s what we are told and that is what we believe.

Most days you just want to turn the switch off, go home, sit on the couch and watch a meaningless movie. You don’t want to think about work, about deadlines and responsibilities, about the upcoming presidential elections or about your crazy, chaotic life. You crave boredom, monotony, a peaceful existence.

I often wonder if other nations are as hard on themselves as we are. No doubt our behavior toward one another on a personal, national and global scale is enough reason to begin a critical discourse on our self-perceived lack of inspiration.