Monday, March 10, 2014
Man on the Mountain
Every time I try to wrap my mind around this modern world I get completely lost in the speed and complexity. I don't know how other people think (mind, not what they think, but how they think), but when I have time, I think in the dynamic of conversation. I talk to myself. When the first philosophers published their ideas, they did it in the form of Dialogues. It was a form of thought experiment. They offered a premise then acted as their own pro and con advocates, working out a problem until they could decipher a certitude. I find myself following this same line of reasoning when I'm alone; I imagine talking to friends of mine who I know to be thoughtful people, people who would disagree with me, and I argue with them. It's become almost an unconscious act for me, but unfortunately, many times the conclusions I reach become lost through the day, and I find myself creeping ever closer to the twilight of my life.
For those who have been paying even a little attention to my writing, you might have noticed that time is an obsession for me. Perhaps my father passing away so young after a five year stretch with Alzheimer's disease has awakened in me a fear of suffering the same fate; perhaps the idea of starting a family after turning forty has me craving a long life; or perhaps it's my own regret as I look at all the time I've wasted in my life, making me wish I had it back. Either way, I believe this modern world, with the sheer volume of people, the rushing tide of images and ideas, the swirling noises clamoring for attention, and the values of constant work and action- pushed on us from the very start of consciousness- are conspiring to rob us of the ability to sit and ponder the very times we live in. The idea of sitting still for half a day, in the middle of the week, staring at animals moving around, or a river flowing past, or the light of day changing, sounds like a dream, or a vacation day, a rarity. There is nobody in this country who could legitimately conceive of doing this two days in a row, at least no one who is tied into the modern race. This... time, this swampy, slow, contemplative mindset is an anathema to the salesmen of the world, because they know that if people stopped and looked around at their lives, they would find most of the things they value are meaningless, and that their right to free thinking has been leased out to the Sellers. I've fallen victim to this same fate... I've let myself be entertained way too easily, and I've let time get by me without a fight.
In September of 2001, we listened to the news broadcast on the radio of the attack on the World Trade Center. Our boss had a small black and white TV that we watched the footage on at lunch. At that time, I was making fun of a friend of mine for getting the internet installed at his house. None of us had bought into the cell phone trend that was jumpstarting. We waited until we got home and we watched the rest of the day as all the images poured in. It was an absolute shock and we watched for months as the war, and the hunt for the men who enacted this awful violence began. On April 15, 2013, only twelve years later, two young immigrant brothers set off bombs at the Boston Marathon. My purpose isn't to discuss crime and punishment or the validity of war, but to illuminate the changes that have occurred in our country since those two incidents exploded in our collective psyche. Now, you could almost climb to the top of a tall mountain and watch as the pulse of light from the Boston bombings shimmered across the glowing and wired network of our country. Imagine the network of electrical impulses, the web turning from a normal and efficient pink glow to an overactive hot white. The news wasn't confined anymore to the event, but encompassed our collective reaction to the event, culled from the immediate and vast onrush of opinions and thoughts. The anthill was disrupted and the ants rushed out.
I do understand our modern age. I know from looking at this example what we have become. Somewhere along the line, maybe in my lifetime, maybe it had been building to this before I was born, we turned from a desire for individuality, turned away from the lone pilgrim teaching his truth, towards a new methodology... a groupthink. Where does it lead? Ruination? Or salvation?
Wednesday, January 22, 2014
The Return
I've been struggling with writer's block for, what seems like, a very long time. I looked back at the date of my previous post and was shocked to see it was from a month before I married my wife. So much has happened since then that to rehash all the events of the past year would be a bit like showing vacation slides... slightly entertaining at best and tedious at worst. Perhaps in time I can address some of the more life changing happenstances but for now I have to figure out why I can't seem to sit down on a regular basis and take note of my life. I have a few reasons in mind that are fairly explanatory and I think they cut to the heart of the matter.
For one thing, I have a fear that I'm not good enough. When I start a project I always shoot for the moon. I try to nail the writing on the first try and when it doesn't work I give up. Writing is a difficult and slightly mad endeavor. Especially when you're just testing the waters like I am. It never seems right when you are in the midst of it and there's no one to tell you whether it's good or if you're fooling yourself. Say what you want about whether I should feel that way, if I'm just putting pressure on myself, or that I should do it for myself anyway; it stops the pen from reaching the page.
I also wonder what it's worth. Words have become cheap now. Ideas have been co-opted and turned into commodities upon which the world gets drunk. When things like ideas and words become cheap, you can't trust them. At the very least, you don't put much weight in them. They aren't cheap in Sudan or Ukraine. Places where life is lived on the bone, where hot soup is soul enriching, words are checked and spared, everything hangs in the balance. Every day we explore our world, we comb through the headlines and we listen to the sales pitch. We find new things and learn, learn, learn. The more we learn, though, it quickly becomes clear just how unoriginal we are. Dare I contemplate how hateful we can be, as well? Has that not become clear? Not only do we hate people who are different, we hate people who hate different people! We have indulged ourselves watching the morbid circus of human folly and the thoughtful ones become overwhelmed. Time being stolen isn't just a quaint thought, it's an ongoing crime.
A certain amount of laziness can be attributed to my malaise. When I graduated from school, I thought having the degree was enough. I thought inspiration was going to strike me and I would write as if someone was doing the job for me. For a while I did write; for several years I kept journals and made searching intrigues into poetry and fiction, never finishing a story, always losing the train of thought. I forgot the first rule of craftsmanship; it requires practice. I didn't give myself a structure or a deadline. I didn't make the requisite time and I never set a place in the world. So many ideas floated through my head like a roaming searchlight. If I had learned to tame it I might have started something. In the end, the more I let my mind drift, the more I lost my self-discipline.
There's something else, though. I've been thinking longer about this ethereal problem and I find the problem to be a lot more sinister than it appears on the surface: There's an ongoing realization by some scientists, going by the Uncertainty Principle by Heisenberg, that even as we dig deeply into the farthest reaches of scientific discovery; even as we scan the most infinitesimal quantities and look into the deepest parts of space, there will always be something more, something that we will never have the capacity to see. At first, grains of sand were thought to be the smallest things on the planet. Then, elements... molecules... atoms... ions... then... quarks. The question keeps propping up, what are those made of? The ground we stand on is simply a thin crust of cool rock on top of an ever shifting current. Some of the stars we see in the sky may just be the dying light of a sun that died many millennia ago. As a writer, as a thinker, as a student of humanity, I seek the truth. The Truth, Meaning, is the ultimate prize. Many think that dying is the great Unveiling of the truth and that true meaning will be revealed then and only then. For me, this produces a real problem. It is more than a little unnerving to come to the conclusion that there is no truth in this life... that to commit to an action requires a belief in something, but that belief is based on false notions and that only fools follow paths blindly. For a man like me, it becomes a terrible maze.
Perhaps all we can really do is try our best. And be good to people. Those are things my dad taught me.
For one thing, I have a fear that I'm not good enough. When I start a project I always shoot for the moon. I try to nail the writing on the first try and when it doesn't work I give up. Writing is a difficult and slightly mad endeavor. Especially when you're just testing the waters like I am. It never seems right when you are in the midst of it and there's no one to tell you whether it's good or if you're fooling yourself. Say what you want about whether I should feel that way, if I'm just putting pressure on myself, or that I should do it for myself anyway; it stops the pen from reaching the page.
I also wonder what it's worth. Words have become cheap now. Ideas have been co-opted and turned into commodities upon which the world gets drunk. When things like ideas and words become cheap, you can't trust them. At the very least, you don't put much weight in them. They aren't cheap in Sudan or Ukraine. Places where life is lived on the bone, where hot soup is soul enriching, words are checked and spared, everything hangs in the balance. Every day we explore our world, we comb through the headlines and we listen to the sales pitch. We find new things and learn, learn, learn. The more we learn, though, it quickly becomes clear just how unoriginal we are. Dare I contemplate how hateful we can be, as well? Has that not become clear? Not only do we hate people who are different, we hate people who hate different people! We have indulged ourselves watching the morbid circus of human folly and the thoughtful ones become overwhelmed. Time being stolen isn't just a quaint thought, it's an ongoing crime.
A certain amount of laziness can be attributed to my malaise. When I graduated from school, I thought having the degree was enough. I thought inspiration was going to strike me and I would write as if someone was doing the job for me. For a while I did write; for several years I kept journals and made searching intrigues into poetry and fiction, never finishing a story, always losing the train of thought. I forgot the first rule of craftsmanship; it requires practice. I didn't give myself a structure or a deadline. I didn't make the requisite time and I never set a place in the world. So many ideas floated through my head like a roaming searchlight. If I had learned to tame it I might have started something. In the end, the more I let my mind drift, the more I lost my self-discipline.
There's something else, though. I've been thinking longer about this ethereal problem and I find the problem to be a lot more sinister than it appears on the surface: There's an ongoing realization by some scientists, going by the Uncertainty Principle by Heisenberg, that even as we dig deeply into the farthest reaches of scientific discovery; even as we scan the most infinitesimal quantities and look into the deepest parts of space, there will always be something more, something that we will never have the capacity to see. At first, grains of sand were thought to be the smallest things on the planet. Then, elements... molecules... atoms... ions... then... quarks. The question keeps propping up, what are those made of? The ground we stand on is simply a thin crust of cool rock on top of an ever shifting current. Some of the stars we see in the sky may just be the dying light of a sun that died many millennia ago. As a writer, as a thinker, as a student of humanity, I seek the truth. The Truth, Meaning, is the ultimate prize. Many think that dying is the great Unveiling of the truth and that true meaning will be revealed then and only then. For me, this produces a real problem. It is more than a little unnerving to come to the conclusion that there is no truth in this life... that to commit to an action requires a belief in something, but that belief is based on false notions and that only fools follow paths blindly. For a man like me, it becomes a terrible maze.
Perhaps all we can really do is try our best. And be good to people. Those are things my dad taught me.
Monday, May 28, 2012
May 28, 2012: Mind, Body, Spirit
When archaeologists discovered King Tutenkhamen's tomb, they found his mummified remains had disintegrated. The jewels wrapped in the cloths and buried with the child king, together with the adhesive tar or pitch used to adhere the cloth to the body, reacted chemically over eons, creating a fire, and turning the once divine king into nothing. Old cemeteries, places where the living revisit to find connection with their past, with old loves and family long passed, find the names on the headstones fading with each drop of water, each blinding ray of sun, each breath of wind. Bodily forms are lifted up from the soil, taught to fly, swim through life, and then fall back to the earth.
The mind ages with the body, and the spirit depends on the mind. As the body goes, and inevitably all bodies go, we become trapped in broken down shells. We are bombarded and shelled and beaten; Cooled and heated, burned, frozen, assaulted by winds, until our backs are broken and we hate the world. The spirit, once young, once glowing and flowing like spring sunshine, now coughs from the smog of the cities. The mind, engorged on the gristle of the Modern Tribune, tosses wildly on frantic seas.
The pain started in the back. The lower back seized up often, doubling me over at times. It often migrated to the middle of my back, behind the diaphragm, bringing the image of a creased or folded mat to mind. The kind of crease you try to unfold or reverse bend to get rid of but still it remains. Then at times the upper back would contract, pinching nerves and slumping me down like a crippled man. Night after night on a bed like a rack, and soon my blood flow was disrupted. Waking to a hand tingling with need, shaking the pain away and restlessly trying to find a good way to sleep. Now both wrists feel arthritic, and I can't make the number three in the american fashion. I can't make a good fist. I can't hold a pen for long. Years of walking on uneven ground, in bad boots, on old tennis shoes, over the rocks and rubble of bombed cities, on lakeshore rocks, on hot beaches and ice, have worn the ligaments in my ankles, shins, arches, and knees. Overexertion leads to a humming pain in my hamstrings, cramps in my arches and pelvis. Sitting too long has bent me over, and my energy has waned. If I don't get coffee in the morning I get headaches, and sometimes I have that pain in my chest that I know comes not from heartburn, but from high cholesterol. This body, which I used to think could get me through anything, is rebelling against my bad behavior.
It's no surprise we become cynical in our old age. All we once were is forgotten, the memories of how we acted among friends and family is golden fogged, and we see the world now through a lens of what once was, what is now lost. Yes the world changed, but the world always changes. The population has always gone up, and the complexities of the times were merely reflections of the complexities of us, of our relations with each other. "Love is for the young." "Revolution as a young man's game." "Youth is wasted on the young." Are we so much better? Were we any different than the kids we rail against now? Do we truly know how the world is while we sit and stare at the bits and pieces that reach us from our little media machines? Our bodies, they begin to fall from grace. Our minds, at once reject and recoil at the truth of this, and our spirits become older with memory. It is a fight, an endurance test, this life. If we don't fight the rising tide, the world keeps spinning, and we keep hating each other. Let thee not sell out thy spirit to comfort, leisure, and the machinations of the world, go out into the woods, breathe in the soil, go down to the river, let the ever freshening life of warm weather feed you and reawaken you! For me, I have to change my body first, then the mind and spirit will be young again. Until we meet again...
The mind ages with the body, and the spirit depends on the mind. As the body goes, and inevitably all bodies go, we become trapped in broken down shells. We are bombarded and shelled and beaten; Cooled and heated, burned, frozen, assaulted by winds, until our backs are broken and we hate the world. The spirit, once young, once glowing and flowing like spring sunshine, now coughs from the smog of the cities. The mind, engorged on the gristle of the Modern Tribune, tosses wildly on frantic seas.
The pain started in the back. The lower back seized up often, doubling me over at times. It often migrated to the middle of my back, behind the diaphragm, bringing the image of a creased or folded mat to mind. The kind of crease you try to unfold or reverse bend to get rid of but still it remains. Then at times the upper back would contract, pinching nerves and slumping me down like a crippled man. Night after night on a bed like a rack, and soon my blood flow was disrupted. Waking to a hand tingling with need, shaking the pain away and restlessly trying to find a good way to sleep. Now both wrists feel arthritic, and I can't make the number three in the american fashion. I can't make a good fist. I can't hold a pen for long. Years of walking on uneven ground, in bad boots, on old tennis shoes, over the rocks and rubble of bombed cities, on lakeshore rocks, on hot beaches and ice, have worn the ligaments in my ankles, shins, arches, and knees. Overexertion leads to a humming pain in my hamstrings, cramps in my arches and pelvis. Sitting too long has bent me over, and my energy has waned. If I don't get coffee in the morning I get headaches, and sometimes I have that pain in my chest that I know comes not from heartburn, but from high cholesterol. This body, which I used to think could get me through anything, is rebelling against my bad behavior.
It's no surprise we become cynical in our old age. All we once were is forgotten, the memories of how we acted among friends and family is golden fogged, and we see the world now through a lens of what once was, what is now lost. Yes the world changed, but the world always changes. The population has always gone up, and the complexities of the times were merely reflections of the complexities of us, of our relations with each other. "Love is for the young." "Revolution as a young man's game." "Youth is wasted on the young." Are we so much better? Were we any different than the kids we rail against now? Do we truly know how the world is while we sit and stare at the bits and pieces that reach us from our little media machines? Our bodies, they begin to fall from grace. Our minds, at once reject and recoil at the truth of this, and our spirits become older with memory. It is a fight, an endurance test, this life. If we don't fight the rising tide, the world keeps spinning, and we keep hating each other. Let thee not sell out thy spirit to comfort, leisure, and the machinations of the world, go out into the woods, breathe in the soil, go down to the river, let the ever freshening life of warm weather feed you and reawaken you! For me, I have to change my body first, then the mind and spirit will be young again. Until we meet again...
Sunday, April 29, 2012
April 29, 2012: He Doesn't Belong to Us Anymore
April: Old father, old artificer, stand me now and ever in good stead.
-Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
James Joyce
It was a grey day, last Friday, with that rolling April wind that comes on like it's made of silk ribbons of warm and cold air. The kind of day that seems poised on an edge, ever changing, tempestuous. Appropriate since it mirrors the way I feel about visiting my father in the Home. I love him dearly, and I realized quite some time ago, that he was maybe the only real hero I ever knew. But to visit him now, to see him as he is, it wrenches me. I don't think I'm being egotistical or unfair to my family by thinking that my father was one of the special ones. Born third of seven, he seems to have been an accessible man to all of his brothers and sisters. They all had reasons for thinking they had a special connection with him, in that way that people confirm the existence of love by certain memories, callbacks to emotional times, shared moments. He didn't stand out in a crowd, he didn't draw attention to himself, he smiled at you and laughed with you. But now, there isn't much he can do for himself. He can't talk, can't remember how to take care of his personal hygiene, and can't survive on his own. Alzheimer's doesn't hurt you, it takes you away.
Opening the door to the Home is like falling down the rabbit hole. Old men and women walk around the house trying to connect with place, with each other, with the images they see. They speak to the caretakers, to visitors, and to each other, but they say nonsensical things. Some are obsessively complimentary, some are overtly crude and racist. Some call out for help. It is an amalgam of damaged humanity. A slice of primeval mind... men and women lost in a haze of dreams and memories. In order to relate I try to imagine that feeling I have of trying to remember the name of an actor or book that escapes me... desperate to make the right connection, searching for that name that's on the tip of my tongue... endless. I have a theory that they are all in a memory loop, having old conversations, speaking to their families, enjoying the life they had again. My father has garnered praise for being quiet. The caretakers ask me if he's always been quiet, and my mother says he was, but in my mind I can only think of all the times he's spoken, a lifetime of laughter and conversation.
He seems to have had problems letting them help him with his personal hygiene, which has forced them to use drugs to sedate him a little. Although they shave his face, brush his teeth, and give him a haircut, he seems to have a permanent tuft of hair coming out of his nose, and it's always a mess. Towards the end of his time at our home, he would spend way too much time brushing his two front teeth, up and down for 15 minutes at at time. We've had to buy him new shoes with velcro because he took all his shoestrings out and lost them. If there is a napkin on the table or a piece of paper he picks it up and tries to arrange it, or fold it, always keeping his hands busy. When he stands in front of a mirror he can't connect the man in the image with himself, so he becomes obsessed with his reflection and tries to talk to it, threatens it, moves his hands trying to figure out how the man in front of him can mirror his actions. He can only walk in short, stunted steps, seemingly afraid to stride confidently forward. Just thinking about him, and the way he is now, seems to scatter my own mind. I've tried three different times to write about my father and it always seems to fall short of my ambitions. I always end up trailing off, unsatisfied with the results of my attempts to describe my feelings for him. It's so difficult to decipher these new rules. So hard to translate in the spaces we're allotted. If I had more time, if I could spend years on it, I could come up with a definite answer to the riddle Alzheimer's sets upon us. But all I can do is describe the broken pieces, try to untangle this web one strand at a time.
My mother met me at the Home last Friday, but I was early so I sat down with him, tried to coax some kind of greeting out of him, some small talk, only to come up empty. So while we waited I picked up a newspaper and told him about the Detroit Tigers and the Mud Hens... I read him some of the headlines and talked about current events, and this seemed to engage him. He perked up and listened, trying to remember the names of people in the news, watching me talk. Perhaps this is something I can indulge in with him. Maybe he doesn't need to tell me things anymore. Maybe I should tell him things. When my mom showed up she brought him his new shoes and we took him out to dinner. We went to Rudy's and had some chili dogs and fries, and since the weather was bad we took him back. There wasn't much we could do for him that day. We took him back into the house and he simply fell in line with the rest of the residents, walking behind them into the dining room to eat dinner. Mom and I watched him walk away, decided we might as well go, and walked out. As we left my mom said to me, "He doesn't belong to us anymore, he belongs to them." All I could do was put my arms around her and let her cry a bit. I think she's been on the edge of breakdown for the past few years. When she feels down, she must have that sick feeling in her stomach, that seemingly black empty hole that leads to real heartache. She begins to cry then pulls back, avoiding a debilitating, paralyzing, three day sob. After all she has to drive home.
What seems to me the real crime here is how young he is. He's sixty five and my mother is almost sixty two. The golden years have been ripped away from them. Their plans to travel and enjoy their retirement are over, and it appears to me like he won't be able to even be there for my wedding. If we have children, he won't know them other than the times we bring the baby to him. My future wife will never know the man he was and her family will never know him. It is a kind of tragedy. I always knew that one day my parents would both be gone from this world, and as we've aged I've become more and more philosophical about it, but I always thought we'd have more time, more memories to make. But it's a bit of a blessing, too, because I can see now, how short life really is, how beautiful is this world and this time, how much of it I've wasted, and how I don't want to waste anymore. My future life has always seemed like a distant horizon, I could see it and I knew I was moving toward it, but always it was undefined, vague and blurred. Now I am careening toward it, actively chasing it, desperate to live a good life. It's what he always wanted for me. Until we meet again...
-Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
James Joyce
It was a grey day, last Friday, with that rolling April wind that comes on like it's made of silk ribbons of warm and cold air. The kind of day that seems poised on an edge, ever changing, tempestuous. Appropriate since it mirrors the way I feel about visiting my father in the Home. I love him dearly, and I realized quite some time ago, that he was maybe the only real hero I ever knew. But to visit him now, to see him as he is, it wrenches me. I don't think I'm being egotistical or unfair to my family by thinking that my father was one of the special ones. Born third of seven, he seems to have been an accessible man to all of his brothers and sisters. They all had reasons for thinking they had a special connection with him, in that way that people confirm the existence of love by certain memories, callbacks to emotional times, shared moments. He didn't stand out in a crowd, he didn't draw attention to himself, he smiled at you and laughed with you. But now, there isn't much he can do for himself. He can't talk, can't remember how to take care of his personal hygiene, and can't survive on his own. Alzheimer's doesn't hurt you, it takes you away.
Opening the door to the Home is like falling down the rabbit hole. Old men and women walk around the house trying to connect with place, with each other, with the images they see. They speak to the caretakers, to visitors, and to each other, but they say nonsensical things. Some are obsessively complimentary, some are overtly crude and racist. Some call out for help. It is an amalgam of damaged humanity. A slice of primeval mind... men and women lost in a haze of dreams and memories. In order to relate I try to imagine that feeling I have of trying to remember the name of an actor or book that escapes me... desperate to make the right connection, searching for that name that's on the tip of my tongue... endless. I have a theory that they are all in a memory loop, having old conversations, speaking to their families, enjoying the life they had again. My father has garnered praise for being quiet. The caretakers ask me if he's always been quiet, and my mother says he was, but in my mind I can only think of all the times he's spoken, a lifetime of laughter and conversation.
He seems to have had problems letting them help him with his personal hygiene, which has forced them to use drugs to sedate him a little. Although they shave his face, brush his teeth, and give him a haircut, he seems to have a permanent tuft of hair coming out of his nose, and it's always a mess. Towards the end of his time at our home, he would spend way too much time brushing his two front teeth, up and down for 15 minutes at at time. We've had to buy him new shoes with velcro because he took all his shoestrings out and lost them. If there is a napkin on the table or a piece of paper he picks it up and tries to arrange it, or fold it, always keeping his hands busy. When he stands in front of a mirror he can't connect the man in the image with himself, so he becomes obsessed with his reflection and tries to talk to it, threatens it, moves his hands trying to figure out how the man in front of him can mirror his actions. He can only walk in short, stunted steps, seemingly afraid to stride confidently forward. Just thinking about him, and the way he is now, seems to scatter my own mind. I've tried three different times to write about my father and it always seems to fall short of my ambitions. I always end up trailing off, unsatisfied with the results of my attempts to describe my feelings for him. It's so difficult to decipher these new rules. So hard to translate in the spaces we're allotted. If I had more time, if I could spend years on it, I could come up with a definite answer to the riddle Alzheimer's sets upon us. But all I can do is describe the broken pieces, try to untangle this web one strand at a time.
My mother met me at the Home last Friday, but I was early so I sat down with him, tried to coax some kind of greeting out of him, some small talk, only to come up empty. So while we waited I picked up a newspaper and told him about the Detroit Tigers and the Mud Hens... I read him some of the headlines and talked about current events, and this seemed to engage him. He perked up and listened, trying to remember the names of people in the news, watching me talk. Perhaps this is something I can indulge in with him. Maybe he doesn't need to tell me things anymore. Maybe I should tell him things. When my mom showed up she brought him his new shoes and we took him out to dinner. We went to Rudy's and had some chili dogs and fries, and since the weather was bad we took him back. There wasn't much we could do for him that day. We took him back into the house and he simply fell in line with the rest of the residents, walking behind them into the dining room to eat dinner. Mom and I watched him walk away, decided we might as well go, and walked out. As we left my mom said to me, "He doesn't belong to us anymore, he belongs to them." All I could do was put my arms around her and let her cry a bit. I think she's been on the edge of breakdown for the past few years. When she feels down, she must have that sick feeling in her stomach, that seemingly black empty hole that leads to real heartache. She begins to cry then pulls back, avoiding a debilitating, paralyzing, three day sob. After all she has to drive home.
What seems to me the real crime here is how young he is. He's sixty five and my mother is almost sixty two. The golden years have been ripped away from them. Their plans to travel and enjoy their retirement are over, and it appears to me like he won't be able to even be there for my wedding. If we have children, he won't know them other than the times we bring the baby to him. My future wife will never know the man he was and her family will never know him. It is a kind of tragedy. I always knew that one day my parents would both be gone from this world, and as we've aged I've become more and more philosophical about it, but I always thought we'd have more time, more memories to make. But it's a bit of a blessing, too, because I can see now, how short life really is, how beautiful is this world and this time, how much of it I've wasted, and how I don't want to waste anymore. My future life has always seemed like a distant horizon, I could see it and I knew I was moving toward it, but always it was undefined, vague and blurred. Now I am careening toward it, actively chasing it, desperate to live a good life. It's what he always wanted for me. Until we meet again...
Sunday, April 15, 2012
April 8, 2012: Copper Colored Tungsten Carbide
Perhaps it's always been this way. Perhaps throughout the vast generations of men and women loving each other and following that grand old ritual of courtship, flowing into the promise of engagement, then fulfilling the sacrament of marriage, men and women have always struggled with the disparate nature of their excitement for the impending ceremony. The timing, the levels of anxiety, that search in the other's eyes for the light of acknowledgement... the agreement of the weight of the occasion to be undertaken... this does not always occur simultaneously. It cannot be faked either. Insincerity in a relationship is quickly discovered by the lover as she or he sees the slight look away, the withdrawn muscle, the aura of falseness. No one should dare to try to sell that lie, to fake enthusiasm, because it is quickly resented, and trust is a hard thing to earn.
Since early May of 2011, when I asked for Anna's hand in a beautiful restaurant in the Renaissance Center overlooking the blue Detroit River, she has poured over details in magazines and on the internet. She has searched through examples of other weddings, cataloged countless ideas from glossy pictures of models in dresses, flowers, centerpieces, locations, and all the other untold minutiae that goes into putting together a wedding. I've watched her agonize, trying to reconcile the vision of the wedding she's always dreamed of with the desire to satisfy the needs of friends and family who will grace us with their presence. She has had to do all this while at the same time keeping up with an enormous work load. At times she has been overwhelmed. At times she has been overjoyed. She began counting down, marking each second day of each month with a smile and the question, "You know what today is...?" Up until recently, the best I could do was muster a smile, laugh and say, "Six months until our wedding day." I simply couldn't match her excitement. While the vision was being layered like warm blankets on a cold bed, I sat in the background wondering how she could invest so much into an event that seemed so distant, a light on the horizon. For me, I've held my excitement in reserve, because it would make the waiting so agonizing, almost unbearable. Time, months... weeks... days, would drag until, like her, I would be burned out, wishing only for an end to the wait, for the day to arrive.
For her, each new task she has accomplished has been a joyful occasion. Booking rooms, arranging for the flowers, finding a location, buying a dress, these things have been torches on the path leading to a distant hillside, at the tail end of a summer, under the warm afternoon light, in front of hundreds of friends and family, by my side. Trying not to dwell on that day has been like sailing against the wind, and I know I have been of little help to her. The fact is she knows what she wants. She knows how the room should look, how the ceremony should go, what kind of menu she wants to offer, what kind of music she wants to hear, and she knows how to go about getting it. I've listened, offered alternatives, helped her in her considerations, but the truth is all her ideas are well thought out and along the same lines as mine. While I've played a role, it has been minor, and I've been fairly stress free for all this time, able to carry on with other things while this long year and a half has dragged on. Until this weekend.
May 4 will mark the year anniversary of my marriage proposal to Anna. We will celebrate by returning to that restaurant for a meal. There will be four months left, a third of a year, of this seemingly endless stretch of time until the day we are married. That knowledge has begun to seep through to me. I see now that there are many small details that need to be dealt with, and the overall painting of the wedding needs to be shaded and detailed. These kinds of details can't be done alone, and now the things she needs from me are being more defined. The role is changing.
On Saturday, we went to a mall, to a Men's Warehouse in order to be fitted for a tuxedo for a friend's wedding I will be attending in November. While we were there we visited a jewelry store in order to find out what size ring I needed so we could order it online. We were simply looking to find out the size ring I needed because we had a pretty good idea what kind of ring I wanted. However, like many surprises life offers us, we found a fantastic copper colored tungsten carbide ring that simply jumped out at me, like it was waiting there the whole time. Perhaps this is the one thing that gives men a feeling comparable to a woman finding her dress. Anna watched me with a knowing smile as I danced to the music in the mall, and swayed in that golden light that seems to shine on true believers. I was, and am, in the trance of love, and the agony of waiting has become very real to me.
Maybe this is the way of things. Maybe this staggering of excitement is part of the ritual, ordained for the purpose of infusing new life and new energy into the couple when the hardship of anticipation is most keen, allowing the one who is working the hardest a moment of relief, a re-freshening, so that the work can get done, and the hopeful feelings of a lifetime can be invigorated. Until we meet again...
Since early May of 2011, when I asked for Anna's hand in a beautiful restaurant in the Renaissance Center overlooking the blue Detroit River, she has poured over details in magazines and on the internet. She has searched through examples of other weddings, cataloged countless ideas from glossy pictures of models in dresses, flowers, centerpieces, locations, and all the other untold minutiae that goes into putting together a wedding. I've watched her agonize, trying to reconcile the vision of the wedding she's always dreamed of with the desire to satisfy the needs of friends and family who will grace us with their presence. She has had to do all this while at the same time keeping up with an enormous work load. At times she has been overwhelmed. At times she has been overjoyed. She began counting down, marking each second day of each month with a smile and the question, "You know what today is...?" Up until recently, the best I could do was muster a smile, laugh and say, "Six months until our wedding day." I simply couldn't match her excitement. While the vision was being layered like warm blankets on a cold bed, I sat in the background wondering how she could invest so much into an event that seemed so distant, a light on the horizon. For me, I've held my excitement in reserve, because it would make the waiting so agonizing, almost unbearable. Time, months... weeks... days, would drag until, like her, I would be burned out, wishing only for an end to the wait, for the day to arrive.
For her, each new task she has accomplished has been a joyful occasion. Booking rooms, arranging for the flowers, finding a location, buying a dress, these things have been torches on the path leading to a distant hillside, at the tail end of a summer, under the warm afternoon light, in front of hundreds of friends and family, by my side. Trying not to dwell on that day has been like sailing against the wind, and I know I have been of little help to her. The fact is she knows what she wants. She knows how the room should look, how the ceremony should go, what kind of menu she wants to offer, what kind of music she wants to hear, and she knows how to go about getting it. I've listened, offered alternatives, helped her in her considerations, but the truth is all her ideas are well thought out and along the same lines as mine. While I've played a role, it has been minor, and I've been fairly stress free for all this time, able to carry on with other things while this long year and a half has dragged on. Until this weekend.
May 4 will mark the year anniversary of my marriage proposal to Anna. We will celebrate by returning to that restaurant for a meal. There will be four months left, a third of a year, of this seemingly endless stretch of time until the day we are married. That knowledge has begun to seep through to me. I see now that there are many small details that need to be dealt with, and the overall painting of the wedding needs to be shaded and detailed. These kinds of details can't be done alone, and now the things she needs from me are being more defined. The role is changing.
On Saturday, we went to a mall, to a Men's Warehouse in order to be fitted for a tuxedo for a friend's wedding I will be attending in November. While we were there we visited a jewelry store in order to find out what size ring I needed so we could order it online. We were simply looking to find out the size ring I needed because we had a pretty good idea what kind of ring I wanted. However, like many surprises life offers us, we found a fantastic copper colored tungsten carbide ring that simply jumped out at me, like it was waiting there the whole time. Perhaps this is the one thing that gives men a feeling comparable to a woman finding her dress. Anna watched me with a knowing smile as I danced to the music in the mall, and swayed in that golden light that seems to shine on true believers. I was, and am, in the trance of love, and the agony of waiting has become very real to me.
Maybe this is the way of things. Maybe this staggering of excitement is part of the ritual, ordained for the purpose of infusing new life and new energy into the couple when the hardship of anticipation is most keen, allowing the one who is working the hardest a moment of relief, a re-freshening, so that the work can get done, and the hopeful feelings of a lifetime can be invigorated. Until we meet again...
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
March 13, 2012: Spring and the Resurrection
Spring rolls in on the backs of the shimmering clouds of blackbirds, swarming together above rivers and fields, dancing aloft for the delight of us children. Spring is cast upon us by roiling clouds thick from treks across vast waters. Spring is the baptism of the once sleeping bear that is our soul in winter. Creeks rise, overcome by the multitude of frozen dewdrops come undone. Pieces of tree bark, shed from last autumn, combine with old fruit, forgotten leaves, dead branches, and children's mittens to clog the arteries of runoffs, forming patchwork swamps, silting the land like a small river delta, providing the growers with loamy rich topsoil for gardens and flower beds. Spring is the time of the Resurrection, the promise of the sun, and the quenching of thirsts. The herds migrate, the people open their wells, the ice packs, which scoured the granite to a polished shine, recede into dark memories. Consciences are formed from those old ice packs, and we are loathe to celebrate too decadently, for there is work to be done, seeds to be gathered, and hearths to be readied for the return of the cold.
When people ask me what my favorite season is to be working outside, what they're really asking is, which season do I hate more, Summer or Winter. At this latitude, in this climate, people either love the Spring, or they love the Autumn, because those are the seasons of great change, the time of remembrance, of temperate air. A summer rain may be a blessing, but the rains of spring and fall are pregnant with meaning, and carry a certain violence with them. To be outside, in the watery sunlight of a sixty degree day in March, is to be counted with the angels, to be enlightened in the old sense, the impassioned sense. This year, the winter was about as mild as I've seen in my nine years of reading meters. I can barely recall the number of days it dipped below thirty degrees. I must admit I feel a bit disappointed by that, as if I was robbed of a certain hardship, nullifying any glory in the onrushing Spring. It lends to the unease, the strangeness of this strange year, the year of change, of catastrophe. I kept thinking, as January turned to February, and into March, when will we reap the bad harvest of days we have sown in this field of pleasant weather? It seems as if there is a storm coming, a storm that's been brewing since the time of the first calenders. Are we in the eye of the storm? Is this the calm before the storm? Perhaps this is a product of our interference with the natural flow of the waters? Unanswerable questions flower up out of the richness of Spring, just as Pleasure and Leisure spring from Summer, Memories and Sadness from Autumn, and the Ponderance of Mortality in the depths of Winter.
So to answer the question, my favorite season in which to work outside is the Spring. Maybe as I get older I will change, but for now I'm young at heart, and the Spring is the time to sing out loud, to throw open the windows and shake off the dusty blankets, to wash in the rivers and turn over the soil. Spring is the time to awaken to birdsong and smell the dank swampy sod. We fall in love in the spring, we court in the summer, and we wed in the Autumn. And our lives are full of that first morning light.
Until we meet again...
When people ask me what my favorite season is to be working outside, what they're really asking is, which season do I hate more, Summer or Winter. At this latitude, in this climate, people either love the Spring, or they love the Autumn, because those are the seasons of great change, the time of remembrance, of temperate air. A summer rain may be a blessing, but the rains of spring and fall are pregnant with meaning, and carry a certain violence with them. To be outside, in the watery sunlight of a sixty degree day in March, is to be counted with the angels, to be enlightened in the old sense, the impassioned sense. This year, the winter was about as mild as I've seen in my nine years of reading meters. I can barely recall the number of days it dipped below thirty degrees. I must admit I feel a bit disappointed by that, as if I was robbed of a certain hardship, nullifying any glory in the onrushing Spring. It lends to the unease, the strangeness of this strange year, the year of change, of catastrophe. I kept thinking, as January turned to February, and into March, when will we reap the bad harvest of days we have sown in this field of pleasant weather? It seems as if there is a storm coming, a storm that's been brewing since the time of the first calenders. Are we in the eye of the storm? Is this the calm before the storm? Perhaps this is a product of our interference with the natural flow of the waters? Unanswerable questions flower up out of the richness of Spring, just as Pleasure and Leisure spring from Summer, Memories and Sadness from Autumn, and the Ponderance of Mortality in the depths of Winter.
So to answer the question, my favorite season in which to work outside is the Spring. Maybe as I get older I will change, but for now I'm young at heart, and the Spring is the time to sing out loud, to throw open the windows and shake off the dusty blankets, to wash in the rivers and turn over the soil. Spring is the time to awaken to birdsong and smell the dank swampy sod. We fall in love in the spring, we court in the summer, and we wed in the Autumn. And our lives are full of that first morning light.
Until we meet again...
Sunday, March 4, 2012
March 3, 2012: Politics
To use this forum as a means of political expression was never my intention. Mostly I wanted to speak about the personal, the inner burgeoning consciousness, to express myself publicly in order to reach an understanding with the outside world. With the whole world seemingly involved in an extreme political discourse, I thought it would be futile and pointless to add yet another voice to the cacaphony already engaged in what has degraded into a shouting match. However, I realize now that my own political viewpoint is intertwined with my awakening, and to disregard it is to ignore a large portion of my feelings and my time. Most of my day is spent in my car or by myself, listening to news and current events, podcasts, public radio... I check my phone for updates on the presidential race and world news... and I read links my friends post on facebook. There was a time when myself and many of my friends were completely apolitical. The great bureaucracies of the world succeeded in developing in me a sort of malaise. I felt isolated, cynical, and (if ever there was a word to describe the 20th century) alienated. The regression of the human race seemed almost preordained, and I felt like a leaf floating in a vast and powerful sea, subject to the whims of forces unseen, indeterminate, and powerful beyond measure. Like many in my generation, I was subjected to a mass culture of nihilism, materialism, anti-intellectualism, and self indulgence, so that the most important thing was to discover oneself... by oneself. To be strong was to be strong alone, without reference to anyone else. But I see now that this way of thinking was taught to me by the instruments of shysters, salesmen, and power brokers. I can see a new world breaking free of this by the simple realization that we are all connected, that our actions have consequence, and that the world as it is now was built upon a foundation cast in stone throughout the aeons of history.
It seems to me that the worst aspect of the modern age is the way we receive information. With the modern news cycle being on a 24 hour basis it seems as if we are bombarded with stories of tyranny, oppression, degradation of values, and passionate discourse. We are fed constant updates until we fear going to sleep at night because the world might change in the course of the six to eight hours we are disconnected! The modern age comes at us so fast that the news has become a headline, a picture with a caption, and two paragraphs written by a "news service". This is followed by a litany of opinions on the various social networks, spewed forth by an ignorant, uninformed audience, who are reacting to an initial soundbite they didn't experience for themselves. If this initial news item is about something which is connected to the tax base or has to do with research grants or is about a certain person allegedly doing something illegal or amoral, suddenly the whole world has become judge, jury, and executioner, and lives are ruined, studies are lost, programs are de-funded, and the world loses insight into itself. When the whole story is revealed, either nobody hears it, or they hear only what they want to hear and stick to their initial knee jerk reactions. It isn't just a wheel spinning in mud, it is seven billion wheels spinning in small interconnected circles, bumping into each other and sending each other screaming off in a tangent to slam into another wheel, while the ground underneath becomes a sea of quicksand.
There was a moment when the vast machinery of political power and modern presidential campaigns became clarified for me. Rick Perry was asked a question pertaining to his economic policies; I can't recall exactly how the line of questioning went; As he was answering, citing his tax reform ideas, how he would promote job growth, etc., he suddenly held out his hands as if he were holding a flagpole and exclaimed passionately, "We need to stick a flag in the ground that says, 'America is Open for Business Again!'" The camera angle switched, a small number of the audience members applauded, and the moderator continued on to a different candidate. Two things occurred to me at once... (1) Rick Perry can't distinguish between an intellectual debate and a political rally, and (2) these candidates have to speak in bold idealistic terms in order to incite the constituency to vote for them. A campaign isn't about solving problems, about pragmatic approaches to governing... it's about highlighting ideals and promoting a kind of philosophical vision of the future. These men must separate themselves from the pack and hold themselves upright in the bright spotlight of media attention, in order to convince others to place them at the head of all tables, in THE seat of power. So they speak to us about America. They speak of how they see this country, how they relate to the vast masses of people from the populous East, through the Heartland, out to the vast West. They speak of their vision of Justice, Peace, and Freedom, as if they are commodities to be sold to us at the nearest pharmacy. They tell us how they are the chosen, the deliverers, and their opponents will lead America down a dark and storm ravaged path... and not only will there be the loss of everything we now hold dear, but it will be a slow and tortuous loss. This is what politics in America has become... maybe it's always been this way. When they talk about America, I really wonder where this grand country is located. Can we really look across this vast country and say that we all share a common set of core values? Can I relate to a person who belongs to the Ku Klux Klan? Does a corporate executive look at art the same way I do? We are all scattered about in tribes. We tread common ground with each other, but our communities are small, and our lives rarely venture outside the confines of our domestic circles. To speak of a United America is to sell us something, to ask us to buy something, or buy into something.
It's all too much for me sometimes. I don't have any answers. Sometimes I swing from anarchist unpredictability to traditional values. I've always had a leftist bent, like most of my generation, and for the past three elections I've voted Democrat. But I can see value in ideas from both sides of the aisle. Most intelligent people I know are intelligent because they carry many different values, and can see understanding and compromise as the only possible future. Winston Churchill once said, if you aren't a liberal when you're young you have no heart... and if you aren't a conservative when you're old you have no head. When I hear someone talk about their business, and they say liberals are wrong for creating a welfare state, that there have always been rich and poor people and the rich have always taken care of the poor, and that he shouldn't be penalized for working hard and becoming a productive member of society, I can't argue. And when a social worker tries to argue for the rights of the homeless, and tries to battle for the voiceless, reminding us that equality in America is a myth, I see that as truth, too. Can these two truths coexist? Will there always be a disparity between those who have and those who do not? If a major change in the structure of our society occurs, will the new society be any different than the previous? Or will the sides just switch ends of the playing field? For the cynics out there, the answer is no. They say we are all doomed and men will always kill each other for power. They say that they don't care about the future, that people who are uneducated and lazy don't deserve our sympathy, and that this world is a winner take all melee and you have to get yours while you can. Fools. If they don't care about their brothers, why should their opinion count at all? Maybe they should be told what to do, since they don't really want to hear our side of the story. It's not that hard to be optimistic. Television is not American Culture. The internet is not the answer to democratic power. Revolution is not spawned by looting neighborhood stores. We have to go out and find culture. We have to unlearn everything we think we know about how the world is and how it should be. Most of our belief systems were taught to us through authority figures and peer groups, and true perspective takes time and work. Revolution is a state of being, a paradigm shift.
Mostly I want people to realize how much power is really in our hands. Every dollar we spend is surveyed. Every movie we watch, every TV show we see, every second we lose listening to some fool spouting off at us is calculated and used for advertising. So what if we all decided to become activists? Instead of complaining about the world what if we acted to change it? Don't like how the garbage is piling up? Recycle and organize community clean up programs. Don't like how much food prices are going up? Start a garden and go to farmers markets. Don't like looking at bums every time you go to a baseball game downtown? Volunteer at soup kitchens and food banks. I was a little disappointed at Christmas. For all the grand talk about Money and Power and Corruption, people still went out in droves and spent the night outside Best Buys over Thanksgiving to get the newest toys and gadgets. What if for once nobody bought anything at Christmas? What if we decided to exchange gifts we made ourselves? What if we painted a picture for someone, or took a pottery class, or bought from a local antique shop? What if for that week around Christmas, we read to our children... turned off the TV and learned something about the history of Christmas? What if we communicated and contemplated the world around us... slowed down our lives for one week? All the billions of dollars spent on advertising would be lost. Companies who were struggling would crash, and the politicians and pundits would scream at us for weeks that we are ruining everything. We are slaves to this system that we created. We are locked into this consumptive lifestyle that separates us from each other and leaves us alienated. Does it have to be this way? It's a long conversation isn't it.
Until we meet again...
It seems to me that the worst aspect of the modern age is the way we receive information. With the modern news cycle being on a 24 hour basis it seems as if we are bombarded with stories of tyranny, oppression, degradation of values, and passionate discourse. We are fed constant updates until we fear going to sleep at night because the world might change in the course of the six to eight hours we are disconnected! The modern age comes at us so fast that the news has become a headline, a picture with a caption, and two paragraphs written by a "news service". This is followed by a litany of opinions on the various social networks, spewed forth by an ignorant, uninformed audience, who are reacting to an initial soundbite they didn't experience for themselves. If this initial news item is about something which is connected to the tax base or has to do with research grants or is about a certain person allegedly doing something illegal or amoral, suddenly the whole world has become judge, jury, and executioner, and lives are ruined, studies are lost, programs are de-funded, and the world loses insight into itself. When the whole story is revealed, either nobody hears it, or they hear only what they want to hear and stick to their initial knee jerk reactions. It isn't just a wheel spinning in mud, it is seven billion wheels spinning in small interconnected circles, bumping into each other and sending each other screaming off in a tangent to slam into another wheel, while the ground underneath becomes a sea of quicksand.
There was a moment when the vast machinery of political power and modern presidential campaigns became clarified for me. Rick Perry was asked a question pertaining to his economic policies; I can't recall exactly how the line of questioning went; As he was answering, citing his tax reform ideas, how he would promote job growth, etc., he suddenly held out his hands as if he were holding a flagpole and exclaimed passionately, "We need to stick a flag in the ground that says, 'America is Open for Business Again!'" The camera angle switched, a small number of the audience members applauded, and the moderator continued on to a different candidate. Two things occurred to me at once... (1) Rick Perry can't distinguish between an intellectual debate and a political rally, and (2) these candidates have to speak in bold idealistic terms in order to incite the constituency to vote for them. A campaign isn't about solving problems, about pragmatic approaches to governing... it's about highlighting ideals and promoting a kind of philosophical vision of the future. These men must separate themselves from the pack and hold themselves upright in the bright spotlight of media attention, in order to convince others to place them at the head of all tables, in THE seat of power. So they speak to us about America. They speak of how they see this country, how they relate to the vast masses of people from the populous East, through the Heartland, out to the vast West. They speak of their vision of Justice, Peace, and Freedom, as if they are commodities to be sold to us at the nearest pharmacy. They tell us how they are the chosen, the deliverers, and their opponents will lead America down a dark and storm ravaged path... and not only will there be the loss of everything we now hold dear, but it will be a slow and tortuous loss. This is what politics in America has become... maybe it's always been this way. When they talk about America, I really wonder where this grand country is located. Can we really look across this vast country and say that we all share a common set of core values? Can I relate to a person who belongs to the Ku Klux Klan? Does a corporate executive look at art the same way I do? We are all scattered about in tribes. We tread common ground with each other, but our communities are small, and our lives rarely venture outside the confines of our domestic circles. To speak of a United America is to sell us something, to ask us to buy something, or buy into something.
It's all too much for me sometimes. I don't have any answers. Sometimes I swing from anarchist unpredictability to traditional values. I've always had a leftist bent, like most of my generation, and for the past three elections I've voted Democrat. But I can see value in ideas from both sides of the aisle. Most intelligent people I know are intelligent because they carry many different values, and can see understanding and compromise as the only possible future. Winston Churchill once said, if you aren't a liberal when you're young you have no heart... and if you aren't a conservative when you're old you have no head. When I hear someone talk about their business, and they say liberals are wrong for creating a welfare state, that there have always been rich and poor people and the rich have always taken care of the poor, and that he shouldn't be penalized for working hard and becoming a productive member of society, I can't argue. And when a social worker tries to argue for the rights of the homeless, and tries to battle for the voiceless, reminding us that equality in America is a myth, I see that as truth, too. Can these two truths coexist? Will there always be a disparity between those who have and those who do not? If a major change in the structure of our society occurs, will the new society be any different than the previous? Or will the sides just switch ends of the playing field? For the cynics out there, the answer is no. They say we are all doomed and men will always kill each other for power. They say that they don't care about the future, that people who are uneducated and lazy don't deserve our sympathy, and that this world is a winner take all melee and you have to get yours while you can. Fools. If they don't care about their brothers, why should their opinion count at all? Maybe they should be told what to do, since they don't really want to hear our side of the story. It's not that hard to be optimistic. Television is not American Culture. The internet is not the answer to democratic power. Revolution is not spawned by looting neighborhood stores. We have to go out and find culture. We have to unlearn everything we think we know about how the world is and how it should be. Most of our belief systems were taught to us through authority figures and peer groups, and true perspective takes time and work. Revolution is a state of being, a paradigm shift.
Mostly I want people to realize how much power is really in our hands. Every dollar we spend is surveyed. Every movie we watch, every TV show we see, every second we lose listening to some fool spouting off at us is calculated and used for advertising. So what if we all decided to become activists? Instead of complaining about the world what if we acted to change it? Don't like how the garbage is piling up? Recycle and organize community clean up programs. Don't like how much food prices are going up? Start a garden and go to farmers markets. Don't like looking at bums every time you go to a baseball game downtown? Volunteer at soup kitchens and food banks. I was a little disappointed at Christmas. For all the grand talk about Money and Power and Corruption, people still went out in droves and spent the night outside Best Buys over Thanksgiving to get the newest toys and gadgets. What if for once nobody bought anything at Christmas? What if we decided to exchange gifts we made ourselves? What if we painted a picture for someone, or took a pottery class, or bought from a local antique shop? What if for that week around Christmas, we read to our children... turned off the TV and learned something about the history of Christmas? What if we communicated and contemplated the world around us... slowed down our lives for one week? All the billions of dollars spent on advertising would be lost. Companies who were struggling would crash, and the politicians and pundits would scream at us for weeks that we are ruining everything. We are slaves to this system that we created. We are locked into this consumptive lifestyle that separates us from each other and leaves us alienated. Does it have to be this way? It's a long conversation isn't it.
Until we meet again...
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