The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference. The Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade demonstrates incredible indifference to women of this country by eliminating agency over their own bodies. As long as there is gender inequity in the accountability for pregnancy, women are not seen or heard. Legislators have been indifferent toward the plight of those women who have been raped, or find themselves carrying an inviable fetus. Those who support this decision claim no human is fit to decide on the ultimate fate of a fertilized egg, yet humans have decided on the fate of an adult female who finds herself in the unenviable position of an unwanted pregnancy. This is not about unborn babies, it’s about power and control over women’s bodies.

I wrote those words in a letter to the editor of my local newspaper about a week ago, in the wake of the Roe v. Wade decision by the Supreme Court. I wish the decision had been a shock, wish it had been something that blind sided us all. But unless one has been comatose for the past several years, this was no surprise. It has been open warfare on women and women’s bodies for quite a while now.

I would love to say there was once a time when a woman could say no and enjoy the support of society for their decision, but that hasn’t really ever been the case. Women have collectively not been able to love on their own terms, marry as they please, experience pleasure as they wish, or choose not to propagate the species. We have been convinced that we don’t know what we want, don’t know what’s desirable, and that we are here to care for the future of the hunters and gatherers. There are a few holes in that paradigm, I would say.

If one looks at our society in terms of systems theory and organizational design, women are certainly not seen as apex resources. Our physical strength is seen as inferior, but we are the apex of the reproductive effort. Instinctually, mammals protect their ability to radiate and propagate. That works very well for bats and lemurs, but not so well for humans since we have more complex brain functions. Those complexities are coarsely mixed with our basic instincts, and we’re a lumpy mixture of desire and survivalism that is not terriblly adaptive.

Or maybe I sell our adaptivity short. Perhaps we are making a conscious choice to be non-adaptive, to maintain the low viscosity of our current state. It’s easier to stay inert, particularly when hormones fuel desire and lower us to our lowest common denominator – that of want. Not need, but want. We want what we want, and some of us will do anything to get it, because that brings in the power dynamic.

Most beings have a power dynamic – insects have it, birds have it, mammals certainly have it, even plants have something of a dominance trait. Survival of the fittest. If we chose to stay at the lower echelon of brain function, that would be enough for homo sapiens, but our brains are a blessing and a curse. We are capable of thinking our way into creature comforts and longer life spans. We are, however, not capable of conscious adaptation for the betterment of the species.

That’s a tall order, I suppose. We don’t understand where instinct separates from intellect, where progress diverges from power. Where democracy splits from a good idea to something far too painful to achieve. Where the needs of the many truly do outweigh the desires of the few.

Where are we to go from here? I’m not sure, but we will go on, and some day it will be very different. I predict the difference will manifest after we have lost a great deal, come very close to annihilation, tried and failed many times to change the current paradigm. That will be many lifetimes past this one, it seems, if indeed there are other lifetimes. My individual consciousness will be lost in about twenty-five years from now so…what do I care?

I suppose I care because if any clump of my essential life force recombines with any bit of another force, I’d like to ensure the most providential environment for that to occur. Environment well beyond the physical confines of this planet – this one is just where I happened to manifest, I believe. The Universe is a flat plane of creativity, and we can make it incredibly toxic if we resist change very much longer. Perhaps that’s what the Big Bang really was – a resistance to change so great that it (whatever It is) imploded. All that energy at war with itself, just as we humans war with ourselves over matters we seek to control but ultimately cannot. Our brains are complex, but our vision is limited. As Mr. Scott warned in nearly every other episode of Star Trek, “If the anti-matter mixes with the matter, Captain, the ship is gonna blow!”

Are we the matter, or the anti-matter? I’d say we are both, but that’s way too much complicated discourse for a non-scientist. For a wonderer, and a wanderer, I can leave it at the simplistic model that we are both the substance and the anti-thesis, the yin and the yang, the black and the white and everything in between. In us lies the light of the Sun and the darkness of the Void. Extremes are far simpler to navigate than the hazy zones where they meet. I’d like to think we’re coming a bit closer, though – that’s why things seem so uncertain and unreliable right now. No worries. That’s how we got here.

This is an insane time on our planet. We’re here because we are truly the ones we have been waiting for – and that is not a cliche’. It’s time to create a new time. It’s time for the scales of justice to be returned to their rightful place at the hands of Lady Justice, and to restore her blindfold. She has seen too much, and she is troubled.

Lady Justice is thought to have arisen from mythology as Themis, a daughter of the earth and the sky, Gaia and Uranus. It is a nice theme for rising above the perils of earth-bound life while still maintaining humility and realizing that we can never take over the Earth or Sky. Some of us have forgotten that we are not divine, and never will be. Many of us have forgotten that Divinity has no need of adulation or worship, and certainly not money – those are human platitudes. The unconditional love. Love that is not dependent on anything but more love. Divinity has no conditions – WE have conditions, and some have affixed those to Divinity. A divinity has no need of conditions. A divinity has no need of obedience or conformity. A divinity can benefit only by giving it more of its own life force, which is love.

I want to say there will be peace here, but I cannot. Love is the most tumultuous of emotions, and it becomes entwined with the worship of our egos. Our egos turn love into brutality and cruelty and hatred. Our egos deprive us of the very connections we are doggedly pursuing. As has been said many times, by greater minds than my own, hate is not the opposite of love. Indifference is the antithesis of love. Hatred implies that I want you to have some particular experience, or outcome, so I am still in some kind of relationship with you (no matter how twisted. Indifference is just that – I don’t care enough about you to even see you, let alone want you to have an outcome that I believe will ultimately benefit you (no matter how wrong I may be). You ultimately do not exist, you are a non-being, so what I do is only for the benefit of me and…I guess it sucks to be whatever it is that you are.

Think as I do, or else. Believe as I do, or else. Live as I do, love as I do, hate as I do or else. Or else what? Or else you will end me? Torture me, beat me, violate me? Is this not what intolerant people do every day? This is nothing new, but none of us have to even bother with physical constraint any longer. We can do the torture, beating, and violation digitally and by means of social engineering. We’ve been doing social engineering for decades, and the Southern Strategy is finally bearing its putrid rotten fruit.

I cannot relegate this solely to humans. Sentient creatures are often very cruel in the natural world. The bald eagle nest I have been watching for a couple of years produced two eggs last year, but only one hatched. It was fascinating and endearing to watching the single eaglet grow from a pam sized puff of grey feathers into a full-sized bird with glossy dark feathers and the characteristic golden eagle’s beak. Its white head and tail feathers will be evident in about five years. Watching the adults gently nurture this tiny thing was incredibly touching, but it was not really love, only instinct. But still, I’ll take that.

This year, there were again two eggs, and both hatched. The first one that broke the shell and emerged was a cute, innocent-looking bobble head. The second one hatched about two days later, and it was nearly impossible to tell them apart. Identical tiny grey heads with teeny little wing nubs and barely able to keep their heads raised. The adults fed them with great care, beak to beak, and sheltered them in equal measure.

Within a week, however, the older sibling began displaying a tendency toward dominance over the younger eaglet. There was no shortage of food or care, but the older eaglet would bonk the younger several times a day, entirely unprovoked. Neither sibling was old enough to stand on its own, but a hierarchy was already evident. It was disturbing to watch, but it’s a part of the natural world. Various species have plain evidence of toxic sibling rivalry, and it’s not as though such behavior has been nurtured. It is simply part of who they are.

One day, the aggression from the older eaglet was markedly pronounced, and it attacked the younger one, pulling its neck and pecking at its body unmercifully. I didn’t actually see that in real time, but the comments from those who had seen it was more than enough for me. The younger eaglet was not dead, but I had no doubt the elder sibling would finish its task at a later time. This was nauseating to contemplate, especially since the younger one seemed defenseless and wasn’t aggressive toward the other. Yes, those are human values at play, but I found it so disturbing on so many levels that I don’t watch that nest any longer.

What is most depressing about the baby eagles is where this seems to lead, that cruelty and aggression are hard-wired into the animal kingdom. We cannot escape it. But, as humans, perhaps we can eventually overcome it. I would hope so, but if it is possible it will take hundreds of generations to do that. Until then, we’ll peck each other to death with knives and guns and fists, policies and laws and rules, plus an added layer of illogic and egotism for garnish. The end result will be the same – some of us will kill each other. We are simply not terribly far removed from our base level instincts.

I don’t like that about our species, but I should accept it. It causes me to wonder if species from other worlds carry the same tendencies. Is that part of universal order, or simply Earth order? Maybe it’s something in the water, or the soil, or the air. Is a soul naturally cruel and competitive, drive by ego and selfishness? I certainly hope not. It would be crushing for me to believe that we can never rise above this small-mindedness and the arrogance of false superiority.

So, yeah, it’s been a while since I’ve written anything but a business memo. “I received your report, and your application has been reset. You should be able to access it now, but if you can’t just lemme know ’cause I’m your girl.” OK. Fortunately what I need to do to get things to that point is a lot more exciting, and often unappreciated and misunderstood, but I am grateful to know that my brain is not totally fried at this point. I can still think. I can still learn things. I can still get from broken to fixed, or…I know a guy.

There are things roiling in my head these days, coming to a full boil some days, simmering on most. I should leave my brain to science in hope that someone someday can figure out why there has always been such turmoil and tumult in there. My doodness, it’s a mess up in there.

Usually, when I feel the compulsion to write – and for the past few days it has been that, a compulsion, niggling on the inside that just won’t go away, an itch I cannot scratch without expelling the toxin somehow. I suppose it is a toxin, because it does not agree with me and elicits a reaction and involuntary purging. Not always very pleasant, but it’s how I’m wired, it’s how I roll, it is what it is.

For the past couple of years I’ve been watching a live stream of an eagles nest in Juneau AL. It has been fascinating, watching this apex predators treating their young ones so gently, with talons that can rip apart a lion’s hide tenderly holding a fish down for the eaglet to be fed, beak to beak. It’s touching in an odd way, and it has strangely brought me relief of some kind watching that, relief that universal law is not inextricably cruel and harsh and static.

This year, however, things changed. The nest, which has been utilized since around 2004 I believe, was not the primary incubation and brooding site. The eagles decided to use an alternate nest, only a few hundred feet away. Smaller nest, and lower to the ground. Nobody knows how or why they make such decisions, but it’s an eagle thing and I wouldn’t understand.

Anyway, this year there were two eggs, and mama eagle sat dutifully upon them in the rain and the heat and the sun and the darkness. Eagles have an incredible sense of gender partnership, and daddy sat on the nest just as much as mama did. They had some innate sense of timing, so after a couple of hours they would exchange duty stations. One would fly in and the other would fly off, and they alternating bringing food back to the nest.

Finally, an egg hatched. It started with just a little peck on the shell that could barely be seen, then *presto* there was a tiny little spot of grey fluff with two bright eyes. I am told their eyes are not fully open at the moment of hatching, and it takes a couple of weeks for their eyesight to be completely functional. They are just little squeaky bobble-heads, usually hidden under a parent’s huge wings and body mass for a bit longer, but they’re taking in the new world.

A couple of days later, the other egg hatched. It was exciting for those of us who have been watching this nest because last year there was a second egg that never hatched. So, now we have two bobble-headed eaglets, hungry and trying to figure it all out. Mama and daddy knew exactly what to do, out of instinct and because they have both produced several broods and nursed them from hatch to fledge. Nobody has to explain to the what to do or how to handle things, they just know. They don’t read books or watch videos, they don’t try they just do.

Almost from the beginning, the older eaglet seemed to have a bit of an attitude with the younger sibling. I am told it happens often in eagle nests, but it’s unsettling – there was more than enough food, and more than enough shelter for both eaglets but the older and stronger one seemed to take on a maliciously dominant role. As the eaglets got a little stronger and bigger, the older one began “bonking” the younger one, and pushing it away from food. This was not a good sign.

As they got a bit more seasoned, the sibling rivalry became nearly toxic. The younger sibling was bullied by the older, and the battle became malignant. One day, the older bobble-head attacked the younger one, and it was apparently brutal. Fortunately for me, I did not see it live, but when I tuned in everyone was chatting about the horror of what they had seen. I could have replayed the video to see it, but chose not to. Seeing the chatters asking if the younger baby bird was still breathing and moving was all I needed to know.

I have not been back to the live feed. I understand that eagles don’t have emotions about such things, but thinking of the younger eaglet set upon by its older sibling is stuck in my head. The younger one defenseless, mauled in an unprovoked attack that has probably killed it by now, triggered so many horrid feelings of victimization and memory of times when I was defenseless and mauled in unprovoked attacks has been more than I can stand. Those were generally not physical attacks that put my life in danger…or did they.

The eaglets had been named Love, the elder, and Peace the younger. Love killed, or at least tried to kill, Peace. I figure Love has finished the job by now, but for me it doesn’t matter. Yes, I understand that nature is often cruel, but I wonder if that’s Natural Law or the product of something environmental. Nature or nurture, as the old argument inquires. Can peace exist where there is love? I have begun to wonder – love is tumultuous, and often constitutes the motivation for resultant bad behavior. Perhaps we don’t know what love is any more than an eaglet with a brain the size of a hangnail.

When I have thought myself to be in love, there has been happiness and excitement, satisfaction (at least for a brief time), flashes of joy, but most often there has been struggles for balance and efforts to carve a path to somewhere that has not been defined. I don’t remember there being much peace. There were peaceful instances, short periods of time where there was no rancor or work to be done, and we considered that relaxation. Relationships are hard work, and that doesn’t seem terribly peaceful most of the time. It seems like hard work.

Perhaps I should review my core belief on what defines peace. Perhaps I should review my core belief on what defines love, but I’ve always known that I don’t know what that is. I’m just not sure I’ve been able to focus on the feeling of loving when there is so much of that hard work to be done, no time for being in the state of love. I constantly fear that outside of sex, there’s really no reason for the capital R Relationship of fantasy and cultural idiom.

With all these battling emotions around love and peace, I had almost forgotten it’s Pride day here in the place I live. For several years, I have been unimpressed by Pride festivities – been there, done that plus it’s June and it’s hot. The past couple of years it’s been cancelled due to pandemic, and a couple of years before that it was all held in October when it’s cooler. Whatever. Y’all have fun, now. I will be here in the air conditioned crack house that I call my apartment.

Aside from having done more than my share of Pride celebrations over the many years of my life, I have no desire to have the rest of the lesbians in my corner of the world remind me that I am a n old, fat, and generally unattractive person that nobody wants to be intimate with, emotionally or physically. I get it. I am good enough for you to tell your problems and seek solace, but never good enough to date or ask me how the fuck I’m doing. Many years ago a gay male friend of mine called it being the “village priest”. He was in much the same position, and said that is what he felt like – the village priest who people came to for a turn at the confessional, seeking absolution or comradery, but when it came to anything more *poof* not interested. Whatever, y’all. Like I said, y’all have fun now.

Back to love and peace. I am beginning to wonder if either of those can be anything permanent, or even stable. They both appear to be circumstances of the now, and not only cannot or will not be continuous. At this point, nobody has anything that I want so I’m at peace. When I want something – attention or care or what not – I am not at peace. I think I would rather have peace. It’s easier on the heart.

I am of that age. That age when one begins to question their means, and their ends, and finds the ends didn’t justify anything. The body count is more than I can tally on both hands and both feet, people I will never see again, never feel again, never be again. I will never be whI am of that o I was again. They will never be here again, wherever that might be. And what does that all mean anyway?

I have been accused of living my life alone, by choice. That is probably true. It’s safer that way, or so I thought. There is no safety, there is no privacy, there is no avoiding the pain. Discomfort is inevitable, pain is a constant, suffering is questionable. Some of us suffer. I suffer, but lately I have been willling to amend my definition of suffering. Perhaps it is only life, perhaps it is the human condition, perhaps it is just what it is. Whatever that is.

It is the best of times, it is the worst of times, it is the time to quote long dead sages and philosophers and try making the past fit our present. It doesn’t ever work, but still we recycle the old words, the old ways, and convince ourselves traditions are the only thing we need. We forget that we were not there, that we do not know what they knew in the context of when they knew it. We forget the past is a tool, not a map, and that we are now responsible for composing our own truths, our own words of wisdom, our own masterpieces.

Creativity is the only thing we have that can save us. I believe it is true that we are doomed to repeat the past if we forget it, but it is not true that recreating the context of yesteryear is all that we need. Duplicating the past is never going to move us forward – it can’t. We are different people every minute, every hour, every day and trying to bring back the past is simply ludicrous. If there is a universal law, it’s that you can’t relive what you have already lived.

As I am unsnarling the knots and tangles of my own past, I have to be honest – I don’t want to relive those years, don’t want to repeat that pain, don’t want to be that person again. I want to cherry-pick all of it, plucking the sweet fruit of a minute in 1971, a few seconds in 1978, a glance from 1982…a good moment in 1988. But I know that’s not possible. I cannot revisit a static blip on the radar field of memory – I have to embrace it all, the good and the bad and the painful and the inexplicable. The past is not a photograph, or even a video that is unchanging, simply a record of a snippet of time. To be even more honest, I’m not willing to do that. I only want what I want, and having that is an impossibility in any timeline.

If anything, that is the human condition – wanting what we cannot have, having what we do not understand. I understand very little of it, very little of anything. Understanding is highly overrated, it seems. If I cannot understand where I came from, why I came, how all of this really works then I certainly cannot understand why I suffer and why bad things happen to good people and why people die. The best I can hope for is acceptance of the reality of those circumstances, that I will never fully understand any of this and that I don’t really need to understand. Understanding only placates the mind, it does not heal the heart.

Perhaps our hearts are the enduring scars of the rift that created us all, the force that separated all things once bound together by some other force. Perhaps it was the binding force itself that simply imploded, became self-consumptive and could not continue any other way. Stars are like that – they eventually exhaust their energy source and begin to feed on themselves until they implode. Some of them implode so violently they reduce billions of tons of mass into a single point in the fabric of the universe, and we know them as black holes. But they persist and continue to affect the rest of planar existence. We speak of them as dead stars, but they are never dead. They simply exist in different form. And we do not understand.

I am of that age, the age that has given up on understanding many things. The age that has seen things I did not want to see, experienced things I didn’t want to experience. Lost things I did not want to lose, been hurt in ways I never wanted to feel. I am of the age where nothing intentional is simple, where the past is no harbinger of the future because everything around me is a variable. I am of that age where there is less in front of me than behind me, where I no longer believe that certainty is a comfort, where my own company has finally become more enjoyable than superficial gatherings of large numbers of people. In short, I no longer have time for wasting time.

Grief is a necessary thing when there is loss, loss of a loved one, loss of oneself, loss of circumstances or material possessions. Grief is painful, pointed toward a known point in one’s reality. It has no time frame, but it’s always oriented toward the point of loss. Suffering, I think, may be more the experience of general dissatisfaction, of constantly hoping for different circumstances, of never-ending yearning for some cessation of the emptiness. Hoping, always hoping. If there is an end to hope I suppose that would be the cessation of misery, of despair, of hopelessness. Neither of those, however, constitutes happiness or satisfaction, so I’m not sure what to make of that except that it’s not simple. Happiness is not anti-hope, but it is unto itself an equally and opposite thing to hopelessness.

Why does this even matter? I don’t know. I suppose I am just of that age where these are the conundrums that plague me in the moments before I fall asleep. These are thoughts whizzing along the paths of my neural network, such as it is, keeping me awake and making my limbs twitch. To sleep, and perchance to dream. I no longer dream of slings and arrows but guns and bombs and totally outrageous fortune and happy moments that exist encapsulated in the folds of my brain. This is life, such as it is, same as it ever was. What a beautiful choice.

Posted earlier on Facebook…

I am heavy with grief and impending loss and incalculable sadness. My cousin texted me earlier today, saying that she has put my aunt – my mother’s sister – into home hospice care. I have been thinking a lot about her lately, and had a feeling that she was declining. My mother was the elder sister (a circumstance she never let anyone forget), five years older than my aunt. This is right on schedule for how womenfolk on the maternal side check out.

I was always fond of my aunt. She was fun, and not as mean as my mother. I would love to know what happened between them all those years ago that would cause them to separate so drastically later in life. As my mother descended into dementia, my aunt was beginning to lose her grasp bit by bit as well, and it seemed they had both forgotten they were sisters. But when the end came from my mother, my aunt had a lot of trouble seeing her in hospice, and she wouldn’t go up to view the body at the funeral. I noticed it, even while on auto-pilot on that incredible day. My aunt was on auto-pilot just as I was.

The last time I saw my aunt, my cousin had tried to prepare me for the possibility that she wouldn’t know me. But she did, and she opened her arms wide and smiled so brightly. It was like old times, before the world turned upside down for me. I told her that I remembered her making lasagna from scratch with me, and taking me to see Rumpelstiltskin on stage when I was little. It was my first dress-up in big girl clothes outing – complete with black patent leather shoes and white gloves. I loved her so much.

I was thinking earlier that maybe dementia means that our spirits are beginning to vibrate at a higher level than our bodies, and there is no need for mental clarity. It’s a way for us to let go, I suppose – we spend most of our lives holding on very tightly to everything, even ourselves. Ah, well – it’s the human condition.

When my cousin texted, I responded with some words that included “damn this aging process, and damn this dementia”. I have been obsessed lately with the notion that I am starting down that path, but what is there to do? It is what it is. And I am what I am…full stop.

Whenever she leaves here, my aunt will signify the end of my childhood, the last person on this earth who knew me from the beginning. The person who saved my life a few years ago when I asked her why my father had stayed in that marriage for so long, and her level-eyed response: that it was because of me. That changed my life, and healed so much of what has ailed me for so long. I will never forget that moment. It took less than 10 seconds to say those words, but a lifetime of hurt was reframed, reformatted, reoriented.

I wish my aunt well on this leg of her journey. It feels sadly familiar, and I hate that, but it’s not my choice to make. I hope that she doesn’t suffer, hope that she is at peace. Godspeed, Auntie. I hope you know how much you meant to me and still do.

What would I do with my one wild and precious life? Not a fucking clue. I suppose I would just go wherever it took me? I suppose that is what I’m doing now.

So now I have this job. In so many ways it’s a drea job – work from home, build on the skills I have accrued. A real team environment, not just saying the words but actually working as a team. They are not terribly hierarchical, ether. We have a team lead, not a “manager”. I never thought I needed to be managed, as though I was started out in some unruly position to begin with. But I’m learning things. And that is good.

I find myself compulsively checking up on things at night or over the weekend…I guess I don’t have enough of a life these days. It is very exciting to feel as though I am making a difference, in some minute way – I worked with some end-users and have gotten services restored and did some hand holding, and it was good. One lady started off in quite a state of irate, but at the end of the whole process she was sweet as pie and talked to me about God. Even though she was kind of a mess, it still felt good to know that I had resolved the issues she found difficult.

Because I am who I am, I struggle with feeling stupid and ignorant of the modern contrivances, but I’ve been there under six weeks and don’t quite recognize my first-day self. There is just a learning curve is all, and team mates are willing to help. It’s what I’ve wanted for a while now, to feel as though I was a part of something that did some good and where I didn’t have to fight to prove my worthiness every day. That’s toxic, especially for me, but for anyone who has any ethics.

Sometimes I want things to go so much faster, and have to stop myself from wanting the adrenaline rush of being under pressure, deadlines, metrics, hurry hurry hurry. That last job was an adrenaline junkie’s dream right up until it wasn’t. Right up until the adrenaline burned itself out and I was like a dying star that ran out of fuel and blew itself up in a dramatic fashion. Actually, my super nova was pretty calm, all things considered, because I was just done. Well done. Burned out. I don’t think this job has even the potential of going there.

Mardi Gras was March 1st, which means we’re now in Lent. I grieve Mardi Gras just a bit this year, but it wasn’t terrible. I could not have been paid enough money to be part of that nutty stuff, especially with COVID still a reality. Mask mandates were lifted here, and people are being ridiculous, with no masks in sight, sitting shoulder to shoulder in large groups like this is all over. I am retreating even further because of this, and I guess that’s just how it’s going to be. I am convinced there will be another surge, and even if it’s not a huge spike in infections, I am not willing to take the risk of throwing caution to the wind. And nobody else really gives a damn, so *shrug* as always, I have to take care of myself by myself because … there is nobody else.

There is still much concern in me about my cognitive state. I’m now at the age where my mother had begun to decline, bit by bit, until she was in full dementia. This is how it has gone with my great-aunts, and how it is going with my aunt. These are all on the maternal side, and I am literally obsessed with whether or not I’ heading that way. I am told I can ask my neurologist for a referral to get a cognitive workup by a neuro-psych, and I need to do that. Maybe if I am heading that way, I can start medication early and stave it off for a time.

It’s just becoming apparent to me how traumatic it was to watch my mother descend into that deep dark place that swallowed the person she was. Whatever made her the unique being that she was disappeared until there was less than nothing left. She recognized me until the end, and I think I am grateful for that. I’m not sure if it would have made it easier or more difficult if that link had been severed. Sometimes it goes that way, but she always knew me. I wonder where she is now.

There is still a part of me that is incredibly resentful that she did somethings the way she did them, but it’s never absolute – she did some things very well. things that worked in my favor. Getting this job was only possible because I built skill and expertise over the past 35 year, and I only had the opportunity to do that because I had a college degree. I have never been one to believe that a degree is the only way to have a job that pays you enough to buy the dog food, but having one made it possible for me to move along the path. Had I been a bit more assertive and possibly more athletic, I probably would have become a police officer, and by now I would probably be dead. I believe what people tell me, and that can be the kiss of death in a law enforcement career.

I also need to get a mammogram, which is one of the more stellar highlights of my life. I don’t want to know. But I do. But I don’t want to find out if there’s a problem. I’m cowardly about that.

My mother was skittish about the exams as well – I remember when I had to have oral surgery to remove a molar that had gone sour, my mother brought me to the appointment. She thought it was just the most wonderful thing that she had a mammogram scheduled for the same clinic, so I would have a ride home (they wouldn’t let me leave under my own recognizance because the aenesthesia would linger a bit). My dear mother got me there, and bounced off to her appointment. When I was done, she was supposed to be there, but…nope. The nurse wheeled me like a huge sack of potatoes in a wheelchair to the mammography unit, where she was nowhere to be found. She was still in there, it seemed. So, as with SO many other things in my life, I was left there alone to wait for someone to come and collect me.

Through the haze of waning medication, I slumped in the wheelchair clutching the prescription for painkillers that I had to have filled before I got home, and heard my mother’s voice from the other side of the wall I was leaning on – “But, I know, can you just tell me if it looked OK? I know you can’t tell me the results, but…was there anything that looked obviously abnormal??? Yes, I know, the radiologist has to look…oh, ok. No, I just thought maybe you could…”.

When my mother finally came out to get me and take me to the car, one would think that was an end to the story. No. It was just beginning. We couldn’t find the car. Had to have security drive us around the parking garage until we found it. And that’s not the end of it, either. On the way to my apartment, she ran out of gas. She left me slumped against the car window on one of the hottest days of the year while she walked down the street to the gas station to buy a gas can and some gas. She came back with some drug addict who was very eager to pour the gas into the tank (he was probably really disappointed with his tip, because that woman was tight fisted). So. Off we go AGAIN, to the drugstore for the pain meds, and then finally home. I went right to sleep, and was in la-la land when she called to check on me and ask me if I wanted her to bring me something to eat. My mouth was twice its normal size on one side and the last thing I wanted to do was eat. As we say down in that part of the world – “Lawd, have mercy.”

That is one of the crazy stories I am left with, and that was a vintage performance by the mother unit. She was a dingbat, an old lady in training for my whole life. She was a professional lady, one who needed help with a lot of things but who could cuss you out like a sailor if you got on her nerves or tried to cheat her out of something. Bless her heart. I have mellowed a fair amount, but I got that righteous indignation thing from her. Don’t shame me, or treat me like a second-class anything, and we’ll be fine. But cross that line, and I will have to detach you from your face. Sorry about the eyebrows, but they’ll grow back.

This job is good for me, because I am not having to deal with other people in close quarters, not having the distractions inherent in a cubicle farm, and having way more dignity about how I learn and at what pace. These folks are pretty laid back, and they just leave you alone to do your job. They stay in chat all day long, so whenever you have a question or a problem you can just toss it out there and somebody will answer you. We’re all on pretty much the same level, although if you’re a SQL programmer you have slightly more access to a few things, but in general we’re all pretty much interchangeable. That’s really nice.

This is a contract, guaranteed until mid-October, but there are signs that it will be extended. We’ll see. It’s a nice way to ease back into the work force after my hiatus of 2-1/2 years, and like I said, its nice to feel like you’re making some kind of positive difference in somebody’s day. I kind of like the technology part of it, too – it’s not ostentatious like the other place. It’s a different system, of course, but it’s a system that is far easier to learn and administrate, and they want everybody to know how to do all the things. They share knowledge, which is amazing to me. That was definitely not the case before.

So, as I posted in the general chat the other day – we all kind of check in at the beginning of the day and check out at the end – here I am. Rock me like a hurricane. Seriously. Wow me, and let me wow you. Don’t assume that I can’t do things, that I can’t learn things, that one-size-fits-all. That concept is going to be the death of the American economy, not the value of the dollar or outsourcing. It’s presuming that if you just keep things geared to the highest common denominator you can conquer the world. That’s a dehumanizing fallacy, and all it really means is corporate America is not skilled enough to manage for the grey areas. Some days you’re the bug, some days you’re the windshield, some days you’re not driving. They don’t know how to plan or envision anything other than the binary. Yes or now, 1 or 10, true or false. Unfortunately, real life doesn’t work that way.

My blood pressure has been insanely high for a bit of time lately, which has me a bit concerned. I went to have my physical with the P.A., who turned out to be a really excellent provider. The tiny little primary care doctor was out of town, so I got the P.A., and like her more than the doctor. She actually touched me – put her hand on my arm to make a point while talking several times, looked me in the eye the entire time. She had incredible eyes, too – very caring and like she was actually listening to me, not contemplating her next move. She was also taller than like 5’2″ or something, which set her apart from the rest of my medical team, all of whom seem to be 5’2″ or well under.

So, off I go, hopefully into the land of Nod. The right-sized P.A. double the blood pressure medication to help put things into a better range. I am sure it’s my weight. The weather is getting nice, and I need to start walking again. That’s part of how I was keeping the weight and the blood pressure down before, so I can do it again. I will probably be watching my weight at the hour of my death.

Today is Sunday, and I have not left the apartment except to take the dog out. There just wasn’t anything I could think of to do. Oh, yeah – WALK, YOU IDIOT. The dog really enjoys it, so there really was no excuse other than I’m in the habit of not doing it. Time for a change. Gotta do something because I don’t feel…good. I don’t feel bad, even when my blood pressure has been up, but I don’t feel good. That’s what really needs to change – I don’t want to be feeling this sluggish and lethargic any longer.

Magic is afoot! Or maybe it’s just Spring, but then again – that’s kind of magic when the flowers start blooming and the trees start budding and the sun is right overhead.

I posted the bulk of this on Facebook earlier, but I suppose I’m not quite done, and I suppose that’s a good thing.

For quite a while I have had way too much time on my hands, reliving the past, screwing it up in brave new ways. Now I don’t have quite as much time on my hands, but still trying for a revision of what has already been etched into the sands of time (which of course is more or less fleeting, depending on the tides and the passage of cerebral deterioration, but I digress).

Well I dream you constant stranger
With your best bloods and your anger
You say, “Mother do you claim me?
My beloved do you blame me? (“Three Hits”, Indigo Girls)

Someone very wise told me recently that I should not be concerned about who I claim so much as who claims me. That number is small, but impressive in my opinion. Quality, not quantity. I choose to waste no more time on claiming the insignificant, the place holders, the toxins. Toxicity is frequently a slow and insidious killer, and I am tired of dying in fast-forward.

Where am I to blame? I have been obsessed with that for many years. What have I done wrong, where could I have done better, why do I make the same mistakes repeatedly? No matter how many wasted hours are spent on those questions, I am no closer to answers than I was at birth. The only thing I’ve gotten from this obsession is the sure knowledge that pursuit of perfection is a futile endeavor.

I suppose the only answer that matters is that I am who I am and that’s all that I am. Thanks so much, Popeye. Unfortunately, downing a can of spinach doesn’t imbue me with superhuman strength or reduce enemies to mere whispers. But I still fight to the finish, with or without me spinach. Victory is another matter entirely, and winning is but a momentary surge of adrenaline.

These days I question the definition of victory. I reflect on the lesson I learned not so long ago, contrasting success to mastery. I contrast victory with experience these days. Experience is critical to growth, as is pain. The two may be inextricably linked to each other, and to life in general. Life never promised any of us a rose garden – along with the sunshine, there’s got to be a little pain sometime. (yeah, another song. sue me but that’s how I roll.)

Anyhow, I am determined to figure out who claims me, or at least respond to who does lay claim. Life is way too short, especially these days when the clock seems to be spinning at warp speed. Here today, gone tomorrow, and what will I have done with my one wild and precious life except fret away the wonder of all that is wild and precious. Will I waste what is left of my time here attempting to make people love me, or respect me, or validate me? That sounds like a barren field to plow.

I have always known that I am wild, but precious is more the challenge. I am not quite sure I know what precious looks like. I always think I know what love looks like, but I imagine that’s a rather one-sided viewpoint. Maybe precious is that which has nothing to do with me, or doesn’t truly benefit me in any way. Precious simply exists for the good of everything, for the world, for the universe. If preciousness is lost, its absence change the dynamic of everything. Precious is a flower blooming in the crack of a sidewalk, or a shooting star that causes someone to stop and wonder. Precious is a split second that changes everything. I will have to reflect a bit more on that, but I feel like that’s closer to truth than anything.

In my mind, I suppose I believe that precious equates to beauty, aesthetic beauty. People like pretty things, and it seems that my concept of precious is that which is beautiful to others. That which is beautiful to me usually has more to do with things like spirit, and persistence, and passion. I have made the acquaintance of many a person considered aesthetically beautiful, and found them entirely devoid of character or the drive to become a better human being. Nothing is more boring to me than someone who has no desire to learn more, grow more, be more. Boredom is anathema to me.

Why does any of that mean anything on this overcast Sunday morning when I have cleaned up a mountain of stinky dog poop in the living room, deposited AFTER the little cur went outside not very long ago and left another formidable mass out there. Who knows what anything really means. I suppose things have meaning when they fit into our neat little perspectives on how the world works. Unfortunately, our perspectives are varied and diverse, so ultimately, meaning is very personal. It is what it is, and that’s all that it is.

None of that has anything to do with the false commercialism of Valentine’s Day, which is a commercial identity plastered on anything not nailed down and pretending to bestow beatitudes of love on us all (even when we demand it at gun point). Forgive them, for they know not what they do, and what they DO know is about a dollar. Social engineering at its best – short on truth, big on profit. That’s close enough, apparently. Truth is far too fluid these days to be particular about, so I suppose my expectations are a bit high.

Who claims me? DO I even need to know why they claim me? I’m coming to realize that it’s just not as important to my sense of belonging to know who it is that I claim. When people tell me they love me, I am generally underwhelmed because I don’t know if that means they actually claim me, or even know who the hell I am. Consequently, those words are frequently meaningless to me until there is deep water and often muddy water under the proverbial bridge.

So, enough of that on this Valentine’s Day-eve. I have resisted buying the chocolate covered marshmallow candies that change shape for each commercial holiday – they are trees for Christmas and turkeys for Thanksgiving and hearts for Valentine’s Day…but they are the same damned candy. I am going to go out to a place that sells those confections for other reasons – to pick up a prescription at the pharmacy, along with as much Febreze as I can carry to eradicate any traces of canine metabolic process in my apartment. It will all be fine. Thank goodness for chemists who survived organic chemistry and have concocted the means of making the stinky fragrant and the taste buds joyous. If there is a meaningful victory, that is one that fits perfectly in my present context. I’ll gladly take that right now, because – and I freely admit this – it is all about me (and my sensory receptors).

So, yeah. I’m wondering if it’s still work if you kind of like doing it. I got a job. Finally. Mercifully. In all seriousness, though, I am incredibly grateful. It’s a contract that is funded at least through the middle of October, but there is talk it might be extended. I am learning new things, and feel that I am capable. That’s a big deal, because I was not feeling very capable, or competent, or … smart.

This is a completely remote position, which is exactly what I wanted. During the interview, which they did with their cameras off – it’s a thing with them – one of the managers asked me to explain the gap in employment from 2018 until now. I spoke the absolute truth – my mother died, and less than six weeks later I lost my job, and it was just too much. I needed to get my act together and grieve and figure out who I was again. They didn’t hesitate, and the questioner said very clearly that she congratulated me on knowing when I needed to step back. OH. MY. GOD. Who are these people????

Well, I am now working for these people, and that is totally representative of their culture. I feel as though I’ve come home. They expect performance, but not mechanical obedience. Questions are not only acceptable, but encouraged. They share knowledge. They want to be successful, and understand that if their team members are successful that will guarantee THEIR success. What a concept.

So, I’m back on the chain gang, working a first shift job. Aside from a kinder and gentler culture, they have bestowed upon me a laptop and a stunning lack of micro-management. It’s what I’ve always wanted, the ability to learn at my own pace and in my own bizarre fashion. I do still have to ask for help on things, but not because I can’t understand the technical competencies but to understand the customization that is employed. That is such a welcome change, and I feel as though I can breathe there.

So, now that I can breathe a bit, what is it that I will do with my wild and precious life? At the moment, I don’t feel as though my life is terribly wild but definitely precious. I was just talking with a friend who invited me to her horse farm tomorrow for a traditional “treasure mapping” experience. She and I took a course together many years ago – The Artist’s Way (by Julia Cameron, who used to be married to Martin Scorsese of all people). The course encourages people to gather in small groups to discuss creative efforts and share what amounts to best practices, and we were part of the same group. That group is still meeting after more than ten years, and we’ve become friends. Two of us have died, one of us has retired, and we’ve all had losses and changes and illnesses and whatever else life hands us.

For the past several years, our group has met at the beginning of each year to create intention for the coming twelve months. We call it “treasure mapping”, and it’s an informal gathering where we create individual collages that illustrate the journey we envision for the next year. COVID has interrupted that tradition, and we’ve missed it. Tomorrow it will be just three of us – one of us is out of town, one of us is MIA, one of us is a cancer survivor who isn’t doing group activities. That leaves three of us, who are probably closer in experience and interest than the rest of them – we’ve all worked in the financial sector at some level, so we have seen the worst of human nature. Both of these women are far more financially accomplished than me, and it doesn’t matter worth a shit. They are both painters, and I’m more a writer, but it’s all creative endeavor, and that’s what binds us.

Today, it’s cold outside. Right around freezing but there’s a beautiful blue sky with only a few puffy clouds meandering by. I love days like this, with low humidity and crisp air that feels clean. I have to remind myself that it may not be entirely clean since we just had a fertilizer plant blow up less than three miles from where I’m sitting, but…whatever. It’s a beautiful day and I should just leave it at that.

Things all around me are in a state of unrest if not full fledged chaos. Health insurance is a mess, employment is a mess, the economy is a mess. It’s expensive to live. It’s expensive to raise children, it’s expensive to have children. In some cases, it’s too expensive to actually work – if you make just enough to be in debt you probably make too much to get affordable health care. If you can’t get affordable health care, you are most likely doeing without it and that’s a kiss of death. Literally. People are dying of things that could be remedied if caught early, but if they can’t get to a physician for preventive care they may die of tooth decay that breaks the blood-brain barrier. That is actually documented experience.

Back to my wild and precious life…what WILL I do with that? Perhaps I should focus on the wild, perhaps I should focus on the precious. Perhaps I should look for what is both wild AND precious. That might involve some creative design of adventure. I need awe…and wonder. I need unusual, unexpected, and uncommon. I don’t need the ordinary, I need the extraordinary. I need unbridled beauty and unfettered daring. I need…unscripted synchronicity, the attraction of things vibrationally and energetically, rather than intellectually or strategically. I need to draw things to me from the heart, and not from the head.

I’ll get right on that. My head is gainfully engaged with this new job, and I am suddenly less focused on intentionality and meditation. That’s where I need to be. The real work is how to balance the tangible with the intangible, integrating both into singular reality. That makes no sense, and I guess that’s the point. Sense may well be a figment of the intellect and the ego – beauty makes no sense. Music makes no sense. Art makes no sense. Humor makes no sense. I suppose I am trying to incorporate the senseless with the sensible. Both have a place in my reality. When those are not integrated, the chasm between them is where I lose myself. I’m not willing to let that happen again.

The dog has been out, I have had my first cup of coffee. I need to clean up the dog mess in the living room – she apparently has a tiny bladder and more tiny colon, because she relieves the associated organs throughout the night. I don’t know who comes in here and feeds her but she seems to have more excrement than body weight at times. At least she’s getting most of it on the pee-pee pads now, which is nice but still a pain in my derriere. Gotta love her, though – she still makes me laugh.

I’ve been watching a bat conservancy on YouTube, and the bats make me laugh. They are so unusual and kind of creepy in a certain way. They are backwards – they perch upside down, and poop rightside up. They are fascinating creatures, though, and are the only mammals that can fly. Mother Nature is very wondrous, and beauty happens whether we see it or not.

So yeah, another December that I’ve managed to come through unscathed. My sobriety birthday is in December, and my “belly button” birthday is in December. Then, of course, there’s Christmas and that kooky energy. December was always my favorite month because of all of those markers, but since my mother died it feels bittersweet. I have survived the season, but is it enough to merely survive?

Not to worry, though. It was more depressing to know that everything was operating at low energy, if at all. This damned COVID mess is really screwing with me lately, more than in the entire past year. I suppose I’m somewhat bored, but I’m also somewhat angry. WTF are people thinking about having large gatherings and still (tiresomely) refusing to mask or be vaccinated? Maybe I’m wrong, but I’m feeling as though we could be on the verge of liberation from the lowkey lockdown if people would have just cooperated and not made disease prevention a contentious political battle.

These days, however, I really don’t want to waste my time being angry. I want to be moving into some aspect of further recovery, recovery from a long period of not believing in myself. I had help, but it’s on me to believe, it’s on me to have faith. Hopefully, I’m on a road that will never double back on itself. I’m really tired of coming back to the same patterns that never worked in the first place.

I have a video job interview tomorrow, and I’m a little apprehensive but also a little excited. This is for a contract job that may last only through October, but it may be the best way to make a gentle re-entry into the workforce. Because it’s been my pattern to doubt myself and be attached to feeling that I’m not competent, I find it a little scary to contemplate going back into a structured environment with teams and performance evaluations. But, so be it. I have to move from square zero into the checkerboard somehow.

Right now, I’m hungry and doing my best to resist the urge to go out and buy Oreo caramel-coconut cookies. Those are addictive, and I just need to stay away from them because I can’t eat just a couple or even a few more than a couple. I have to eat the entire freaking package – and not a regular package. The “family size” package. I eat for an entire family, so I have no reason to be awed by how much weight I’ve been gaining. Gaining weight as though weight will somehow be unavailable to gain. That’s how nuts my eating compulsion has been. *@%!!!!

Betty White’s death has been a little bit of a downer for me. I love “The Golden Girls”, and consider it a high-quality exampled of comedic artistry, both in writing and acting. I’ve always really liked Bea Arthur, and Rue McClanahan has also been a favorite. Estelle Getty was a surprise, and I came to love her as well. I felt as though I had a longer relationship with Betty White, however, ever since Mary Tyler Moore days. Decision-makers for “The Golden Girls” said they originally intended to cast Betty White as the Blanche character, but abandoned that idea because it might have resembled the Sue Ann Nivens character from Mary Tyler Moore’s show. That, and Rue McClanahan was such a natural as Blanche, so the rest is history. They’re all gone now, all of the Golden Girls have passed on, and it’s been a little trying to watch the reruns lately.

I still don’t do very well with death. What is it? Where do people go when they die? Do they go anywhere at all, or is it just our memories of the past that keep them alive? These are still the questions a child would have, but the pain and vulnerability feel very childlike. Like when you want your mommy to come and kiss your scraped knee and put a bandaid on the hurt place. I don’t have my mommy to do that any longer, and this adulting thing has gotten way out of hand.

This job opportunity is intriguing to me, and as I said, it’s somewhat exciting. I have always worked, since I was at least fifteen, so despite the luxury of not having to be anywhere or be accountable for much of anything lately…that lifestyle is foreign to me. I guess I need to feel productive, as though I am doing something that benefits someone other than myself. Who would have thought???

What comes to mind for me right now is that I have, once again, allowed other people to define me. To define my worth, my abilities, my product. I believe they were entirely wrong, and that last job was a bad fit in terms of culture and process. It felt inhuman, as though I needed to reduce myself to machine status, and that may well be the only thing I am truly incapable of.

So where does any of this leave me? Nothing much has changed, I am still the same person, I have the same limitations and abilities. I’ve been transformation is an inside job, true change is one wrestling with one’s demons. I have been wrestling with these dark overlords for just about my entire life, and I’m still standing. Or reclining, or whatever. But the point is that I have withstood and endured everything handed to me, whether I liked it or not, and I’m still here. To the disgust of many and the amazement of many more, I am still here. And I’m not planning on going anywhere for as long as possible. I claim this land for the queen.

I do wonder what makes things so difficult for some of us, while others seem to glide effortlessly through life’s ups and downs. I am sure there are low points for everyone, but success appears to spell out some names and mangles others. That’s random, I’m sure, but if it wasn’t for bad luck some of us would have none at all. Then again, is it really luck? Am I calling this distress from out of the shadows? If so, what is the lesson? If I comprehend the learning, can I move past this and into the proverbial “sunlight of the Spirit”? I suppose the answer is far beyond my pay grade.

Still to come, the cognitive evaluation. Haven’t heard a word from the wee P.A. yet, but that’s fine. No matter what, I will go through with it, but I’m not looking forward to it. I’m very, very afraid of what this may bring to light. If I am beginning the path to my cognitive dissolution, I still want to know. I’ll be pissed as hell if that is the case, but…bring it. I have nothing to lose at this point. Not one damned thing.

I have a chiropractor’s appointment this afternoon, which is sorely (literally) needed. My left lumbar region is not happy, nor is my neck. It’s my own fault for playing on the computer in such bizarre poses, but we don’t have to delve into how the added weight could be affecting my spinal health. Let’s just not do that and say that we did, and drive on.

Speaking of which, I need new tires. Not tomorrow, but soon. Just finished paying off Firestone for the air conditioner replacement and the oil leak from this past summer. Just in time to make another bill. Such is life during capitalism and free enterprise. Even non-profits have to make money, and Firestone is definitely not a charity. Nor is the health insurance company, or the vehicle insurance company, or the pharmacy, or the grocery store. Life is good.

Doing laundry so that I can leave the apartment is some kind of presentable fashion. Plus, I will need clean clothes for tomorrow’s interview. The recruiter sent me sample questions and let me know how best to prepare. That’s fine. If the job is for me, it’s for me but I suppose I need to play all the games and make a reasonable appearance. Easier said than done, at least for me. I have been wearing the uniform of the unemployed – sweat pants, t-shirts, and bedroom slippers. Sue me.

The apartment complex has workers out doing some kind of maintenance on the outside of all the buildings today, which really doesn’t matter to me. Unfortunately, it matters to the dog because they are bumbling about and have drills and saws whirring and she is nearly hysterical.

I am also hungry, and my meal service delivery has not arrived. It was due yesterday, and I counted on not having to order out today. I may give it just a bit longer to see if it shows up…I tracked the delivery and they said “in transit”, whatever that means. The snow (yes, it snowed and I was happy) may have delayed them. If it’s not here when I leave for the chiropractor, I’ll pick up something or order pizza again. Not the best choice, but a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do.

That’s a whole nother question, too. What exactly is it that I gotta do? Big question. The most immediate answers are to clean up this hell hole and take a shower, but that’s too simple. I’ll have to contemplate that more later. Vive le resistance!

Today is a day of contemplation and caramel-coconut Oreos, a day of intentional nothingness. I have now watched “It’s A Wonderful Life” three times. Fortunately, it’s my favorite movie. There is no place I need to be or anything I need to do, so it’s just a day without expectations or disappointments.

I am wondering where I am right now, in my heart and in my head. I’m not sure I know the answer, but the more I think about it the more I am convinced that it doesn’t really matter. I am above ground and vertical, thick thighs and cluttered apartment and all. It’s my reality, and I can either accept it or reject it; the latter will be complicated. It’s hard to deny reality.

I am feeling that collectively there is a massive denial of reality, an effort to negotiate with the universe. That doesn’t seem to be productive or even vaguely successful. It only generates friction, which generates heat, which makes us uncomfortable. One would hope that when the discomfort is enough we’d change something, but the human species is incredibly stubborn so it seems that we have a way to go before the revolution.

If there was a revolution, what would that look like? I would love to say it would be the dissolution of elitism and supremacy cultures all over the world, the rise of equity and dignity for all humans. It would be the shiny city on the hill, the Promised Land with appropriately dramatic music and lighting. It would be the stuff that dreams and movies are made of, where the bad guys are vanquished and the good guys prevail. Everything tied up neatly in about 90 minutes with popcorn and a soda. Something tells me that is not the way revolution goes.

The American Revolution didn’t go that way. The Civil War didn’t go that way. The French Revolution, the Bolshevic Revolution, or the Haitian Revolution didn’t go that way. There was cataclysmic change, but not without bloodshed and lives lost and anguish. I’m not sure if the change envisioned was the result or not. But there was change.

It occurs to me there is more than one revolutionary vision in this country right now. The inherent conflict between the visions is propelling us forward, by fits and starts, sometimes forward and sometimes backward. The bloodshed and lives lost and anguish are more our reality than vision for outcome. We are myopic in that way, it seems, becoming enamored of the process rather than the prize. The struggle seems exciting and we become fixated on personal power and will. Perhaps that is what fuels all battles, the personal battle of one person against another, multiplied by thousands.

I am not entirely sure any of the visions are realistic, or attainable. On the one hand we are convinced that reviving the status quo of the past is the only credible goal. But on the other hand, we proclaim that we are seeking radical change. I contend that we don’t truly know what the revolutionary product will be. What does this world look like if everything was repaired and ideal? That may not be something we can realistically achieve.

The universe is not neatly divided into right and wrong, proper and improper. It’s systemss theory on steroids, Jenga on ampehtamines. If you don’t know what you’re doing, or even if you DO know what you’re doing, changing anything can result in disaster. Perhaps the disaster is inevitable, and necessary, to precipitate the ultimate change we’re after. Unfortunately, it’s too frightening to go the distance with changing the systemic infrastructure too much, because we get stuck in the intermediate and temporary results.

I’m not sure if we can get past the intermediate changes. They seem like long-term and permanent changes because they are viewed through our lens of our generation and maybe that of our grandchildren, something we can see. The changes we seek may have to be more permanent, more far reaching, but intentional. We are still very reactionary at this point, and often surprised by the intermediate outcome of something that seemed like a good idea at the time.

Vision for the future has to go beyond simple elongation of the present circumstances. I contend we need to be planning for the unplanned, expecting the unexpected. This is the stuff of science fiction novels, and that creativity is exactly what is needed. Let’s take our current way of life and tear it down on paper, or on a movie set, and run the exercise all the way to the end.

Some of the more interesting apocalyptic visions have been the stuff of bestsellers and first run cinema. “The Matrix” and “Terminator” gave us a dark vision of the extreme outcome of industrialization. They ran the vision to the end, and it was not pretty. Personally, I could see the potential for the fictional reality of both films, and that has been a bit frightening.

Are we willing to do without some of the comforts and automation of our current reality in order to prevent those dark and inhumane post-apocalyptic visions of the future? Probably not. Can we get to a more ideal reality without depriving ourselves of the standard of living we’ve come to enjoy (at least in the Western world)? Are we ready to sacrifice our comfort in order to create a reality we’ll never see? Probably not.

First-nations cultures talk about the seven generations to follow us, and that we need always be cognizant of actions we take now and their impact on the next seven generations. That vision focuses on things like the land, and the natural world. Western culture has talked about at least the next couple of generations, and focuses on indicators such as economic health. Perhaps we need a vision that includes more of what we want, and not simply what we need. I believe we’re going to have to design the world we want to have as our legacy.

We need prophets, visionaries, and creative souls. We need to admit that we don’t know how this is supposed to turn out. We’re going to have to trust that we can be unselfish and humble. The revolution is not going to occur on land, or sea, or in the physical world that we know. It’s going to occur in the human heart and the human spirit. This scares us silly because we cannot touch that, or control it. We don’t trust that we’re all after the same thing, regardless of personal aggrandizement. I’m not sure if we’re up to that anytime soon.

The best thing I know how to do right now is to focus on my intentionality, to know what I’m doing and why. Counter intuitively, I have to slow down. That doesn’t come naturally for many of us on the planet right now. Moving rapidly, at least for me, often means that I don’t have to think about uncomfortable things or things that scare me. I am getting things done, and that’s usually what generates systemic reward. If I don’t understand that I’m part of larger systems, the moves I make will benefit only me. I don’t think such a posture is good enough.

It’s going to take a while to deconstruct the house of cards that has been constructed. THe winds are blowing now, with greater and greater force, and the storm is closer than ever now. The cards are not meant to withstand that, and though we understand that we really have no plan or vision for what happens if the cards are blown away entirely. I believe we need to be working on Plan B – what happens when the house of cards has been thrown to the wind?

I want to see us create a new world that doesn’t rely on recreating the past. A new world that is reality based, leverage on natural laws and universal laws and our own imperfections. It’s folly to envision a world where people are perfect, because we’re never going to be perfect. It may be more prudent to create a world where people respond to their imperfections with humility and flexibility rather than lies and subterfuge. But what do I know?