A person asked my opinion about upcoming rallies and if it's true that police and military will secretly support (or turn around and conveniently miss) crowds taking over buildings, businesses and media outlets of the local establishment during the climax of one particular rally.
My opinions do not matter so I changed the cable TV tuner setting to the Easy Listening digital radio channel. There in front of me is an image of Chet Atkins while the tune "Old Fashioned Love Song" gently serenades the nearly-empty living room.
What would Chet say to a question about his opinion concerning [inter]national political movements?
He'd probably laugh, strum a few bars and ask if I had a particular harmony in mind to hear him play.
These moments and the moments around them make me believe more and more that we'll figure out how to make heroes out of quadriplegics, attaching their brains and brain-feeding parts to electromechanical wonders that allow them to live an indeterminately long time while exploring the outer reaches of our solar system and beyond, either directly living aboard spaceships or acting as virtual pilots/scientists taking care of shipboard occupants such as plants and animals we want to set down on extraterrestrial bodies to see how they adapt.
I don't have any answers to give you, only questions and suppositions. My life is what I see right here, warts, freckles and all, not a caricature/projection standing on top of a stage pulling the puppet strings of an audience.
By proposing sometimes absurd scenarios, I'm letting the thoughts that pass through me as a node in the network of interconnected beings reach those who desire to make changes for whatever reasons, purposes or unknowable outputs they create.
Along the way, I'll recall the country life my parents' generation lived, when the Greatest Generation Ever faced fascism, world war, economic collapse and other disasters they were willing to overcome together, knowing some of their solutions were not perfect or ideal but suited for the moments they called their own.
Rights, wrongs, absolutes and relativity are words. When is murder justified? Is hope ever completely lost?
I don't want to be right, but when I'm right it feels good to know that something out there aligned with my thoughts. However, I don't need a whole society to align with my thoughts to feel right. I feel right now because a cat came up to me, looked me over and purred simply because I reached out and rubbed its fur. I feel right because sometimes I remember to pour water over the leaves and roots of a potted orchid sitting on a table on the back deck and a flower stalk is coming up, my having very little to do with the everyday exposure of the orchid to dew, sun and windblown nutrients. I feel right because I can imagine words that miraculously appear on the LCD screen in front of me because my fingers can find keys to press without my looking down at them.
Did Putin magically put out all the Russian fires on his own? No. But you can bet he felt right when fighting fires himself. Did Thomas Jefferson feel right while writing the next to next to last draft of the Declaration of Independence, aware that his colleagues would wordsmith their own versions, given the chance? No. But he knew he was on the right track.
So it is and will be. People innocent of crimes will be murdered in the name of a cause others claim is greater than any one individual. In that case, to whom do we assign the feeling of being "right"?
I can place a safe bet that 100 years from now no one will remember my name as I remembered it belonging to this aging body (what it felt like to be me at 5, 15, 40, etc.).
That's how I look at our moments together, as if we're looking at them 100 or 1000 years from now, the details lost in torrential rains of time. That's why I look backward at the arguments of 100 or 1000 years ago and read heated arguments that make no sense to me now.
Ten steps forward and ten steps backward at the same time. See what really matters.
Do you know the wonderful feeling of waking up in the morning, unshackled from the false sense of security that history books provide, fully aware that this very moment is all you'll ever have? I hope you do.
I live here and now, on this planet with about seven billion of us, seeking solutions that take all of us into account. These words are part of my daily meditation/prayer cycle, indicative of my bodily limitations.
In fact, that's what we do together, even if we don't put it into phrases like that. We're almost completely unaware of our interconnectedness, using subcultural blinders to pretend others do not exist who do not feel "right" to us, even though we depend on them as much as we depend on those in our subcultures.
We won't solve world hunger anytime soon, due to artificial subcultural barriers. But we can still save our species and the ecosystems upon which we depend while trying to reduce hunger, poverty, illiteracy, gender inequality and other social conditions we deem problematic.
All while having a good time poking fun at ourselves.
A sleepless night or two ago I enjoyed watching two young raccoon siblings tussle on a sunlight in the sunroom at 1:30 in the morning. That's the feeling from my childhood I try to capture and reenact several times a day - playfulness at pretending to be a ferocious fighter with fellow members of my species.
Contrary to what my government tells me, I have no enemies. Sure, there are people who would kill me if I was standing with my U.S. passport held high in their midst, but they aren't my enemies - of course, their image of what I would represent is an enemy to them. Instead, they are just whomever they want to be and pose no real threat to me, because I want them to exist and learn to focus their enemy hating/fearing/killing energy on more important issues.
I'm a realist. I know people are training recruits to kill people like me and we need protective measures to prevent them from succeeding. At the same time, we don't need to justify the trainers' and recruits' self-delusional hatred (but again, I'm a realist and know there are whole industries that intentionally provoke the anger of others (the never-ending (never-ending (never-ending)) cycle of the dance of subcultural clashes).
My response is to make fun of all of us, hoping we'll see the folly of our old habits and find other lucrative ways to prosper from/with one another.
Why don't you find out for yourself? Join the Global Humour Brigade and enjoy a romping good time!
Anyone got solid bets riding on the next UFC bout? Nothing like a caged bloody battle to rattle your senses and make a few bucks in a friendly wager.
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