Sometimes I come to the journal page with a purpose and other times I come empty handed. There was a time (I think all writers go through this) I felt protective, as if my words on the page were precious eggs in the nest. Someone need nurture them or they never hatch, never fly. That feeling wore thin a long time ago and went away. Now that page is more like dirty footprints on the carpet begging, “fix me.” You either breathe new life into the idea or abandon it. Maybe that says something about my politics. If I think a twelve week human fetus is expendable, why trouble myself over questionable writing. It was also conceived by giving in to a natural urge. I am playing God with words again, OMG.
Processing casual thought on the page, you can redact or delete as you please. When the same package shows up again with predictable frequency it becomes a pattern. My journaling is starting to follow a pattern and I need to make a disclaimer. My long measure of human experience (old age) is an asset but also a hinderance. When you have sky dived from enough airplanes the excitement ebbs dramatically. I stopped recording my free fall jumps sometime after #200. The leap was still worth the ride up but more like getting a nibble, nothing like catching your first fish. It holds your attention, you focus and you’r pulse rate may gain a few ticks but excitement no, not really.
In the twilight of her career, singer Peggy Lee recorded, Is That All There Is, a bitter-sweet reflection. It seemed to say, life has been sweet at times but short as well and I would like to know, is that all there is? I suppose that should be my disclaimer as well. I remember the Cold War in the 1960’s when Soviet and American bombers flew 24/7 armed with hydrogen bombs enough to destroy civilization. They flew nonstop, around the clock, waiting for the command to destroy the wold. It went on for years. We made it through that crisis but even if they know the story, people born after that seldom give it a thought. In 2001 a group of angry, disillusioned martyrs hijacked four airliners but that crisis is still festering. Over the next two decades we would spend trillions of dollars, sacrifice nearly four thousand American lives and many thousands of devastating, life altering injuries. It was all metered out as justice but it reeked of revenge. My culture has difficulty distinguishing between the two. Yes, we killed BinLaden but as of this week it seems our righteous response has gone to seed a dismal failure.
I am old and my conscience has hardened. I try to diffuse crises, whatever they may be. Balance comes from watching the bubble, not from how it feels in the gut. My cohorts (by race & generation) are predominantly conservative. I think it comes with White Privilege, as if blessed by our white, conservative God, the one that authorized misogyny and slavery. I love us but our sins are such that I can neither dismiss nor ignore them. I feel like a whistle-blower, an insult to the myth that my cohorts venerate and I can feel them pushing back. I care, I really do but then it doesn’t matter; just words. They can dismiss me as easily as they would any other renegade and they do. Is that all there is? I know better, not that naïve. I was just hoping for more, something better.
Anthropologists study human history, civilization in general and they concur for the most part. Over the long stretch of recorded history the quality of human life gets better and continues to improve. Depending on how you group populations and break time down into units, there is less war, less slavery, better food, better health and less violence against vulnerable populations. But that takes in every culture, every beating heart. Here in my culture, with the most powerful economy and military on the planet, we agonize over losing hegemony and sustaining a tunnel vision, self serving morality. Being Number #1 has an ego stroking effect as well as a sobering responsibility but the latter is more lip service than practice.
If this has downgraded into a Rant, that wasn’t the intent. I’m never sure for sure where the muse will take me and I don’t know how this story should end. Thursday afternoons we (the team I’m on) make ham and cheese sandwiches for the homeless and the hungry. A few hours later I watch desperate, grateful people, struggling with their burdens just not on empty stomachs. It is something I can do and maybe that is all there is.
Processing casual thought on the page, you can redact or delete as you please. When the same package shows up again with predictable frequency it becomes a pattern. My journaling is starting to follow a pattern and I need to make a disclaimer. My long measure of human experience (old age) is an asset but also a hinderance. When you have sky dived from enough airplanes the excitement ebbs dramatically. I stopped recording my free fall jumps sometime after #200. The leap was still worth the ride up but more like getting a nibble, nothing like catching your first fish. It holds your attention, you focus and you’r pulse rate may gain a few ticks but excitement no, not really.
In the twilight of her career, singer Peggy Lee recorded, Is That All There Is, a bitter-sweet reflection. It seemed to say, life has been sweet at times but short as well and I would like to know, is that all there is? I suppose that should be my disclaimer as well. I remember the Cold War in the 1960’s when Soviet and American bombers flew 24/7 armed with hydrogen bombs enough to destroy civilization. They flew nonstop, around the clock, waiting for the command to destroy the wold. It went on for years. We made it through that crisis but even if they know the story, people born after that seldom give it a thought. In 2001 a group of angry, disillusioned martyrs hijacked four airliners but that crisis is still festering. Over the next two decades we would spend trillions of dollars, sacrifice nearly four thousand American lives and many thousands of devastating, life altering injuries. It was all metered out as justice but it reeked of revenge. My culture has difficulty distinguishing between the two. Yes, we killed BinLaden but as of this week it seems our righteous response has gone to seed a dismal failure.
I am old and my conscience has hardened. I try to diffuse crises, whatever they may be. Balance comes from watching the bubble, not from how it feels in the gut. My cohorts (by race & generation) are predominantly conservative. I think it comes with White Privilege, as if blessed by our white, conservative God, the one that authorized misogyny and slavery. I love us but our sins are such that I can neither dismiss nor ignore them. I feel like a whistle-blower, an insult to the myth that my cohorts venerate and I can feel them pushing back. I care, I really do but then it doesn’t matter; just words. They can dismiss me as easily as they would any other renegade and they do. Is that all there is? I know better, not that naïve. I was just hoping for more, something better.
Anthropologists study human history, civilization in general and they concur for the most part. Over the long stretch of recorded history the quality of human life gets better and continues to improve. Depending on how you group populations and break time down into units, there is less war, less slavery, better food, better health and less violence against vulnerable populations. But that takes in every culture, every beating heart. Here in my culture, with the most powerful economy and military on the planet, we agonize over losing hegemony and sustaining a tunnel vision, self serving morality. Being Number #1 has an ego stroking effect as well as a sobering responsibility but the latter is more lip service than practice.
If this has downgraded into a Rant, that wasn’t the intent. I’m never sure for sure where the muse will take me and I don’t know how this story should end. Thursday afternoons we (the team I’m on) make ham and cheese sandwiches for the homeless and the hungry. A few hours later I watch desperate, grateful people, struggling with their burdens just not on empty stomachs. It is something I can do and maybe that is all there is.
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