PLAYING WITH WORDS

  I should begin with a disclaimer or maybe ‘foreword’; playing with words today. I have suspicions. The word Suspicion means: A mental state, usually short of ‘Belief’ in which one entertains a notion that something is wrong. That notion can grow based on insufficient facts, intolerant and harsh or unfair judgment to become a fixed in Belief. That would make it a Bias, similar to Prejudice only not as extreme. Bias and prejudice (the words) are commonly used incorrectly if the extreme harsh judgment is well researched and fairly applied. Investigative reporters are tasked with that responsibility before they can expose an unscrupulous landlord or a ponzi scheme. But to dehumanize and deny others for cause that is not only false but malicious as well, that is Prejudice. What is extreme: how big does a horse have to be before we think it ‘Huge’? 
Me touching on human nature may seem like overkill. After all, how long did the early navigators keep insisting the world wasn’t flat ? I have addressed human nature frequently and in depth so I won’t spend much time here. But in a nutshell, emotions and impulse are generated in a region of the brain that is inaccessible to the conscious mind but they are powerful in controlling decisions and behavior. This is not a debatable issue, it just is. People tend to behave in ways that make them feel good (emotional comfort) in the moment with little or no thought to what could possibly go wrong. Human nature drives us to rely on emotions long before we consider logic and rationale. It explains ‘What was I thinking’ and ‘Should have known better.’ It also sanctified Slavery, Debtors’ Prison and beating children. But we (people) do it (what feels good), even high minded people with good intentions. 
I live with suspicions every day, about one thing or another. I can be an agent of change in some situations, I can observe and analyze my way to a better understanding even if there is no way for me to act on it. I know I have biases and I think of it as a weakness or a flaw. But I can work on it and I do. If the perception is corrupted by human nature and I have believed what I want to believe without shaking the tree then shame on me. I remember as a kid, my dad could only belittle and judge harshly Middle Eastern people and their culture. I don’t think he had any direct contact with Arabs or Turks or Palestinians but he seemed knowledgable; I was a kid and he was my role mode. The religious disconnect has never been an issue, only a variable. I am at serious odds with my own culture in that area. Pick a religion, Judaism, Christianity, Islam; one is as bad as another. Patriarchal, authoritarian, sexist with a history of violence within their own jurisdictions and beyond. During this Hamas/Israel war I have trouble taking sides. My dad would have said, “Leave them alone, let them kill each other. That’s all they’ve wanted to do for several thousand years.” Christians are more utilitarian, focus on pursuit of material wealth and less about taking revenge. But I am vulnerable to news and movies where Muslims are portrayed as evil and judged harshly in spite of unfair exploitation by the Western world. But when the Jihadi gets blown away on big screen and the Gringo walks away, I can feel that self righteous pulse stir inside me and I hate it. After a lifetime I have learned to mentally reject and suppress it but I can’t kill it. 
As much as I don’t like the way they treat their women, it’s their culture. Technology has shrunk the world so nobody is isolated anymore. Cultures and traditions overlap and spill over, a recipe for prejudice and violence. A Christian minister who was also a friend once told me; “You are stuck here in a world you didn’t break and cannot fix. Live the best life you can and do no harm.” That’s great but is there a singular, ‘Best Life’ and what constitutes “Harm’? So I play with words, press leaves between the pages and stack rocks as if they will stay stacked after I’m gone. I make believe my suspicions are harmless and if my judgment is unfair or harsh I hope it falls short of malicious bias and wicked prejudice. Maybe I just need to lighten up, maybe I would feel better. To my disappointment I’ve learned that feelings are unreliable. They can make you happy in the moment but they can also leave you with empty pockets and a bloody nose that won't stop bleeding. This little rant is a hell of a way to close the book on 2023 but it’s the best I can do for now.  

A GOOD REASON TO GO

I drink water, H2O, room temperature preferably. Sometimes I sip wine with food or a (not too cold) soft drink but it always requires an internal audit (Do I really want to do this?) where the come-back is often as not, No! When I was in Chile in 2005 I made friends with wine. I was attending language school (Español) and the young man assigned to after hours activities had majored in Agronomy at university with emphasis on vineyards and orchards, now a buyer for a major grocery chain. He was also the son of the school’s owners, helping out the family business. He made it his personal mission to educate and acclimate me to the culture, which leaned heavily on Vino. I sampled small sips of lots of different wines, rinse my mouth with water and try something else, blind tests to learn what I liked and what I didn’t. Every night for a week our little group soaked up culture while Marcelo kept track of what I did and didn't like, me not knowing what it was. Long story short: I really did not like Cabernet Sauvignon or its heavy tannin relatives. Didn't like Chardonnay either or other too-too dry wannabes. Funny, those two are the most common offerings at social get togethers. But I do like Carmenere in particular and Tempranillo from the red/black grapes and Riesling or Muscat from the whites. The sweet vs. dry range for Riesling depends on when they harvest. Early, before the sugar sets in the grape and it is more dry, picked later it is more sweet and they usually give you a clue on the label. Marcelo told me "Drink what you like and don't pay attention to the crowd." and I took him at his word.

So I come home from Patagonia knowing very little about wine but a lot about what I like and don’t like. The people I associate with now, by choice or by chance, they bring wine to every social function. But if I have questions, all they know is whether it is red or white. If I think I will be sipping wine I take something I know and like. Then I push it back out of sight lest it fall prey to someone who doesn’t look past the color. I am not a wine snob but then again, maybe I am. 

I have friends who are scaling down from a typical 3BR home in a comfortable neighborhood to an upscale apartment in a retirement community. They hosted an open house last night. We belong to the same Unitarian Church which is another story all together (not a Christian denomination) and our Christmas open house tradition salutes the pagan roots of the Solstice season. Since they were at a new address they personalized invitations and I felt obligated to go. There is another Unitarian congregation near their new place and I met several of their members. One woman was a retired pharmacist who had been a Catholic nun for eleven years. That drew the predictable observation about recovering Catholics; like many other addictions you can’t simply say no. It takes time and effort to overcome withdrawal symptoms. 

Another woman sat down and inserted herself in our conversation. I thought I had met her before but wasn’t sure. Then I recognized her husband from other Unitarian functions and remembered. She was dreadful then and had not improved. If there is a designation, ’conversation bully’ then that would be her; take charge, change the subject, pursue controversial issues with conspiracy theories and change the subject when it suited her. She got tangled up in God theory and switched over to Hillary Clinton’s satanic rituals and child pornography. When I tried to ask a question she stood up and kept talking. It was not a conversation but whatever it was, I didn’t belong there, got up and walked. 

I had been drinking (nonalcoholic) sparkling wine but one glass was enough. I went over to the serving counter and there were three tall, long neck wine bottles with hard to read labels. One turned out to be Chardonnay but the next was Riesling early harvest with just enough to fill my plastic glass. I decided to keep my distance from the dreadful woman. She was still going strong. I didn’t need the drink but it gave me cause to get up and move my feet. I thought of the anonymous axiom: Fool me once shame on you; fool me twice shame on me. I will go dry before I drink Cabernet Sauvignon again and I will not be bullied by the dreadful woman again either. Good chance we will never encounter each other but you don’t try to argue with such. I don’t think it occurs to them that they are the one out of sync.  

Today is the day after Christmas. I have no plans and it has turned cold. Either way, warm rain or clear sky and hard freeze; it’s just the next day. This time next week it will be a new year and I’ll get used to signing receipts and forms to a different number, but I can do that. There is another open house on the 31st but I doubt seriously the man with the dreadful woman would show up there. It will be a younger, more progressive, spontaneous crowd and they would laugh her out of the room, out of the house. A few days after that I will be on my way to the West Coast. I have no complaints here but a road trip with friends and family at the other end is good reason to go. 

SOLSTICE

I have written often and in detail about the human experience and our evolution out of the paleolithic (Stone Age) past. I did not hatch the idea but who could disagree, StoryTellers and their Stories have been instruments and vehicles for knowledge and understanding. Language is still the best if not only way people pass meaning on from one generation to the next; we listen and learn vicariously. Storytelling (what happened & what it means) has evolved along with technology. Watching Neil Armstrong again and again, first step on the moon without story (language) it makes no sense. For StoryTellers everywhere, I say thank you; all 8 billion of you. 
I did not hatch this idea either but I am a devoted disciple. Maybe the best StoryTellers of all time are songwriters. Some of them, the really good ones, they can take a complex story of human emotions and behavior that would take Toni Morrison or Mark Twain 300 pages to relate and reduce it to 2 verses, a bridge and a chorus. Then they put it to music and tell it in 3 minutes. They leave a few holes in the lyrics so the listener can participate, fill in the blank space, merging the writer’s intention into their own experience. I listen and feel a common link with the writer as if they had read my mind and are telling my story. One that just hangs on and on is Kristofferson’s; “Never knowing if believing is a blessing or a curse or if the goin’ up was worth the coming down.” 
Christmas stories put to music range from Jesus to the Grinch and most of us listen without really listening. They can lift you up or let you down, depending on how you feel to begin with. I’ve never celebrated Silent Night in a one horse open sleigh but I have been towed on the end of a rope behind a car through the snow, in the same spirit. I learned the chords to Silver Bells, played guitar and sang it with my grandkids a few years back but I am probably the only one who remembers.  

SOMEONE TUGGING

  Part of my Christmas celebration includes watching two movies, the George C. Scott version of Dickens’ Christmas Carol and sometime later, Polar Express. Last night it was Bah Humbug time in old-time London-town with Ebenezer Scrooge and Tiny Tim. Every time, I am surprised again by what a great actor G. C. Scott was. Dickens wrote a great story but when other actors fill that role it turns out just another great story. Every time, I get a lump in my throat at the same scenes, same lines, same body language; I know them almost by heart and still have to take deep breaths to vent away those emotions. The message hasn’t changed since Jacob Marley’s ghost dragged his chains into Scrooge’s bed chamber; don’t squander love for the sake of money. It’s like a booster shot for clear conscience and I need it every year this time; and God bless us every one. 
    A few days later I recover from the tough love Scrooge had to face. Then the movie, Polar Express lets me lose myself again, not in an old man’s folly but in childlike innocence. At the beginning of the train ride I am just another spectator, watching the story unravel from a place removed. How that magic works, I don’t know; but by the time the unpunched ticket has flown out the window on a gust of snow and wind, I have become invested and involved. That gives me agency and that makes me part of the story. The message of Polar Express is to listen to the child within. This will be my 84th Christmas. I grew up in spite of myself but the magic spell has kept him (the inner child) on the cusp. He believes the fairytale; he knows better but he trusts the feeling and that’s the real magic. When I feel him tugging at my sleeve I could resist but I know better. If I stop listening, stop following his lead then he will find a new accomplice and leave me on a shelf to collect dust. I have to go now; someone tugging at my sleeve. 

TOO MUCH TO BEAR

I’m having a case of writer’s block. I want to take on something that will be either enlightening or entertaining but at best all I do is think about dismal people doing dreadful stuff. It’s like all those years in Chicago waiting for the Cubs to win a World Series. After 108 years they won the big one, a World Series Championship in 2016 but the wait was almost too much to bear. I won’t make it another hundred years for human cultures to get the news. People are still pissing in the wind and blaming each other. Not a lot good going on here just now. 

Jonathan Haidt is a social psychologist-anthropologist (researcher & author) and has, for a decade plus, been a profound influence on not only what I believe but even more so on how I try to process information. If one truly wants to get to the truth then they must be willing to be proven wrong and change. It requires an open mind and that is an incredibly difficult challenge. Without exploring that adventure any farther I would get to the point. 

Evolution (human) has equipped us with intellect, imagination, language and creative genius that is unmatched in the rest of the animal kingdom. Still, for a human culture to function successfully there needs to be some rules. Over time one’s culture will collectively determine some beliefs and behaviors to be Right or Wrong; not so much correct or incorrect. Right & Wrong have moral caveats as to what is acceptable and what is not; and humanity as a whole requires that set of rules (Moral Code) or else that culture breaks down (looses its way). 

Haidt researched every known culture (current & ancient) to identify and group categories that require Moral rules; he found five. Morality in every known culture includes issues about Caring {compassion vs indifference}, Fairness {ideas of justice & rights}, Loyalty {belonging vs betrayal}, Authority {Social order & Obedience} & last, Purity {physical & spiritual}. Taking each one separately, think of expressing that moral rule like reading a speedometer where 100 would be the extreme approval (for something) and 0 the extreme opposite. Not surprising, the five moral categories identify areas of conflict between modern day world views. Not surprising, liberal thinkers score high in Compassion, Fair play & Individual loyalty. On the other hand, conservative thinkers score high on Loyalty to nation & political party, with Authority by vertical hierarchy & obedience and the 5th is Purity, both physical (racism-gender bias) and spiritual (Israel-Hamas). The back story on physical purity is really interesting going back to prehistory; has to do with body fluids and spoiled food. It's kind of gross but makes for good reading. In any case, as a species we favor what is pure, as we understand it. 

    Simply, it seems the mind comes without any Right or Wrong programming, only a blank template with empty spaces. As we accumulate experience the blank spaces get filled in according to what our culture dictates. Most cultures frown on physical intimacy between siblings; why doesn't seem to be important, it just is what it is. Moral issues are generally fueled by feelings that resonate as either Right or Wrong and those feelings run deep. Haidt gives us a view and a perspective that is profoundly insightful and thoroughly prepared but it doesn’t always leave you in a safe place. We are amazing animals but so are salamanders and dragonflies. God was a good idea when nobody could read or write and his shamans were all conservatives. Haidt’s work leaves me feeling a lot better informed but not any better about my own kind.

I remember the Viet Nam era when Conservative was a dirty word. Now it’s the other way around, so liberals are now Progressive. Morals can and do change over time but the moral categories seem constant. So I lean to the left under a blue banner. My loyalties bend toward others who have moved on from medieval beliefs and behaviors. I don’t know how I turned out this way but if I believed in omniscient, omnipotent dudes my prayers would be full of gratitude for landing where I did. But I would still have a long list of edits and upgrades for his system. How come God’s preference is conservative punishment but Jesus’ behavior is compassionately progressive?

     

BAD BLOOD

  One of the nice things about Saturday morning is listening to the National Public Radio. Scott Simon is the Saturday host and I like him a lot. He touches on the news but cuts away to special interest stories that nobody has time for during the week. But for the last few weeks those stories all seem to have roots in the war between Israel and Hamas. I am not an expert on that squabble but it has been brewing since long before Islam was hatched. Then, that chunk of the Mediterranean coastline was peopled by both Hebrews and by Gentiles (everybody else, not a Jew). They all ushered from the same gene pool. Abraham was the prototype Jew, who all Jews (I would think) consider their patriarch. We need a timeline here. Hebrews (Jews) trace back thousands of years to Abraham. At the time, if you compare him to modern day leaders he was likely a prototype tyrant too, like Saddam Hussein. From his loins (Abraham’s) rose the Hebrew nation, Israel. 
Jesus came along after that in the 1st century CE and Christianity was adopted as the official Roman religion roughly 400 years later. Some 200 years after Rome went Christian, Mohammed, a well healed, widely traveled camel jockey paid particular attention to how Jews and Christians went about their business and determined, there has to be a better way. He came up with the Quran to clarify, correct and update both the Jewish Torah and Christian Bible and voila! Islam!
Understand, Abraham’s wife (Sarah) was the mother of Jewish backstory long before either Christianity or Islam existed. She and Abraham’s offspring were the seeds for modern day Israel. But she had an Egyptian (Gentile) slave girl named Hagar who couldn’t very well tell Abraham (Not tonight!) when he crawled into bed with her. She bore him a son, Ishmael who was generally dismissed as an unauthorized dead end. It sets up the dichotomy of two competing heirs for the one blessing. Half brothers, Isaac and Ishmael; think Arnold Schwarzenegger and his unauthorized progeny with their Latina house keeper. All of this while Arnold was married to and had authorized children with Maria Shriver (a royal princess of the Kennedy dynasty). Arnold took responsibility and protected his half Latino hatchling but that child will never, ever eat at the same table with a Kennedy. Within Abraham’s gene pool the fact that Ishmael existed at all provoked bad blood, animosity and violence. Before Mohammed ever climbed up on a camel's back, Jews and their neighbors were in conflict. Today’s Israel - Hamas killing spree is the current round of a protracted hostility that began with Isaac’s people at odds with Ishmael’s descendants. Like Saddam Hussein, I don’t think Abraham really cared about anything but himself. 
I’m sure a legitimate scholar would knit pick my argument to pieces but I think it meets my intention. It adequately sets the scene. Who is the rightful heir to that arid strip of Mediterranean coastline? As a young man my dad dismissed their rivalry. “It’s in their blood.” He said. “ They’ve been killing each over a contested birth right since before the wheel was invented and they can’t help themselves.” The rise of Islam created a platform from which the sons of Ishmael would organize and strike back.” That’s what my dad said in the 1940’s and so far he’s been spot on the money. 
Israel (Jews) across the board were already scattered around the world without a homeland when they were suffered the holocaust. Hitler and his 3rd Reich disposed of nearly 7 million Jews killed outright or disappeared without a trace under Adolph’s reign. It wasn’t bad enough they had been banished, a race of people robbed of their lands and displaced to foreign soil where they were generally resented and persecuted. Hitler wanted them dead, all of them. Hitler is gone but now other Muslim nations support Palestinians who were likewise disenfranchised when the United Nations propped restored Israel. Palestinians were to keep some of the adjacent lands but the restored Jewish nation has been unabashedly reclaiming and resettling areas that were not in the agreement. Palestinians have been squeezed into smaller and smaller plots of less and less desirable land on the premiss that not only is it it God’s will but also it is payback time.
Hamas is the military arm of a people who, as I see it, are allowed to live there with no rights and no credible representation, subordinated to powerful muslim warlords who defend as well as exploit a captive population. It is reminiscent of the ghettos and slums Jews occupied during the holocaust. Hamas proudly asserts their purpose is to destroy Israel. Israel calls Hamas a terrorist organization and calls on free nations to help them destroy Hamas. Someone, lots of someones with guns and rockets believe that revenge is a righteous cause and an eye for an eye is the only solution. 
There are many, many, millions more good people caught up in that greedy boil of ego and deceit; and I trust, if they (the good people) had authority this evil vendetta would be resolved in a just, peaceful solution. But they don’t. MLK Jr. told us; “Injustice anywhere threatens justice everywhere.” How can I presume to weight in on Jewish hegemony or Palestinian resistance? American bigots murdered Dr. King and are still killing people of color because white authorities can’t tell telephones from handguns or when blacks run when told to stop. We have our own slums and ghettos where poverty and crime feed on a smug, pious, condescending culture. But it sounds like I am starting to preach and I never want to do that. My dad would say, “It’s in their blood.” I remember writing recently; There are no good guys, there are no bad guys, only ambitious, blood thirsty, sanctimonious bedfellows. I hate it when I do this but venting helps get it out of my system.

AND THERE'S NO GOLD

  An ‘Earworm’ is a line or verse from a song that sticks in your mind, repeating over and over. A good one can keep coming around, uninvited for hours or even days at a time. I get them and they are usually wonderful, always welcome, combinations of great poetry and memories or feelings they stir up from my own story. I think of one in particular that kept coming back, sometimes a dozen times a day, sometimes every other day and it kept spilling over for at least a month. Kate Wolf was an absolutely wonderful singer-songwriter who passed away, way too soon. In the early 1980’s she gave us, Here In California, a ballad that reflects on her mother’s advice, not to fall in love too soon. The hook was set in the middle of the first verse. It went, “She held me ‘round the shoulders, In a voice so soft and kind, She said love can make you happy, Love can rob you blind.”  Then, like a boxer’s one-two punch she leans straight into the chorus: “Here in California, Fruit hangs heavy on the vines, And there’s no gold, I thought I’d warn you, And the hills turn brown in the summertime.” O.M.G. She (Kate Wolf) passed in 1986 (leukemia) she would have been 81 now; and the hills turn brown in the summertime. 
Songwriters are uniquely special, they frame powerful stories that can move you to tears or laugh-out-loud and they do it in a few verses, a bridge and a chorus. Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen were exceptions, their songs went on and on for what seemed like forever but no one complained. Kate Wolf will be ringing in my mind now for who knows how long and that’s alright. 
Most recently, the worm that gets my attention is from a Gordon Lightfoot song (1971) If You Could Read My Mind. The song was inspired by his breakup (divorce) and that sense of melancholy always seemed to be introspective rather than judgmental and I liked that. The worm; “And I’ve got to say that I just don’t get it, I don’t know where we went wrong, But the feeling’s gone, And I just can’t get it back.” He was an awesome storyteller, four verses and a chorus. 
Then there is Willie. If you get into that collection the earworms don’t end with a line or a verse, you take the whole song where every line builds on the one before. When it reboots to start over you have mouthed all the words from the introduction to the fade. I can lapse into any one of several Willie Nelson songs but the one that comes most often when I’m on the road or someplace else is, Nothing I Can Do About It Now. There is no chorus; the title is the hook line that also serves as a turnaround. I can hear it now: “And I could cry for the time I’ve wasted, But that’s a waste of time and tears, And I know just what I’d change If I went back in time somehow, But there’s nothing I can do about it now. I’m forgiving everything that forgiveness will allow, And there’s nothing I can do about it now.”  
So I’m blessed with earworms; they may be contagious without getting old, never get in the way. I’ve written a few songs, stories with four verses and a hook but to touch multitudes of others with a timeless message, that has been the fate of Kate Wolf and Willie Nelson. I am a well meaning wannabe but fate did not steer me onto that path. I like the idea of fate but not the absolute, beyond one’s control, predetermined path to an unavoidable destiny. I don’t think fate lies out in the future. It is about how you came to be who and what you are in fact, here and now and there are no do-overs. Fate would be determined by causal forces but they are not predetermined. That flys in the face of traditional thinking, defaulting to the perception of a predetermined destiny. I don’t embrace a fate that exists outside my reach. But taking comfort with nostalgic, insightful, endearing earworms is a fate I can live with.

SAFE AT SECOND

  I have always been a dreamer, literally. I dream every night. But once awake I seldom remember the story line or its outcome. All I know is whether it was good and peaceful or troubled and bumpy. There are dreams that slowly morph into rational thought and develop an awareness and, emerging from the sleepy fog, I realize I have dreamed myself awake. I did that last night, wide awake, not knowing what time it was. If I go to the trouble of opening my eyes and checking the time there will be no turning back. If it is almost wake-up time like this morning I just get up early and go with my day. But if I go wide awake in the wee hours I will toss and turn for hours so I get up, spend an hour or so cleaning house or at the computer. That’s usually enough to fool my circadian rhythm and I can fall asleep in bed again.

From what I read, there are several ‘Dream’ stereotypes that (nearly) everyone experiences. There is the ‘Searching’ scenario where you are lost and can’t find your way or can’t find whatever it is you are looking for. Being caught naked in public is common as well. The weird part is that nobody notices and you are the only one agonizing. The dream you are being chased, by anything (person, animal, a mugger, police, etc.) is high on the list as well. I’ve been dragged through all of those dreams and I usually dream myself awake.

When I was a kid, 10 or 11, our barnyard was big enough to improvise a baseball field. Home plate was in front of a shed on the other side of the fence, it served as a backstop. In straight away center field, 130-140 ft. away was the barn. We needed at least 3 players, the pitcher, a batter and a fielder. If the batter hit the ball and made it all the way around the bases to home before the fielder could relay the ball to the pitcher covering home, he got to bat again. If you get put out everybody rotates; oh yea, if you hit a fly ball that gets caught, you’re out and you rotate. We played that game several times a week, all summer. 

Then we all grew up and the barnyard went back to the cow and chickens. A decade later I was in the army, a parachute rigger and for fun, riggers became skydivers. We had our own parachutes purchased from military surplus stores, modified to suit our purpose. Military pilots needed flight time and we needed a ride up to about 7,000 ft. where we leaped out (free fall) for about 30 seconds before we pulled the ripcord and floated down under a nylon canopy. When the pilots ran out of fuel or it got dark we all went home. Then my contract with the army ran out and I came home for real. 

Sometime after that I had a dream. I was up in the air amongst puffy little cumulus clouds, the ground maybe 7,000 ft. below and I was falling. The falling was easy, I knew how to control my free fall. If there was a concern it was that I wasn’t wearing a parachute. I trust that every sky diver who ever experienced an opening shock had given thought to the risk of malfunction and certainly the consequence of no parachute at all. There (in my dream) I was closing in on the 3rd rock from the sun at about 100 mph. It was time to pull the ripcord. With enough experience you know when it’s time, it’s when you can discriminate with the naked eye between individual trees by their size and different color of leaves. It was time. 

I tried to determine just where I would impact and recognized the up-rushing ground. To my surprise I was over our old barnyard, the shed/backstop and the barn in center field. It just came natural to turn on my right side and stretch my left (top) leg out behind me and slide on my right hip. I made contact, plowing up sod and turf, waking up from the dream precisely in the moment I stopped. With a perfect hook slide I was safe at 2nd base. Wide awake I lay there in bed thinking, ‘OMG’ a pause and ’That was Awesome!’ My dad had subdivided our little acreage into lots and sold them several years before I enlisted but in my dream it was 1950 again. But after that there were many times the exact same dream came back again to wake me from sound sleep. I had given up skydiving, it was (too expensive) and enrolled in college as a 24 year-old freshman. But I made the baseball team, pitched a lot of batting practice, coached 1st base and got to play now and then. In 1968 I graduated 88 in my class of 188. 

I can’t remember the last time I had the hook slide dream, sometime after college but I do remember the last time I actually made a hook slide. It was in the early 1980’s in a church league softball game. I was on 2nd base and our batter was good at moving runners up, putting the ball in play. I was wearing cutoff sweat pants, bare legs, never thought I would  be sliding anywhere. I told the guy coaching 3rd base that if our guy got a hit I was going to watch him and not the ball. I would make the turn at 3rd and he had to promise, if it looked like there would be a play at the plate to stand in my way and flag me down. We got the hit, he waved me home but I saw right away the catcher setting up to take the incoming throw and I slid without thinking, a reflex act, serious mistake. I was safe at home, scored the run. The ground around home plate was packed hard as concrete and my cutoffs slid up out of the way, offered no protection at all. The Third Degree abrasion, the worst, deepest kind, from mid thigh up through mid buttox; I didn’t have to look or ask, it went numb and I knew I was in serious trouble. 

I was incapacitated, couldn’t stand, sit or lie down for nearly a week, half naked on pain killers, the doctor apologized for laughing. Who in their right mind would slide bare ass into home plate in a church league softball game? It was the last time I slid at any base, any game, ever. I never spoke to the guy coaching 3rd base again either. We had stopped attending that church; the preacher was a jerk and his flock a bunch of self righteous assholes but I wanted to finish the summer league. I can’t remember dreaming the hook slide dream after that, not ever again. I’m not making this up. If I were to make up a baseball dream where someone did something really stupid, I would have cast myself as the clever, slippery dude who got the last laugh. I’m surprised I ‘outed’ myself here but at my age I have outgrown and dismissed whatever pride I once prized. Feeling good about feeling good is alright but the “ain’t I great” crap is just that, fodder for an undeserving ego. The scar took nearly a year to heal up but my wife forgave me right away for my folly. If you find yourself free falling in a dream without a parachute, I recommend the hook slide. When you wake up you can sit anywhere you like, even stand up and walk around without waiting for your butt to heal. 

NEVER FELT BETTER

  The news has been bad all week and the hopes for good news is misplaced at best, worsening as we go. I don’t dwell on the news as I have no control and fretting on it is like the man hitting himself on the head with a hammer. Question; why? Answer; it feels good when I quit. But I am not in denial and I can’t help but chew on that bone from time to time. How else would anybody know (as if they care at all) what I chew on. But I want someone to know and maybe care. I try to be concise but sometimes backstory and spinoffs get in the way. 
I tend to question the thoughts and ideas that I want (am inclined) to believe. If my truck pulls to the left when I get on the brakes, that is something I should know and then drive accordingly. When my brain (mind) does that, I should recognize the risk and to think accordingly. That wonderful Human mind, besides its preoccupation with conscious experience it behaves without permission, unawares, it just does. Mostly, that subconscious part wants to feel good and will be less than honest in order to provide the (Mirror-mirror on the wall) experience. Then the BS is easy to digest and all seems well. But nobody wants to here that from me. Feeling good is hard to compete with, consider drugs, smoke, gambling and all the reasons addicts give for not wanting to quit. 
If Putin’s war in Ukraine wasn’t enough, Hamas (Palestinian militants) are considered terrorists by western countries bit embraced by Islamic sympathizers in middle east. They decided it was time to wage war on Israel with a Pearl Harbor like surprise attack. So the stage is set for another round of Jihad against Jews. There is blame enough to go around. Israelis are not good at peaceful compromise either but to keep feeding on that bitter pill, one would think they try something different. But ever since Moses and Pharaoh, several thousand years of Zero Sum game, eye-for-an-eye, it’s hard to find a winner. There are no good guys, only bed-fellows. Iran sides with Hamas while the U.S. and most European allies have Netanyahu’s back. A Proxy war is when you get someone who depends on you to fight your battle, in their country, against the friends of your enemy who are stuck in the same predicament (Iran & The U.S.A). This conflict might fall into that category but the experts all put their own complicated, opinionated spin on the story and in the end the world is left again with a lot of blood, death, muddy rhetoric and bravado. I’m sad for innocent victims on both sides. 
There is an argument for peace that I’ve been hearing all my life. It goes, Hate has to be learned and if we can break that cycle then maybe peace has a chance. But we can’t sell that package even to our neighbors here at home. Love has to be learned too and that lesson would facilitate peaceful outcomes. Rather than Zero-Sum games where having winners necessitates having losers we should try a Win-Win strategy. With love and peace, Win-Win games skip the hostility with no victims, no prisoners, everybody gains something they want. But Win-Win games fall way short of Winner-Take-All appetites when selfish, aggressive, motivated competitors want everything, they want it all. 
For them Win-Win is like kissing your sister. So the nation of Israel got its homeland back after World War 2. God himself had given the land to them several thousand years earlier with no statute of limitations. After WW2 the U.N. granted Jewish survivors most of their historic homeland back. With that act, millions of Palestinians were displaced whose legitimate claim to the same land stretched back for centuries. Evidently their claims did fall under a statute of limitations. Jews & Muslims worship the same god but through different channels. In that context, roughly 80 years later they are still trying to balance the equation with Winner-Take-All tactics except they negotiate with smart bombs and rockets now and the U.N. isn’t any help. Predictably, their leaders (anyone who might be perceived as a leader) are as much or more concerned about expanding their own power and framing their own personal legacies to suit their egos. 
But pointing fingers comes easy when you can perch on a self righteous stump and place blame on some (other) shameless reprobate. I’ve been reminded that when you point a finger at anyone, there are three other fingers on that hand pointing back at you. What I cannot deny is that I live in a nation that is both wonderful and terribly flawed in the same breath. The wonderful part is showcased every patriotic holiday but much if not most of that tale stems from several hundred years of Winner-Take-All practice where we won.
Those indigenous people who had sustained in North America for thousands of years before Plymouth Rock or ‘Rockets red glare’ they couldn’t compete with gun powder and technology. They tried to flee or to assimilate but Euro-Americans weren’t having any of that. Native Americans were nearly eradicated by ethnic cleansing and genocide. African slaves were trapped in an evil scheme that propped up an agricultural juggernaut. The horror of slavery has worn thin and is generally dismissed as conditions of the times (denial) and we’ve forgiven ourselves for our forebearers’ indiscretions. Yet, millions of African Americans still suffer under the weight of racism 150 years after emancipation. The good intentions of well meaning white folks are simply piss in the wind, lipstick on the pig. No need for me to expand on the horror of slavery, Jim Crow and popular white supremacy but the unmerited privilege of being white has (never felt better). I can’t change any of it, at best I vent some disappointment and anger, even my anger, toothless as it may be.
Years ago I took the train, ’City Of New Orleans’ from Chicago to N.O. In the gray shadows of early morning we slowed down for a little town in mid Mississippi. Not 50 feet from the tracks I noticed small, unpainted, broken houses with boarded over windows, some with lights on inside. Someone lived there. My first thought was, ‘This could be a time warp back to the slave days in the mid 1800’s.’ I was snatched out of my peaceful sleep by an uncomfortable feeling that would, years later, be rightfully coined ‘White Privilege’. For me and others like me, the unmerited mantle of social, economic and educational privilege weighs uncomfortable and dulls any sense of American Exceptionalism. Mind boggling would be too much to say but it was absolutely, totally sobering. Shame was the feeling, stirred awake to see the poverty of the poorest neighborhood of the poorest town, in the poorest state of my glorious country. I had grown up with the American Dream, that anything is possible if you work hard; and there I was passing through the bowels of that dream. I had been weaned on the idea that poverty was the reward for those who were either stupid or lazy. But I would get my own look at the harsh reality, where taking care of your family while living in poverty is the hardest, most difficult, most disrespected job there is. Some may be able to deny a real, first hand experience with poverty, paint it a soft, pastel shade of blue and imagine the scent of lavender but I can’t seem to get over that hump. 
I don’t remember much about that trip now. It included an incoming hurricane and the inconvenience of several families holed up in a high & dry place with downed power lines and not phone. The only crystal-clear memory from that trip is the three or four minutes of train sounds and poverty. It occurred to me in that little window of experience that the people in those pathetic shacks were waking up to the other American Dream. I presumed they were all black and their stupid, lazy fault had been that they were born the wrong color and into poverty. 
By definition an (Ism) is a practice, system or ideology where its proponents require their particular beliefs should not only be observed, formalized and taught but also be protected and defended at any cost. Racism, Sexism, Classism, Conservatism, Liberalism, Communism, Socialism, Capitalism; people fall into one trap or another and kill each other with clear conscience and I hate it, I really do. Many if not most people fall back on denial to ease their conscience and take comfort in a prosperity that has been purchased with an evil tradeoff. I just happen to be one of the ones who see through the smoke, who can’t escape the hypocrisy by making believe it isn’t there. With evolution there is neither good nor evil, so long as it keeps on keeping on, replicating and reproducing. So I get to live out the rest of my life in comfortable retirement and grow even older, profiting from policies and practice that I hate.

LEAVE SOME FOOTPRINTS

  I feel obligated to write, write something, anything. I’ve been doing it so many years it’s like brushing your teeth; if you skip for any reason and get by without a consequence, that oversight doesn’t go unpunished for long. Gazing at a blank page with no ideas is like dialing 911 and nobody answers. One alternative is skipping over to YouTube to watch music videos, the feeling is as good as scratching an itch but the fix is short lived. 
My blog’s website provides some indirect feedback on how many hits each article gets but it’s not reliable and I accept that. But I’ll never know for sure if anyone and certainly not who does drop in. I don’t get comments as the process is too complicated (register & sign in required). That’s alright, I’m not fishing for feedback I just need to follow through on my end. I think of each post (article) as a little time capsule that captures me (my thoughts) in that moment. By themselves they are no more than snapshots but in the collective you get a story that may wander and stumble but a story never the less. A single post may be more interesting or revealing than another but when you look back to see where you came from and how you got here, it helps that you left some footprints. For any other purpose my preoccupation with writing and the blog must be irrelevant but it gives me something to do if not a job. 

I went to church yesterday: that, coming from me almost requires a disclaimer. Unitarians work diligently to justify their (our) claim to be a legitimate religion but Christians in general presume we are just another denomination who share their fundamental beliefs. What we are in fact is a community of Humanists who fashion our own rituals and ceremony that fit a secular belief system. For the most part we believe that we were born with everything we need to meet our spiritual need and didn’t need to be saved in the first place. If you like the idea of an all powerful, all knowing, supernatural god then you would feel out of place at our place. Anyway: our sermon yesterday was about justice, what’s fair and why society only pays attention when an exclusive group has been treated unjustly. In that sermon, a quote that MLK Jr. borrowed in 1968 goes; “The arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.” Too much content for me to dwell on here but one thought is that we may not live long enough to see justice done our time. But MLK Jr. and his cohorts recognized the far reaching scope of just practice and just how short the span of a human lifetime. Parallels were framed between civil rights leaders in the 1960’s and Mahatma Gandhi from non violent protest to relentless persistence. I thought it interesting (from my own reading) that one of today’s hot issues was anticipated by Dr. King. In the same speech, same language, he alluded to staying awake (be alert) in the struggle because every small (seeming irrelevant step forward) could be undone by the entrenched powers that be. George Floyd’s murder in Minneapolis triggered the (Woke) movement but King had seen it coming and true to his caution, organized white supremacists in particular, they have been empowered by MAGA bigots who are showing their true colors now (White only served here.) 
As much as I like and respect Unitarian’s Humanist roots I am not well rooted there. To make that leap I would need to be better schooled in the arc of the moral universe, to see it starting to bend toward justice even a little bit. I am better schooled in evolution and human nature. I have trouble getting past the long arc of violence and exploitation by people of high birth and power, against those people who are vulnerable, who are in harm's way. I am waiting for the moral arc to budge off of its bubble. We (Humans) have the capacity to make real what has been touted as a divine sensibility in regard to each other and particularly with those who struggle. It would gravitate from the ground up but at some point that thin slice of divine nature would have to break the surface. In college I was reminded often, dozens of times every year; “Frank you have great potential.” That stroke of confidence was always followed by a pregnant pause and, “But don’t forget that potential is the list of all the things you haven’t accomplished yet.”  In that context I am waiting for the arc to bend, even just a little bit before I jump both feet on the Humanist band wagon. 

BLUE STREAK

  Leon Trotsky was a Russian revolutionary, a Marxist-Leninist from the old school. His dedication to freeing the masses from a system ruled by a cruel, privileged aristocracy was unparalleled. His efforts may have been noble in theory but he certainly overlooked the diabolical nature of men who rise to power only to replace the current tyranny with another tyranny. He left hundreds of quotes behind but I find one to be absolutely prophetic even if it makes no ideological argument; late in life he observed, “Old age is the most unexpected of all things that can happen to a man.”  He never saw it coming. 

I tend to identify with commoners and defend (as best I can) those who need help but that’s where I part ways with Trotsky. I saw it coming. When my kids really were kids, every summer, one way or another we made it down to Sandusky, Ohio and Cedar Point Theme Park. They had The Blue Streak, (then) the tallest, longest, fastest of the old fashioned, wooden structure, steel wheels & tracks roller coasters anywhere. If we got there early you could squeeze in two rides before the line got so long that it wasn’t worth the wait. But then we all grew up and Cedar Point became a wonderful memory and a great story. Then, for my (59th) birthday in 1998 my grown kids took me back to Cedar Point. When we rode the Blue Streak the vibration made my teeth hurt, my head hurt and the ascent up the next hill was insufficient to recover and the next plunge was like running a gauntlet, getting beat up again and again. 

The Blue Streak adventure of ’98 was neither the first warning nor the last but it compounded the ultimate message. It didn’t sneak up on me like it did Trotsky, the onset of old age shook me like a rag doll until my teeth hurt. Not in that moment but certainly in reflection it occurred to me that I was not the stallion I once was. The ride was designed to maximize acceleration and free-fall, twisting and turning while minimizing the bleeding off of speed before the next plunge. Near the end, in a long, easy, downhill curve we heard the brakes engage and felt the inertia. Up ahead the line of thrill junkies waiting for us to offload signaled that our ride was about to end and what awaited us was an easy walk down a gentle ramp where the most exciting prospect was a cup of ice cream under a shady umbrella. No, I saw it coming. 

Once upon a time I had a daughter in law whose fear of growing old bordered on stupidity and unabashed pride. She agonized over her 29th birthday because she hated the idea of turning 30, which was unavoidable and only a year away. She moved on without us and I have no regrets other than my son’s bad choice in the first place and its aftermath. I learned that the best revenge is to live well and we have moved on likewise, living well. 

I am an unbeliever so the hope of an afterlife is not part of my guide to the universe. Hope is a great motivator when you have some (at least a little) input with the process but without that, it’s just wishful thinking. With that in mind the Blue Streak is a good life lesson. The ride is going to be exciting, even the vibrating and shaking. As the end approaches, it seems like it should go on, and on, even just another few ups and downs. But it doesn’t work that way, never did, and we knew it before we got onboard. I was privy to a discussion, a polite disagreement and exchange between a devout believer and another old heretic (like me) about the ultimate, unresolvable mystery. The question asked was; “If you don’t believe in Heaven, what do you think it will be like for you after you die?” My counterpart thought for a moment and replied, “It will be about the same as it was before I was conceived.” I’ve always liked that uncomplicated sense of time and place. 

I don’t think anybody has difficulty understanding and accepting that our bodies are about 60% water, that all of our water moves in and out through us rapidly; and that all of the water on the planet has been here all along, cycling and recycling through the water cycle, weather, plants and animals. There is a very high probability that my body today, right now, has H2O molecules that once cycled through George Washington, and before him, Black Beard the pirate, and Genghis Kahn, even Cleopatra. If that is true, and it is more likely than not, then how about the natural decomposing and recycling of organic compounds into Oxygen, Carbon, Nitrogen, Potassium and so on? It makes a plausible argument for reincarnation at the pieces & parts level. Some of my parts showing up a few generations later in a sunflower or a humming bird; that would be awesome.

I’m not selling anything. What one believes is their business. I trust that we all have needs and whatever they are, we should be able to satisfy them. In a theoretical sense, we (any of us) we can’t absolutely know anything for sure. I do not question or challenge René Descartes profound revelation (1637) “I think therefore I am.” That gem has a very high probability for its truth. But again, theoretically I allow for remote possibilities. Some ideas we embrace, others we accept with reservations and some of it we think to be absurd. It depends largely on our experience and what we make of it as well as the opinions of people whose views we respect and trust. Good or bad, peer pressure is is hard to resist. Still, if we don’t treat it as suspect then we leave ourselves open to pitfalls and blunders of all sorts. 

I've made these observations based my experience and what I make of it. Some of that comes vicariously via my peers and qualified by old age. As I see it from my perch, foolish old men are more reliably informed that foolish young men who simply do not see it coming.

THINGS GO BUMP

  I used a word recently that translates a general feeling rather than a concrete meaning. It seems every popular dictionary has its own definition, similar but then not quite and I settled for Merriam-Webster. If you (search your soul) 3 words separately they all have their own purpose but together in that order it requires a presumption that we (all of us) do have a soul and something there in should be examined. ‘Soul-searching’ is hyphenated, technically one word with the same overreach and can be used creatively. This may seem like navel-gazing but I tend to look under every stone for what may be there and this ‘soul-searching’ will take me somewhere. 
Merriam-Webster: “. . . examination of one’s conscience especially with regard to motives and values.” I will cut back on the gazing but the word ‘conscience’ here links the soul with a brain function that is beyond our control. We don’t get to decide what is right (righteous) and wrong (immoral), that stuff was planted there at an early age by an influential, older someone with more experience and it unfolds without permission. One’s conscience is updated and reinforced by a continuous stream of fresh experience still, it can be stifled when competing values like greed and generosity have been nurtured simultaneously but under different circumstances. Then you lock horns over an unanticipated complication. When that happens, most of us simply default to the value that feels more ‘right’ (less wrong) in the moment. The other default is ‘denial’, to know better and behave as if one or the other does not exist. By definition again; conscience is an acquired guide to the rightness or wrongness of one’s behavior or belief. 
In my case, soul searching is a frequent, necessary, scheduled maintenance on my moral compass. If I don’t go there, it is easy to get bogged down in one of those unanticipated complications. My parents did not spend much time telling us what to believe or how to behave but they modeled those values with consistent, repetitious clarity. Take care of each other, we’re in this together. Treat others as you want to be treated. Don’t be stingy, share. Take only what you can eat and eat all you take. Discipline teaches ‘right’ behavior and punishment teaches how not to get caught. I revisit those competing values, weigh and measure for what their worth and then go face the day. If there is a fundamental ‘right’ way to live then my experience tells me that in the game of life everyone should play fair. If in fact we are nothing more than high functioning animals (and I could make that argument) then poverty serves as a necessary link in the food chain. But if that curious, intelligent, creative bump that evolution blessed us with makes us not only unique but also superior and borderline divine, then there is no excuse for Poverty. But civilization likes winners and without losers, what’s the difference? The human animal doesn’t think twice about fair play. The only rule is ‘Win’ by whatever means necessary. “What’s mine is mine and if you can’t stop me, what’s yours is mine too.”
I have known families and students whose only mistake was being born at a bad time in the wrong place to parents whose sins were, when and where they were born and to who; a wicked scheme of opportunity denied and culture deprived. The bell curve works, it always has. If you are born at either (rich or poor) extreme the likelihood of rising or falling toward the middle (normal) arc of the curve is almost nonexistent. The trick is; choose a good time and place to be born and pick nurturing, educated, affluent parents. Occasionally low-born people overcome obstacles and a privileged child will stumble and fall from grace but in both cases, the farther your data point from the mid point (bell curve) the more difficult it is to slide past (statistical) normal and sustain that momentum. 
I’ve been fortunate, managed eight decades of well intended, good places & right times, random good fortune and sweet people moving through my space. Sometimes things go BUMP and I try to fix what I break. So far my trespasses have been forgiven and I get to keep my good name. I have a thing about good communication and the written story. Words have power and I don’t want them to be squandered or misappropriated so I move them around on the page until they have legs of their own to stand on. When I am spent or the words lose their salt I go make sawdust or play with my guitar. When I notice people who never go soul searching or  their conscience suffers from a case of arrested development I fall back on my mother’s best life lesson: There but for the Grace of God go I.

SUNDAY MORNING

  I went to church this morning, not that unusual but I agreed to work a recruiting table in the lobby before and after the service. Some programs are totally dependent on volunteers and the HOT (Hunger Outreach Team) is where I plug in. We work together with another volunteer organization to feed several hundred homeless folks three time a week at a park in the city. We have the kitchen facilities and usually a dozen or so of our regulars show up to cook, make sandwiches and distribute food at the park. There were two of us at our table and we talked with some nice people. We didn't get any firm commitments but several who basically said, “Maybe”. You can volunteer as much or as little as you like; there is always something to do. 
There is a lot of change going on at All Souls. I think it’s due to changing times as well as natural attrition and new faces in the congregation. Fifteen years ago the old guard would have bristled at anything biblical coming from the pulpit. But most of them have either passed on or softened their tone. We have too much on our plate to be finding fault with well intended believers. We all have strong beliefs about one thing or another. What we believe comes after the fact, manifest in what we do, in this life, here and now. The difference between faith based and secular religion is that the one requires a supernatural power (being) and the promise of eternal life. We skip the supernatural mythology and control politic, cut straight to human relationships; love and take care of each other. We recognize the nature of nature, that it needs to be nurtured, not exploited. 
Next week a different group (program) will be working the recruiting/information table. It might be Green Sanctuary, Racial Justice or one of several others but you cannot make it through our lobby on Sunday morning without being informed and, or solicited. Gandhi told us “As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change toward him. That is the divine mystery.” Since then the idea has been reframed to, Be the change you want to see. I think that’s what we are trying to do. 

HOPE FOR THE BEST

  I went to a bon voyage party the other day for a lady in my coffee group. She splits her year between Kansas City and her native France. But this year is different; she isn’t coming back next year; or the next. Jackie is well into her 90’s. Simply said, people 92+ are old, they just are. Jackie has always been health conscious, exercise, diet, the whole scheme and she has been healthy all along. She is still astute; she does the math and checks the numbers. Long story short, sooner or later attrition catches up with everyone. You don’t have to get terribly sick, you can just wear out and Jackie is hedging against that day, either way. With dual citizenship, she does’t want to be in the United States when something necessary wears out. Any time is a good time but at 93 for sure, you hope for the best but plan for the worst. 

I didn’t know when I began, just where this was going. The socialized medicine versus health care for profit argument were not on my radar but it popped up there as I wrote. I realize that competition is a driving force for everything that can be monetized. Civilized progress depends on it. But it also leaves in its wake, a divided culture where privileged affluence is offset by unforgiving poverty. Affordability and access to health care are obvious issues that separate the Haves from the Have Nots. The leading cause of bankruptcy in America is health care and I am insulated from that fate by no more than an untimely mishap and a few weeks in ICU. 

There is an unholy alliance between health care and the medical insurance industries. Both are profit driven even though both claim their first concern is patient care. Stockholders, administrators and medical staff care far more about their own finances than about faceless, nameless, strangers in need somewhere else. Jackie knows this without me making my case. Whenever her time comes it will come without a $1,000 charge for bandaids or a $2,000 charge from a consultant who looked at her chart and nodded his head. No one in her family will be leveraged into paying her outstanding debt. I wish I could say the same for me. 

VACATION

  I have been on vacation, for lack of a better word. If you don’t have a job and you’re not looking either, what exactly is a vacation? I suppose it’s when one alters their normal routine in favor os something more enjoyable, more satisfying but likely unsustainable. In the end, falling back on a commonplace routine would seem the unavoidable result. Vacation took me back to some old, fondly remembered places for a couple of weeks and I kept company with long treasured friends. For nearly two weeks the road kept winding through hairpin turns while my truck strained up 7% mountain grades, over 12,000 ft passes and groaned in a lower gear on the way down to the next green valley. Surrounded by 14,000 ft. peaks we made our way past cattle grazing in high, alpine parks and meadows. I anticipated the optical illusion where the truck kept kicking down to a lower gear on what appeared to be a gentle, downgrade and the stream next to the road seemed to flow up hill. It was as if the mountains were mocking us. I love the mountains but that should be obvious here. I love the sea shore as well, where the irresistible force meets an immovable object. Something has to give but that tug of war has been waging for eons; no winners or losers, just give and take, rise and fall. I can stand on a high peak and see in a straight line for a hundred miles to a distant mountain top. Standing barefoot in wet sand I can see only a few miles before the horizon gives way to the curve of the earth but it doesn’t matter. Waves lapping at my feet share a bond with ripples lapping at a beach on another continent. I like to think I share maybe a little bit of that connection.
In the beginning, when the first, modern people searched for food and shelter in mountain valleys and along seashores, all they had to work with were bare hands, the naked eye and primitive tools. Still they wanted to know how and why things worked. Maybe (perhaps) the most important attribute of humankind is that without a factual, qualified backstory we will use imagination and a threadbare experience to create one: the origin of myth. Nowadays there is another option, a legacy of critical thinking, research and creative problem solving but those old, primitive feelings are still deeply rooted in there, inside our neural vault. I understand the ocean’s (epipelagic - sunlit zone) and how it compares to the (bathypeligac - deep, dark water). I understand how tectonic plates subduct and override each other, uplifting mountains where there had been flat lands. Still, as much as I know, the sheer magnitude and overreaching influence of mountains and seas are too much to compete with. There is so much we don’t know or understand, I think we come undone in that vacuum. We like to believe we are the captains of our own destiny but that is our modern myth. We find ourselves in over our heads, simple pieces in a vast, open ended, mind boggling puzzle. On my bravest, most confident day, on the mountain or at the shore; I am reduced to feelings of awe and wonder. Mountain ranges and sea shores do that to me just like they must have with my ancient ancestors. Just when we start feeling important, even proud; Mother Nature serves us a strong dose of humbling irrelevance. That’s when we either fall back into the comfortable myth or swallow our medicine.
Early Greek philosophers surmised that tangible matters fall into the temporal realm while matters that can only be accessed with the mind are spiritual in nature. Later, theologians monopolized the language and presumed divine authority. In that climate anything that alludes to the spirit must conform to their religious persuasion. I prefer the old Greek model. When I experience something both incomprehensible and profoundly relevant I have no trouble playing the ‘Spiritual’ card. It is fixed in my experience and it speaks to something important, greater than my ability of process it but never the less, it is real as real can be. My life has been marked again and again by spiritual experiences that I cannot explain but neither can I blow them off like a sneeze. We (people) overestimate our ability to control and override our feelings. Truth is, they rise to the challenge long before we seek a rational path and that tendency is hardwired.
I will keep going to the mountains and to the shore for as long as I can move my feet. My feelings, and I can’t ignore my feelings, they reduce me to the role of a fly on the wall; I get to watch it all unfold. I don’t need the thrill of climbing the mountain. If I get the view from the top it doesn’t matter how I get there: and if my feet get salty-wet on any shore, they have been by default all over the world. 
Midnight, I was warm and dry on my folding cot, in the shelter of my truck-camper somewhere in western Kansas; pouring rain beat out a healthy rhythm on my aluminum roof. Raindrops the size of peanuts had been on vacation from their mundane commonplace, vaporized, gone for a cloud ride and then jettisoned. We were on our way home, each in our own way. On the road next day I thought about those raindrops booming on my roof. Where had the storm dropped them; maybe breathing new life into a thirsty sunflower. There I go; making myth again. Sometimes I can’t help myself. 

ARTIFICIAL SWEETENER

  This will not be entertaining or informative but I’ve had a few weeks where the illusion has worn thin and the need to recenter is too much to dismiss. It’s been over twenty years since the movie, A Few Good Men and the hook line from that movie is what we remember. The scene is set in a courtroom during a military court martial where Tom Cruise is an aggressive young prosecutor and Jack Nicholson is the uncooperative witness. They are in the throws of a heated exchange and Cruise tries to regain control with a passionate plea; “We just want the truth!” Nicholson’s response comes like a cannon shot, full of rage and contempt: “You can’t handle the truth!” My illusion has to do with how slippery the truth can be and whether or not you can deal with it once you have it in your grasp. 
Buddhism leans heavily on the Four Noble Truths. Simply stated they tell us: This life is rooted in suffering, that suffering has a cause but the suffering will end, and that has a cause as well. I am not Buddhist but I think the overarching ideas there are profound. Buddha informs us that separation & avoidance help us along the path of enlightened. Rather than engage, we should strive to isolate from worldly distraction; not with a pious, submissive religion but through our own virtual self (meditation). 
I like the message but I cannot resist, do not want to abstain from the stuff of suffering. I want to warm in the shine and drench in the rain, so I suffer like everyone else. The fact that we are self aware, combining imagination and language to write our own future, it does not save us from whatever destiny has in store. But living in that (deliverance) myth allows enough wiggle room to offset the suffering, at least a little bit, at least for a while. Can we brainwash ourselves into a comfort zone, not all that different than hitting on cocaine or marijuana; maybe so. But you have to keep taking the pill. 
Stoicism is a school of philosophy that I am drawn to. The principle is that one should use reason to overcome self destructive emotions; it defaults to rules and patterns that are consistent with nature. That is truly a tall order as we (humans) have evolved to fall back on emotional conditioning long before we ever consider reason. That observation deserves repeating (long before we ever consider reason). In my attempt to recenter if you will, one's ability to push back against instinctive emotions is central to my purpose. If you have no concept of a parachute or its life saving potential then the thought of jumping out of a plunging, out of control airplane will never move you to action. I tend to be stoic, even skeptical and it (almost) always leaves me in the lurch between my own mortality and human mythology. 

I remember enough from my own experience and have filled in the blanks to see how people fumble the (truth) like football players drop the ball. Germany in 1936, a groundswell of self obsessed patriots put their faith in a narcissist demagogue to make Germany great again. He surrounded himself with subordinates whose first loyalty was to the despot himself rather than their responsibility to their country. We know how that turned out. Germany will never completely shed the embarrassment and shame of that folly. Now, some 80 years later there is groundswell support in America for another narcissist demagogue who is promising to make America great again. He parrots the same racist, nationalistic argument that propelled Adolph H. and his 3rd Reich. I get it! I’m old and irrelevant but I get it and it is terribly disappointing. If one cannot define narcissist, demagogue and despot then they should go dig in the nearest dictionary, right now. The collective history of demagogues reflects and repeats the same scenario, all ending with really, really bad news. 
I like to think I no longer need a buffer (an emotional preset) to ease the suffering. If my logic is nothing more than an unidentified emotion then the joke is one me. But iI'm not afraid of the unknown or life's undesirable, unavoidable destination. It simply is what it is. Meditation and withdrawal are not a cure. I am convinced that a short but exciting ride is better than a long nap. Maybe I’ve brainwashed myself into accepting my insignificant little part in disbursing the human genome. My ego and my culture would favor a comfortable afterlife and a plaque on a pillar somewhere but the illusion and the myth have no legs of their own. There in lies the truth that is so difficult to reconcile. Regardless of how the story goes after I’ve gone; I was here. I identify with Jack Nicholson. If you can’t handle the truth then someone who wrestles with the math and trusts the numbers should be trying to get your attention. I suspect I will wake up tomorrow and take comfort in the new day. It will be good enough but not all that wonderful. After all, a true stoic wouldn’t know how to respond to artificial sweetener. 

CUMPLEAÑOS

  Feliz cumpleaños para me. En la fecha de hoy, mi madre me lanzó en un viaje que me traería aquí, hoy. Gracias mamá y gracias a todos. Hoy se cumplen ochenta y cuatro años de historia de fondo para mí. Todavia tengo la mayoría de mis dientes y todos los huesos rotos han sanado. Soy un milagro que camina y habla.
Mi vida ha sido larga con muchas recompensas y solo unos pocos fracasos. Aún así, esta vida se trata de la lucha y uno debe recordar eso. Comparto la misma fecha de nacimiento pero año diferente con Barrack Obama, un buen hombre pero presidente mediocre y con Percy Shelley, un escritor maravilloso cuya reputación e ideas mejoran. Feliz cumpleaños a mí también a Obama, que sigue vivo, sigue convirtiendo el buen vino en orina. Y no se olvide de Shelley, cuyo legado aun vive.

BIG & LITTLE DOG

  These are the Dog Days of Summer, July 3 thru August 11 if it matters. The Greeks responded to the sultry midsummer and gave it a name. Midsummer was generally associated with drought or storms, lethargy, fever, mad dogs (why I don’t know) and particularly the heat. The “Dog” comes with the constellation ‘Canis Major’ (or Big Dog). The moon rises in the east just like the Sun but it can come up any time of day or night, depending on just where it is in its orbit around the earth and likewise, the stars keep their own schedule but they have a different story. There are ten stars in Canis Major and the Greek astronomers were quick to note that one of them (Sirius) was the brightest star in all of the sky (except for our Sun of course but it does’t count because it is so close to us). So the Big Dog rises in the east, sometimes sooner, sometimes later and they (Greeks) kept close track of that schedule. 
Just so happens; on July 3 (Gregorian) calendar the last constellation to rise before the Sun comes up is Canis Major; The Big Dog. They couldn’t miss it then, we can’t miss it now because Sirius is so bright. Shortly after that the sky turns pink and the Sun comes up. By midwinter the Big Dog has been up all night, starting to sink in the west. So said, they associated Sirius and the Sun coming up so close together as a signal if not the cause for summer’s heat and discomfort.
There is a proud story that accounts for the order in which constellations follow one another across the night sky and what their business is; why the dogs, there are two (Canis Major & Minor) following Orion, the hunter and whose trail is the hunter on? I loved the story when I first heard it but the complexity of two satellites both in rotating and revolving relationships with each other and a relatively fixed star (Sun) if you will; that had to wait for me to grow up. But the Greeks were famous for their stories. 
These are the Dog Days, 2023 on the current Gregorian calendar. Nowadays the Dog reference is no more than cultural carryover from the early Greeks that has found a niche. Back then it had astronomical significance that no longer prevail. The official dates are Greek but we will still be in the Dog Days (Hot) thru August and into September, as long as it is stifling hot and we’re longing for cool nights and some fall color in the trees. We don’t need the stars to tell us, it’s hardwired into our comfort zone. 
But it is hot how, uncomfortably hot. Today makes three days in a row to register three digits, 102 degrees today and a few more forecast in the next week. Some rain on the way and a break in the heat, down into the mid 90’s and then back to lethargy and watching the voltage dial on the electric meter spin. I have a new, improved air conditioner and I can take comfort in that my bill will be less that with the old one. I keep the thermostat set on 80 or 82 while most of my family and friends think I’m trying to prove something. They need it down in the low 70’s or they think they are being punished. I don’t think I’m different, I just remember 100 + when I was a kid and we didn’t have to be told, just go play with the water hose to keep cool. We acclimate to what we’ve got. That is worth repeating, and I don’t want to be fixed on a hook at 68-70 degrees when the Dog Days are set on parboil. If I stay acclimated to the mid 80’s then a 15-20 degree bump can be tolerated; a 35-40 degree bump cannot. With my new AC, if the air is dry and moving I can cope, even take a nap. 
But I hear on the news that all over the world, even here in the U.S.A., people are dropping over from heat exhaustion and some don’t get back up. I should count myself lucky and I do, not just for the heat but the cold as well. I used to brave the blizzard with frost in my nostrils and eyelashes but I come inside now before I have to. If I don’t like the weather where I’m at I can go someplace where it checks to see what I’m wearing before it makes up its mind. By the way, Orion the hunter is following Leo the lion with only a sword and two dogs that don't seem to care one way or the other if they catch up with the lion.