When I started the blog ‘Stones In The Road’ I was traveling a lot and there was no end of material to write about. I loved that life. When I try to pinpoint when that all changed it’s not easy. Even when you see it in your peers and know it’s inevitable, even when you go to lengths to push back against it; the body is a machine and machines wear out. Like any machine, sometimes you can restore it or give it a temporary fix and sometimes you just lag farther and farther behind. When was it: I must be like lots of others who point back to the pandemic, March, 2020. For the next year and deep into 2021 I felt like a prisoner in my house. With the vaccine and distancing it felt like we might be over the hump but in reflection I am still struggling; blame it on Covid. Still I’m not complaining. It might have just been my time to come in off the road and start living like the stereotypical octogenarian.
Without the travel it’s easy to bog down in the bad news of the day. Even when things seem to turn out the better that boost is short lived, displaced quickly by new disappointments. Instead of writing about cool experiences in Mexico or Canada or on the Gulf Coast or Great Lakes all I come up with is the same-old, same-old network news. Maybe I’m in that temporary reprieve mode where my health is very good but I have a large team of specialists who monitor every little change and focus on prevention to stay ahead of the bad news.
Thirty years ago (late 1980’s) I took an interest in Native American history and their ‘story’. To go there one needs to study from their perspective (Vine DeLoria & Ed McGaa), not books written by Eurocentric white men. Winners never give a fair rendering of the facts. I knew about the racism of slavery but having been weaned on the myth of white superiority, I learned to trust the myth. Nobody wants to dwell in the legacy of an evil practice so we (my culture) created an alternative back story that basically blames the victims for their own sorry condition (winners writing history again). But the consequence of Manifest Destiny (God’s preferred plan) to expand the new nation westward was horrendous. Conquest and ethnic cleansing of indigenous cultures was the rule. It targeted tribal nations that had occupied the continent with a stable culture for thousands of years; the consequence was and still is a crime against humanity; no less than Nazi Germany (1936-45). When you lose they punish you for your crimes.
Change comes slowly and when it calls for the mitigation and reconciliation of wrongs, we (America) tends to do what conquering nations have always done; make up a story that justifies our appetite. I am not singling out America. Nationalism is a ‘one-size-fits-all’ scheme, any nation with the power can get away with murder and chalk it up as self defense. Losers should feel lucky to be alive. In nationalistic circlers the only acceptable outcome is to win, at any cost. I am not a Nationalist.
Without the travel it’s easy to bog down in the bad news of the day. Even when things seem to turn out the better that boost is short lived, displaced quickly by new disappointments. Instead of writing about cool experiences in Mexico or Canada or on the Gulf Coast or Great Lakes all I come up with is the same-old, same-old network news. Maybe I’m in that temporary reprieve mode where my health is very good but I have a large team of specialists who monitor every little change and focus on prevention to stay ahead of the bad news.
Thirty years ago (late 1980’s) I took an interest in Native American history and their ‘story’. To go there one needs to study from their perspective (Vine DeLoria & Ed McGaa), not books written by Eurocentric white men. Winners never give a fair rendering of the facts. I knew about the racism of slavery but having been weaned on the myth of white superiority, I learned to trust the myth. Nobody wants to dwell in the legacy of an evil practice so we (my culture) created an alternative back story that basically blames the victims for their own sorry condition (winners writing history again). But the consequence of Manifest Destiny (God’s preferred plan) to expand the new nation westward was horrendous. Conquest and ethnic cleansing of indigenous cultures was the rule. It targeted tribal nations that had occupied the continent with a stable culture for thousands of years; the consequence was and still is a crime against humanity; no less than Nazi Germany (1936-45). When you lose they punish you for your crimes.
Change comes slowly and when it calls for the mitigation and reconciliation of wrongs, we (America) tends to do what conquering nations have always done; make up a story that justifies our appetite. I am not singling out America. Nationalism is a ‘one-size-fits-all’ scheme, any nation with the power can get away with murder and chalk it up as self defense. Losers should feel lucky to be alive. In nationalistic circlers the only acceptable outcome is to win, at any cost. I am not a Nationalist.
In the past 20+ years I have turned my attention to how society and human nature create an alternate version of how our world works. Our world would seem to be a mythical construct where the only worthy pursuit is to worship ourselves and manipulate everything to our own whims. I can't get my head around the sanctity of human life and the myth of anything supernatural. Extreme numbers can make evolution seem like too much to believe. With some the simplicity of myth can be, often is more tolerable than doing the math. The absence of credible evidence does not prove anything, never has and no matter how well established in tradition, the story has to be propped up with wannabe wisdom. The ability to project a reliable probability has its own legs. There is a popular movement that challenges the principles of critical thought, expertise and scientific process, Its proponents question, "Who are these people anyway - a bunch of high brow intellectuals who cannot give us the universal truth that will hold up forever. Universal Truth would make us feel good and that’s what we want." It would seem that mythological accounts and traditional beliefs keep us centered in our comfort zone and even if that doesn’t work it is more preferable than disciplined practice and procedure (doing the math).
So here I am again, wanting to tell a better story but my sources are drying up; don’t get around much anymore. Getting a thumbs-up from one of my doctors is good news but not a good story. My house has become more of a responsibility than a comfortable niche and I don’t want to leave it for too long lest something break and cost lots of $$$ to fix. When I sit down to write, the Muse generally serves up issues that pit People against other People, depending on how the network spins it. All I can do is try to separate a few facts from the spin, between what I can deduce and what People would have me believe. Like one of my heroes George Carlin, I hold my species (Homo sapiens) in a state of Sympathetic Contempt. Christians would tell us to hate the sin but love the sinner, George would laugh at the self righteous ‘Sin’ talk. We are not all we’ve been given credit for. Our neural/emotional/intellectual makeup keeps tugging us in opposite directions. From aggressive, self obsessed, power hungry instincts to the virtues of nurturing, cooperating and egalitarian behavior, People keep vacillating from one charismatic monkey to another. One would build bridges while the other calls for building a fence. Over millennia the world has changed but People have not, not really. We live longer, have better tools and toys but we can’t rise to meet our own intellectual potential for peaceful coexistence and a willingness to disagree (fight fair). I really don’t know what to write about today but I have a couple of pages that address why I don’t have a better story.
So here I am again, wanting to tell a better story but my sources are drying up; don’t get around much anymore. Getting a thumbs-up from one of my doctors is good news but not a good story. My house has become more of a responsibility than a comfortable niche and I don’t want to leave it for too long lest something break and cost lots of $$$ to fix. When I sit down to write, the Muse generally serves up issues that pit People against other People, depending on how the network spins it. All I can do is try to separate a few facts from the spin, between what I can deduce and what People would have me believe. Like one of my heroes George Carlin, I hold my species (Homo sapiens) in a state of Sympathetic Contempt. Christians would tell us to hate the sin but love the sinner, George would laugh at the self righteous ‘Sin’ talk. We are not all we’ve been given credit for. Our neural/emotional/intellectual makeup keeps tugging us in opposite directions. From aggressive, self obsessed, power hungry instincts to the virtues of nurturing, cooperating and egalitarian behavior, People keep vacillating from one charismatic monkey to another. One would build bridges while the other calls for building a fence. Over millennia the world has changed but People have not, not really. We live longer, have better tools and toys but we can’t rise to meet our own intellectual potential for peaceful coexistence and a willingness to disagree (fight fair). I really don’t know what to write about today but I have a couple of pages that address why I don’t have a better story.
No comments:
Post a Comment