John Swinburn

The mayor of Cedar Rapids, Iowa is a recently-retired lawyer who also is husband to a woman who worked for me many years ago. The now-mayor and his wife, when the two of them lived in Houston, Texas, visited my late wife and me at our home occasionally, where we hosted them for weekend brunches that sometimes included our versions of Orange Julius. The ingredients in our version, my fading memory tells me, included egg whites and orange juice and ice and a bit of alcohol—maybe Amaretto.

My contacts with the now-mayor and his wife have been relatively rare over the years. Every year, I send her birthday greetings (because of the date of her birthday, it’s extremely easy to remember) and, much more rarely, exchange email updates with her. The only time I recall speaking directly with her husband was during a business event in Cedar Rapids sometime between 1990 and 1997. They had me over for dinner at their house one evening. She picked me up at my hotel, took me to their house, and gave me a ride back to my hotel after dinner.

To the best of my recollection, we rarely if ever spoke of politics. It has only been sometime during the last four years that I learned that the now-mayor identifies as Republican; I do not know how my former employee classifies herself. But I suspect both of them, regardless of their political affiliations, would say they are rather moderate in their political viewpoints; I have no real evidence to support that contention, but I feel pretty confident I am right, nonetheless.

My thoughts this morning about my ex-employee and her mayor husband were triggered, I suspect, by my explorations of various towns in Iowa: Fairfield, Decorah, and a few others. There’s nothing prompting my interest, other than ancient curiosity and recent coincidental explorations. And a recent email exchange with my former employee (inquiring into what she might be able to tell me about Fairfield) revealed that her husband is planning to run for a second term; the nonpartisan election is in November.

I have changed—in massive and fundamental ways—since I left the job where I met and hired the now-mayor’s wife. When I left Houston, the two of them remained there. I do not recall when they moved from Houston, returning to their native Iowa to rear their children. During the intervening years, between my departure from Houston and now, I have evolved into a completely different person. I’ve learned to better control my impulses and my anger and I’ve bounced from politically progressive to conservative to more progressive and then further to extremely progressive; I might even consider myself radically progressive now. My personality, aside from its political manifestations, has changed dramatically since those early days of young adulthood, too. I suspect my former employee has changed quite a lot since then, too, as has the now-mayor. But that’s pure conjecture. I know little of them. I know only slightly more of myself. I’d like to think I am a better person now than I was way back then, but how much do we really change—at our core—simply with the passage of time? Do we just learn to stifle and control ourselves more as the years go by, or do we actually mature and improve (or degrade) over time?

+++

I said it yesterday, but I’ll say it again: Happy Birthday to my brother, whose birthday is today. This morning, I’ll head in to Hot Springs for a Mohs procedure, a process whereby a dermatologist will carve away tissue from an identified squamous cell carcinoma and examine it microscopically. Once the pieces of carved tissue reveal no cancer, the dermatologist will conclude that he has removed all cancerous cells and I will be patched and sent home, hopefully never again to return for further treatment. Nothing is assured, of course, but this skin cancer is not one of the aggressive, dangerous forms. I have nothing to worry about, other than an unpleasant thought process involving the idea of carving away at my flesh. Presumably, a good anesthetic will be used; perhaps I should take tequila and gummies with me…but I’d probably better not.

+++

Later today, one of the beautiful women I sometimes write about will visit my IC and me, when we’ll talk about writing and where we’ll salivate over a chicken pot pie, courtesy of the visiting beautiful woman (differentiated from the beautiful woman who is one and the same as my IC). In the intervening hours between carvery and poetry, I will continue to organize files, one of my favorite pastimes. Oh, boy.

Today is my sister-in-law’s birthday. Happy Birthday, Carol! And tomorrow is my brother’s birthday. Happy Birthday, Tom!

+++

Let me tell you this: if you meet a loner, no matter what they tell you, it’s not because they enjoy solitude. It’s because they have tried to blend into the world before, and people continue to disappoint them.

~ Jodi Picoult ~

I don’t know that I entirely accept Picoult’s statement, taken from her book, My Sister’s Keeper, but I understand it. I understand how disappointment can leave a person feeling lost and alone. It’s as if the world played a ruthless trick—teasing with optimism and hope, only to snatch them away and replace them with pessimism and despair. The cruelest form of bait and switch that takes away the confidence in one’s ability to cope with facts.

Writers of fiction may simply be responding to bitter reality. They replace it, either with more acceptable circumstances or by painting ugly alternatives that make what is seem far more tolerable than what could be.

Suicide is the sharpest, devastatingly intense, and irrevocable response to extreme disappointment. That disappointment with the world—whether external or completely internal—is more severe than most people, thankfully, will ever experience. People respond to excruciating disappointment in radically different ways, ranging from suicide to passionate, almost furious, rebellion against it. I can only barely begin to imagine the depth of disappointment a person must feel to reach the conclusion that suicide is the only acceptable response. The word, “disappointment,” seems utterly inadequate to describe the intensity of the pain; but I think that must be what it is. Disappointment with the world or disappointment with oneself.

To suggest I might even begin to understand the depths of despair that could drive a person to suicide may be considered by some to be the height of arrogance. But I cannot be alone in thinking it; my arrogance is not in thinking it, but in having the gall to share what I think. There are some thoughts that one simply does not share. Unless one happens to be me. That’s one of my multitude of flaws; I express myself, even when what is inside my brain is uncomfortable to the world around me. Maybe that’s the wellspring of disappointment.

+++

I delivered a packet of tax-related material to an accountant yesterday. Whether it is sufficient remains to be seen; I won’t even have the opportunity to discuss the material with her until two weeks hence. And, then, the conversation will be by telephone, thanks to COVID. Time is running low on the extension I was granted to file my taxes. I hope the accountant can zip through it in short order.

Between now and then, I intend to go through the morass of paper I’ve allowed to pile up during the last fourteen months, filing away what needs to be kept and disposing of what can safely be discarded. I loathe disorder, even though often I am the chief purveyor of chaos in my life. Perhaps that statement is telling: maybe I can take from it the simple truth that I loathe myself for being unable or unwilling to keep my life in order.

+++

Last night’s binge-fest, during which we watched several additional episodes of How to Get Away with Murder, was thought-provoking. The evolution of the main character’s personality continued to reveal her as both a troubled woman and someone whose bitter personality is easy to understand. At the core of her deeply unlikeable character traits are responses to terrible emotional experiences; ultimately, she hates herself for who she is. Yet who she is arises from what she has experienced. Her behaviors and her attitudes are predictable in light of what she has been through; yet until those behaviors and attitudes change, she can have no hope of overcoming her experiences. It’s like a Catch-22 on steroids. As improbable as the plot has become, the program is absolutely riveting. We’re nearing the end of the sixth and final season (on Netflix); we’re already mourning the passing of the show as we near the final episode.

+++

I’ll spend the next few years trying to understand the world, a continuation of what I’ve been doing for the past 67 years (almost 68). I don’t think I’m any closer now than I was 60 years ago. I wonder whether Aristotle or Leonardo da Vinci or Dante or the button-maker’s apprentice or anyone else ever succeeded in the quest to understand the world?  Hard to say. I’ve never been able to ask them.

To those I may have wronged,
I ask forgiveness.
To those I may have helped,
I wish I had done more.
To those I neglected to help,
I ask for understanding.
To those who helped me,
I thank you with all my Heart.

~ Adaptation of a Prayer for Yom Kippur ~

A slightly different version of the quotation above came to my attention early this morning as I skimmed a Facebook message posted by a woman with whom I attended high school about six lifetimes ago. I know only a little about her, but her posts often suggest that she is a fundamentally religious person, although she seems skeptical and sarcastic about certain aspects of religion and life in general. I suppose we’re all a little like that.

I know very little about Judaism, but I know more today than I knew five years ago. Five years ago, I would have reacted to the Jewish religion in the same way I had always reacted to all other religions: with disdain, contempt, scorn. But as sometimes is the case, aging has brought with it a bit more tolerance, a touch more humility, and a tad more open-mindedness. And that has coincided with the recognition that  buried in the muck of organized religion and religious thought, there are kernels of truth. Not divine truth, but fundamental human truth; truth that lives within almost all of us in the form of compassion.

All of the foregoing  leads me to say  this: most religious holidays (even those steeped in metaphysical/divine/doctrinaire nonsense) have at their core some seeds of wisdom. Somewhere in there, hidden beneath all the ritual and assertions of divinity, fundamental principles of human decency are exposed; there, amidst the noise, is a vast expanse of silent peace.

Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, is said to be the holiest day of the year in Judaism. With its central themes of atonement and repentance, the day’s importance addresses core ideas upon which Judaism is based. The day is observed not just by deeply religious Jews but by secular Jews who may not observe other holidays of the faith. According to Wikipedia, for many secular Jews the High Holy Days (of which Yom Kippur is the most holy) are the only times of the year during which they attend synagogue—causing synagogue attendance to soar. That’s irrelevant to my thinking this morning, but interesting, nonetheless. By the way, Yom Kippur this year will begin the evening of September 15 and end the evening of September 16.

Coincidentally, my sister-in-law sent me another quotation, based in religious thought, early this morning. I found it interesting, intriguing, and insightful:

Holding on to anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.

~ Buddha ~

Now that I allow myself to absorb the messages of religion (while still rejecting the supernatural or divine premises upon which so many religions are based), I find more and more concepts that coincide with my notions of truth. And it’s not just a sense that those concepts validate my own; increasingly, those concepts cause me to think more deeply about my own world view. Sometimes, they cause me to make minor—and in some cases, major—adjustments in that perspective.

+++

And, so, that’s where my head is this morning, as I prepare for day two of my efforts to finally get my 2020 taxes completed and filed.  Yesterday, I got a great deal done. I really need more than two days to finish the process of getting my paperwork all in order; not just tax paperwork, but general financial and related paperwork. The stuff that my IC admonishes me to leave behind in favor of relying entirely on electronic/magnetic versions of bills, etc. I will admit to getting more than a little irritated by constant snarky remarks about receiving and keeping paper copies of bills. One day, I may decide to rely more heavily on companies that promise to keep my records safe and available, but that day is not today, nor will it be a day this year and probably not next. At any rate, it won’t happen until I am satisfied that all my paper records are completely and totally in order and safely catalogued.

+++

Come hell or high water, I will explore parts of the world outside my sheltered sphere sometime next week. I’d like to experience it in a self-propelled recreational vehicle, but I guess I’ll have to rely on my car. If I could, though, I’d go along for the ride with a couple I know from church; they’re somewhere in Michigan at this point—or maybe in Canada by now—experiencing cooler weather and freedom from the daily miasma of Village politics.  But they are not examining Iowa, which I’m intent on doing, so riding with them would not meet my needs for the moment.

I’ve joked with friends that the female half of the couple wanted to get a smaller RV that she feels comfortable driving so she could, if tight-spaced RV living were to become too constraining, leave her male companion at a gas station along the way as she escaped to total solitude and freedom. No, she is devoted to him, and he to her, so that troublesome fantasy will not come to pass. But if they decide they don’t like their RV, maybe they would let me borrow it for awhile. Hmm. That’s not likely, either. My IC probably would have something to say about that.

+++

If the world were a just, fair, and comfortable place, I would have a breakfast this morning of steak and eggs or congee and miso soup or pork chops with a side of spicy grits. But the world is not that fair, just, and comfortable place. So, instead, I’ll probably have a bowl of thumb tacks drenched in motor oil and flavored with lye soap flakes. Or cereal. Same thing.

Off to the races. Today, I’ll call an accountant to try to take this thing to the next level.

Some days, the photographic reminders sent to me by Microsoft and Google—images from this day three or six or ten years ago—are welcome souvenirs of happy experiences. But some days the images bring back memories that tear me apart. They remind me of what I’ve lost, never to find again. I feel mixed emotions when I see those photographs. On one hand, I want the images etched in my brain forever; on the other, I want to smash the computer screen for its cruelty in taunting me about a life I’ll never experience again. It’s not the computer screen, of course. It’s me. It’s my response to a photographic image. It’s an unexpected trigger that I can barely withstand. Suddenly, my plans for the day are ruined, replaced by memories that cause tears to flood down my face. It will pass. But never completely.

+++

I cannot let photos ruin today’s plans. Today, I must devote my energies to completing long-delayed tax forms. Today, I must find and dredge up 1099s and their brethren. Those forms are convoluted bureaucratic evidence of our society’s worship of and responsibilities for financing war and imprisonment and society restrictions on individual freedoms. And, of course, hurricane and forest fire relief and interstate highways. But getting a reliable picture of how our tax dollars are spent is a little like determining the make and model of cars on a snow-covered highway by examining the tracks their tires make: it’s a long, excruciating, and imprecise undertaking. Here’s a graph showing 2015 figures on discretionary spending; a graph incorporating mandatory spending would present a different picture (with only around 11% of total expenditures going toward military spending, compared to 54% of discretionary spending).

Ah, but I’m getting off-track, as I am wont to do. I need to return to the issue at hand; namely, getting my taxes done. If I don’t, the Federal Government could take possession of my bank accounts, cease payment of my Social Security benefits, terminate my Medicare benefits, and send heavily-armed enforcers whose faces are hidden behind camouflage masks to drag me into the streets to make a bloody, screaming example of me. Well, I may be exaggerating a tad. Suffice it to say failure to file my tax forms, even after paying my taxes, would result in unpleasantness I do not wish to experience. So I better get to it, and soon.

+++

Yesterday’s power outage in parts of the western section of the Village kept us (and all other members and guests) from attending our church. Instead, we took advantage of the unexpected and unplanned freedom by lolling about; eating lunch out and, in leisurely fashion, filling my IC’s display cases (there’s probably a less commercial-sounding name for them) with glass and crystal and other showy pieces of art disguised as drinkware and such. We thought about inviting a friend over to exhibit laughter-inducing behavior, but that thought came too late in the day to act on. So we were modestly productive, instead. And we visited with another friend, who had lent us a spectacularly good book on Hamilton (the musical), to return his book and chat about his impending plans to relocate to another state.

+++

We are not alone in desiring change. Change of scenery, change of climate, change of attitude, change of lifestyle. Just change. Last night, my IC called to speak to one of the organizers of a UU church in one potential destination. The organizer’s involvement in creating a new “fellowship” clearly demonstrates the woman’s interest in change. Everyone wants change; but not too much. We want change sufficient to recognize that there’s a difference, but not so much as to upend our lives completely. The trick, of course, is to know where that sweet spot rests. And it’s vital that we recognize the losses that accompany change, if we have any hope of filling in the gaps caused by those losses. In an ideal world, friends would all simultaneously come to the conclusion that change is right for them, too, at the same time. But deeply engrained idealism is reserved for the young and inexperienced; people who have been around the block a few times know that idealism has the ability to either re-create youth or crush the soul. It’s best to be careful around seeking the ideal in any environment, because ideal circumstances can come with long, sharp knives in the hands of highly-practiced meat carvers who have bad attitudes. That is, the ideal seldom is.

+++

A promise is a promise. I promised myself I would attack taxes today (and tomorrow, if that’s what it takes), and I shall keep that promise. So, no more delays. I’ll wrap up this post, make some more coffee, have a bowl of cereal, and get to work. Please think of me today as you go about your happier-than-mine day. Send good vibes; in anticipation that you will, I am sending them to you.

Attraction and aversion are two feelings
that keep people within the bondage
of ignorant repetitive behavior…
If people do not crave to be pleased,
they will not be displeased.
What causes mental suffering is not the environment
but the mind itself.

~ Muso Kokushi ~

The wisdom of simple thought is both straightforwardly plain and intricately complex. Wisdom arises from the intersection of deep knowledge and good judgment, both of which emerge from experience transformed into truth. But truth is a fleeting condition that changes with every change in the reality in which we find ourselves.  In other word, truth is contextual. And so, too, are knowledge and judgment and everything that springs from them. We live in an ever-changing universe which requires constant and instantaneous changes to our environment if we have any hope of surviving. But survival is not a synonym for happiness, so there must be something else that drives us toward contentment. Survival, alone, isn’t it. That argues for making survival a secondary objective of living. Maybe contentment should be the primary motive. Yet, following the argument in Kokusi’s assertion, if people do not crave to be content, they will not be discontented. Looking backward a bit, if people do not crave to survive, they will not…what? Survive? Care about survival? Wisdom sometimes requires abandoning mental gymnastics long enough to be carried on a stretcher to the finish line.

+++

Why? That perpetual question that children ask is maddening. Why, indeed? Do we ever abandon that innate curiosity? Is our thirst for knowing the unknowable ever satisfied? The answer too many of us accept is, “just because.” That’s equivalent to “who knows?” or “it was meant to be.” There are answers to the question. We may not have the patience to learn what they are, but there are answers. We may not have the mental acuity to understand the answers, but that does not negate the fact that answers exist. We might give up on answers that can be measured against reality in favor of relying on the belief in magic, instead (church, anyone?). There are answers; legitimate answers. But we might not recognize them as answers. We might, instead, think they are questions. Why? For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Newton had the answer to why. We seem to have been unable to accept that realization, though. We can replace “action” with other things, realizing the truth that lies therein: For every emotion there is an equal and opposite emotion. For every truth there is an equal and opposite fiction. Or, put another way, For every truth, there is an equal and opposite lie. For every distance, there is an equal and opposite proximity. For every gentleness, there is an equal and opposite roughness.  For every love, there is an equal and opposite hatred. For every compassion, there is an equal and opposite cruelty.

In fact, the answers are clear and indisputable: answers to “why?” are abundant. And factual and truthful but utterly unsatisfactory because they are never complete. There’s always a follow-up; a second part to the question that circles back on the answer like a cougar on its prey.

Geospatial World reports that the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), which keeps a record of  satellites orbiting Earth, says there were 6,542 satellites in orbit around our planet. Of those, 3,372 satellites are active and 3,170 are inactive—as of January 1, 2021. SpaceX, Rocket Lab, Virgin Orbit, Firefly Aerospace, etc. have been busy since that date launching more satellites. In fact, as of June 30, SpaceX had made twenty additional launches this year. The company provides a “ride-share” program in which it propels rockets into space on behalf of customers that want satellites in orbit; the satellites are delivered to orbit by SpaceX, which then returns its rockets to the ground.

I explored Earth-orbiting satellites as a follow-up to a story I read online yesterday that described the unsuccessful launch of a Firefly Aerospace rocket. The launch was  the company’s first attempt to reach Earth orbit with a rocket carrying a commercial payload of satellites.

Space “travel” has been in the news lately because certain multi-billionaires have famously spent enormous sums of money to take what amounts to space tourism excursions. Some people are up in arms about those expensive vacations, arguing that the money would be better spent on humanitarian efforts here on Earth. While I agree that space tourism is wasteful and decadent, I gladly would take the trip if the opportunity presented itself. But more importantly, I think space exploration is vital. We learn so much simply by sending rockets into orbit. Even the unsuccessful launches and the launches carrying egotists and adventurers can give us important data about our planet, space, and the “glue” that keeps the universe from expanding out of control into oblivion. Or something like that.

+++

If the world wishes to treat me fairly this morning, I will go get a haircut shortly. I plan to arrive at the barber shop just about the time they open so I will be among the first customers. Then, I will come home, pick up my IC, and we will go to Home Plate for a haircutting celebratory breakfast. The remainder of the day will be spent, in bits and pieces, getting things organized. That is, putting things away—things from the merger of two households. This merger continues to drum into me the fact that I own too much “stuff.” Almost everyone does. At least everyone I know in this country built on the premise that “more” is better. This place designed physically and philosophically to follow the mantra “money and things it can buy equate in direct proportion to happiness.” Of course, we know that’s not true. But we continue to behave as if it were. Money and things, especially things attached to sentimental memories, rule our lives. We do not control our lives; we response to monetary and sentimental commands, urging us on to collect more stuff that we believe will give us ultimate and absolute fulfilment. Well, that may be a stretch. But not much.

+++

Time to dress, pee, and flee. Off to the haircuttery for a change of image and, perhaps, a corresponding change of personality. We shall see. We always do.

Unexpected consequences. I’m referring to the effects triggered by COVID-19 on the automotive manufacturing supply chain. An article posted yesterday on AP Online reported that GM and Ford have halted some production in response to a worsening chip shortage. Both automakers have temporarily closed factories in response to disruptions in the supply of chips needed to build various automobiles. Disruption of the supplies was caused by COVID-19 closures of primarily Asian factories that supply chip components.

Unintended consequences get to the heart of why you never really understand an adaptive problem until you have solved it. Problems morph and “solutions” often point to deeper problems. In social life, as in nature, we are walking on a trampoline. Every inroad reconfigures the environment we tread on.

~~ Richard Pascale ~

Even before the supply interruption, COVID dealt some blows to production in the form of forced factory closures, productivity declines due to staffing shortages (a result of both sickness and the fear of sickness) and related matters. Will this long-lived catastrophe ever play itself out? And, even if it does, what other unexpected consequences will surprise and startle us and otherwise cause grief and trauma and mounting stress? And what chain reactions will those emotional tolls trigger?

+++

If I had sufficient money and youth (and its attendant energy), I would use this enormously chaotic economic period to start a business of some kind. I do not know precisely what sort of business I would start, only that it would go against prevailing wisdom as to sure-fire failures. Perhaps a pricey, exotic restaurant steeped in international flavors; struggling for staff and product deliveries. Or maybe a hydroponic tomato farm in New Mexico or Arizona, where water and reliable employees can be extremely hard to come by. Instead, I might opt to operate a radio station devoted to news and entertainment with a focus on evangelical atheism. The point would be to go against the grain; provided, of course, innovative market research revealed an unmet demand for the products/services the business would offer. And provided the unusual aspects of the business could successfully generate newsworthy “buzz.” But who am I kidding? I have neither enough money nor enough lifespan left in my respective accounts to see the new business through to completion. So, instead, I’ll just fantasize about it. And maybe I’ll use an imaginary business or two as fodder for some short fiction.

+++

Hurricane Ida did a great deal of damage and ruined a lot of lives. But the worst of the storm may not have been its impact on the Gulf Coast. The worst might have been the horrendous flooding that is taking place in the Northeast. As of this morning, media reports say 48 people in five northeastern states died as a result of floodwaters from the dying storm. That is on top of the thirteen deaths in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. Ach! What tragedy.

+++

I woke this morning to the sound of pelicans scooping up fish as the birds glided over the early-morning stillness of a coastal lagoon. It was a dream, of course, but it felt and smelled and sounded absolutely real. I was in a small boat on the shore, alone, just about to launch into the water. It was an idyllic scene until I turned to discover that I was on the edge of a golf course where a tournament was being played. The attention of the crowd of spectators was on me as I slogged through the muddy periphery of the course toward my boat, which had drifted away from me. Apparently, I had interrupted play on a key hole. I was angry and embarrassed until I woke up to discover I was in bed. My embarrassment faded, leaving only anger.

+++

We got a great deal done yesterday, but there is so very much more to do. Suddenly, this morning, I do not care. I do not care that the house is messy. I do not care that we have so much work to do. I just want to relax for a week or two, though I know I cannot do that. Next week, I have to deal with long-delayed obligations. And I have to have my Mohs procedure done on my little skin cancer. And I have a required doctor’s appointment in preparation for a referral to an ENT doctor. Perhaps the following week we can take a road trip. I feel a need to hit the road and let the world behind us just molder while we’re away.

+++

Once in a while you need to take a break and visit yourself.

~ Audrey Giorgi ~

Good morning. I’d love to have a conversation with you over coffee this morning, but I guess this blog post will have to do.

+++

I was biased in favor of students of the liberal arts as far back as the late 1970s and early 1980s. Even earlier, I suspect my favoritism guided my perception of the world around me; and the people in it. A couple of recent email exchanges with a woman I hired back then triggered that recollection; that memory that I was inclined toward hiring people whose educational background appealed to me. It wasn’t just their educational background, of course. Education was simply a bit of evidence, often unreliable, that their worldviews and their personalities were good fits with mine.

The emails in question began with one I sent, asking my former employee (who now lives in Iowa) for her perspective on a town in that state. Something about her response and our subsequent interchanges triggered my memory. I remembered using educational backgrounds, specifically degrees in English, as a screening tool when selecting prospective interviewees. And I remember how much better those interviewees who had that characteristic seemed to fit with my personality than did others who were just as well educated in other fields or were otherwise talented and experienced. I hired the woman I recently asked for advice as much for her personality and intellect as for my confidence that she possessed the necessary editorial and writing capabilities. I hired others on the basis of similar feelings of confidence about how well they fit.

Since then, I’ve come to realize degrees simply were screening tools. And, as I said, they were often unreliable tools. But I used them in the absence of interviewing experience. Over time, my interviewing skills evolved so that I was able to discard educational attainment as evidence of intellectual depth. I discovered that life experience, intellectual curiosity, and raw intelligence were much better predictors of both job performance and personality fit. Formal education, it turned out, did not matter much. “Uneducated” people often had far deeper intellectual capacity and richer mental breadth than their educated counterparts. Gradually, over time, I began hiring “English majors” who had never been to college but who were far more intelligent and much more interesting that mass-produced educational clones.

I admitted, in my introductory paragraph, my bias toward “students of the liberal arts.” I did not say “graduates with liberal arts degrees.” Even though I still use degrees as potential clues about intellect, I put less faith in formal education than in knowledge. There’s a widening gulf between people who are knowledgeable and those who possess formal education. The latter too often are lacking in the former.  Still, liberal arts degrees served as sometimes-reliable yardsticks.

The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.

~ Dorothy Parker ~

The woman with whom I recently communicated was an excellent employee and a friend. Though it has been many years since we might have considered one another friends, we stay in touch occasionally and I still hold her opinions in high regard. And it was her degree, back then, that got her in the door. Similarly, it was another interviewee’s Master of Arts degree in English that prompted me to interview her. There have been others. I favored liberal arts majors to business majors and people who majored in more technical fields. When interviewees had no formal degrees I could use as convenience screens, I explored their interests in literature and social issues; and their facility with language.

So, what’s the purpose of all this? No purpose, really. Only a randomly-triggered memory that unearthed a bias about my own biases. I have dozens of them; maybe even more.

+++

I both admire it and am skeptical of its value. I’ve still not quite resolved that ambivalence. On the one hand, my late wife’s Ph.D. was testament to both her extraordinary intellect and her consuming dedication to achieving a major goal. But I’ve met other people whose Ph.D. degrees masked their unyielding stupidity. Yet I’ve met incredibly intelligent people who did not finish high school, much less go on to obtain impressive terminal degrees. Two quotations address at least part of my ambivalence about formal education.

I didn’t get a high school diploma. I really didn’t have much of an education, which left me open to educating myself throughout my life, without the limitations on intellectual curiosity a formal education can impose. I followed what interested me.

~ Elayne Boosler ~

And this one that shows contempt for formal education, at least as practiced in his day.

It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education.

~ Albert Einstein ~

It isn’t enough to talk about peace. One must believe in it. And it isn’t enough to believe in it. One must work at it.

~ Eleanor Roosevelt ~

+++

Just twenty more days until we all should celebrate World Peace Day. The International Day of Peace is a United Nations-sanctioned holiday observed annually on September 21. Here’s a snippet of what Wikipedia has to say about the event:

It is dedicated to world peace, and specifically the absence of war and violence, such as might be occasioned by a temporary ceasefire in a combat zone for humanitarian aid access. The day was first celebrated in 1981, and is kept by many nations, political groups, military groups, and people. In 2013 the day was dedicated by the Secretary-General of the United Nations to peace education, the key preventive means to reduce war sustainably.

Consider the impact on people and the planet if every living human being spent the entire day, dedicated to the proposition that world peace is an immediately achievable objective. A single day, focused exclusively on declaring perpetual peace, could have enormously positive consequences. A single day, given adequate gravitas by every living person, could change the course of life on this planet. It could transform an ugly, bitter, dangerous place into a refuge in which everyone would, at least for a day, dedicate themselves to solving problems through cooperation instead of conflict.

But unless we all buy into (and insist on loudly proclaiming our support for) the UN’s quiet little announcements, the day will pass unnoticed. We own the UN; every one of us around the world. We can force the issue, if we want to. How badly do we want peace, though? Enough to risk ridicule for our naiveté? Enough to risk being labeled simpletons who do not understand the ways of the world?

+++

Squamous cell carcinoma is the second most common form of skin cancer, according to an online resource that claims some degree of expertise on the matter. The most common form is basal cell carcinoma. My skin cancer is squamous cell carcinoma. That diagnosis calls for treatment with Mohs surgery, said to be the gold standard method of dealing with this common form of skin cancer. According to Wikipedia, the surgery obtains “complete margin control during removal of a skin cancer (complete circumferential peripheral and deep margin assessment, or CCPDMA)” using a frozen section procedure to perform rapid microscopic analysis of a skin specimen obtained during surgery. Basically, the doctors remove slices of skin until microscopic examination reveals that all the cancer has been removed. I was told I can drive myself to and from the procedure; it’s no biggie, in other words. I’m not amused by it; nor, though, am I afraid. It’s just another minor bump that interferes with my interest in having absolute freedom with my time. I’ll schedule the procedure within the next several weeks. Henceforth, I will avoid travel to Florida; simply a precautionary measure that, I hope, will kill two birds with one stone.

+++

Florida’s number three industry, behind tourism and skin cancer, is voter fraud.

~ Dave Barry ~

+++

The saga continues. Yesterday, we continued to fill the garage with assorted “stuff” from my IC’s former home. There’s very little left to move now, though. Most of the remainder of the work at her former home involves clean-up. Yesterday, I removed picture hangers,  patched the holes with spackling compound, and painted over the patches with leftover matching paint. Except I did not realize the leftover paint did not match the walls in the bathrooms. Oops. I panicked, thinking I would have to hire someone to repaint the two bathrooms. But on the second trip over, we found leftover paint that matched the bathroom walls; now, it’s almost all finished. I only have a couple of larger patches to paint today (the spackling compound needed additional time to dry). We should finish everything at the old house today. Then, for the foreseeable future, we will spend all our waking hours attempting to find a place to put everything that now fills my house and my garage (the latter of which no longer has space for either of our two cars).

+++

I went to bed very early last night—around nine o’clock—but did not sleep very well, again. I was awake, off and on, all night. I finally got out of bed around 4:40. I thought I was sufficiently worn out last night that I would sleep through the night. But, no. My damn sinuses and wheezing and aching joints kept me from sleeping much; I think I will need to stay up for 24 to 36 hours straight in order to be sufficiently tired to actually sleep for an extended period. I do not relish that, but I relish sleep more than I do not relish staying awake so long.

+++

The first day of September is upon us. Eight months of this angry year have come and gone, leaving madness and disease in their wake. Perhaps we can change course during the final four months of this damaged and deranged calendar.

Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone.

~ Pablo Picasso ~

Procrastination claws at progress, ripping productivity into useless ribbons of wasted time that cannot be sewn or glued or nailed together again. Every delay I allow myself is a wedge that can force me, later, into panic and speedy mediocrity. Or worse. I know this. So why do I sometimes avoid getting about the business at hand? Lethargy. Anticipation of unpleasantness. Sloth. Confusion. Misunderstanding. Inadequate preparation. Lack of knowledge. The reasons for putting things off are as numerous as the things we delay doing. And as unpleasant as are the consequences of procrastination, inaction is the subject of ostensibly cute humor. “I never put off till tomorrow what I can possibly do – the day after,” said Oscar Wilde.  And Ellen DeGeneres is quoted as saying  “Procrastinate now, don’t put it off.” Neither statement is funny; both simply take advantage of the ease with which we mock diligence, as if productive intensity were a character flaw. 

A sad but interesting byproduct of procrastination is the fact that delaying the unpleasant or putting off the unattractive or prolonging the inevitable does the same for what comes after. The benefits of having accomplished a task or completed an undesirable engagement are put off by delay. Negative anticipation tramples access to its positive partner.

Procrastination is on my mind this morning because I procrastinated filing for an extension on my income taxes this year until almost the last possible minute. And I have put off completing them since I filed the extension. I have yet to complete and file my return; after filing the extension, it seemed I had so much time left to do it. But no more. The deadline is fast approaching; just a month and a half left. I have yet to find (or obtain) all the 1099s and other forms necessary to file. I have to compile all the possible exemptions. I have to calculate all manner of other stuff that will take time. All of this in the midst of merging two households into one and exploring the possibility of an enormous change in my life and lifestyle. Deferring a known obligation is tantamount to pouring salt on a wound; and adding enormous stress to an already stressful period of time.

I’ve set aside two calendar days next week to address the stress caused by my taxation procrastination. And, I set aside time next week to make an appointment with a professional tax preparer to go over my tax work with me to verify my work and catch errors. Once all of this is done and my taxes are filed, I will begin preparing for next year’s tax filing. Next year, by God, I will not do this to myself again. I hope I have learned my lesson. I know the task is not particularly hard, provided one keeps good records along the way and keeps to a reasonable schedule. Failing to do so (as I have done this year) is a bit like swallowing a mouthful of treble fishhooks; the unpleasantness is more than a little painful.

+++

I once thought I was completely alone and misunderstood. That no one but me could see or feel or think what was inside my head. But then, when the only person who ever really knew me was gone, I discovered I had never known myself. And now, I never will.

+++

The results of my DNA assessments should be ready for me within three weeks. I do not have high expectations that I will be surprised, but I look forward to getting the results, nonetheless. It would be nice to find that I come from Scandinavian royalty, for example, and to learn that I am a long-lost heir to a considerable fortune, including massive land-holdings throughout Sweden, Denmark, Norway, and Finland. The near-certainty that my ancestry is almost exclusively English makes the likelihood of my wished-for royal Scandinavian background virtually impossible. But hope springs eternal. Time will tell. It always does.

+++

I try to use humor to bring myself out of the doldrums, only to find that the doldrums are where I belong. Humor is nothing but a shattered crutch in such circumstances. As generous as are others’ efforts to lift my spirits, they are destined to fail and, in fact, change my mood from dark to dangerous. People who try to help can find themselves in the crosshairs of my anger. I should just lock myself in a room until he mood passes. That’s the safest place for me and for those in my sphere. I recognize this only before or after my mood sinks; never in the midst of it.

+++

Sleep eluded me for much of last night. I tossed and turned as I tried to get comfortable and as I tried to breathe, only to find I could barely get enough oxygen in my lungs to survive until the next breath. I must find the time to see an ENT doctor or an acupuncturist or someone else who can clear my sinuses and stop my wheezing.

Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues but the parent of all others.

~ Marcus Tullius Cicero ~

Thanks in large part to the generous assistance of my sister-in-law, we moved the majority of the remaining “stuff” from my IC’s old house yesterday to our shared home and garage. In another day or two, all the remaining odds and ends will disappear from the vacant house. The numerous picture hangers will be removed from the walls and the holes left in their absence will be patched and painted. The place will be scrubbed and vacuumed as clean as we can make it. Then, the monumental task of finding a place for everything in our shared house will continue. And, I suspect, much of what we moved (and much of the contents of cabinets, etc. already here) will find its way to the Habitat for Humanity store. Afterward, following a brief period of relaxation, we will investigate places whose appeal surprises me about myself. Fayetteville, Arkansas. Tulsa, Oklahoma. Schenecktady, New York. Fairfield, Iowa.  Fairfield, Iowa? In response to my query about the town, here’s the response I got from a woman who worked for me many years ago and who now lives back in her home state of Iowa (Cedar Rapids) with her husband:

…it is known for the Maharishi University and Vedic City—which when it came to Iowa in the 70s totally blew the minds of everyone in the conservative farm town and all of Iowa for that matter, me included. My impression, though it may have changed over the years, is that it is an incongruous mix of town folk and maharishis who don’t have much to do with each other.

I’m sure the Maharishis have brought some wealth and international influence to the town—they do have some good ethnic restaurants there—but I think it might be an unusual place to live…which may be the attraction!

The little town (population about 10,000) has some interesting ethnic restaurants. That’s part of the appeal. Another part of the appeal is that it’s rather walkable. Many houses on the market are within easy walking distance of the downtown square, where many of the restaurants are: Indian, Ethiopian, Chinese, Sushi, Turkish, etc., etc. And the place is mostly flat; easier for me to walk than the hills around here, which make life a bit difficult for me, with my cancer-compromised lungs and attendant lack of stamina. The fact that there’s an accredited university there adds to the appeal. We’ll see.

+++

My post yesterday about Hurricane Ida prompted David Legan, a periodic reader of my writing, to post the following comment, that I found both insightful and depressing:

My first crash off of a racing motorcycle, in a motorcycle race, was a relatively “soft” one. At a modest speed, certainly under 100mph, I lost the front end and instantly met the asphalt. I was not hurt…or even shaken. But I was shocked that THE RACE CONTINUED. Only for a moment, lying in the Texas weeds alongside the track, I watched as racer after racer simply passed by.

I think that’s a crude representation of what will happen tonight and in coming weeks in the Hurricane Ida damage path. You and I will continue with our daily duties as a couple of million folks reassemble their lives. They lie in the weeds wondering what happened…we keep racing. That’s life, until it isn’t.

+++

Hot Springs Village has the capacity to destroy itself. I suspect the upcoming vote on whether to increase the monthly assessment will contribute to the community’s seeming interest in what I call civitasicide, or systematic killing of a community. Rather than seeing an increase in assessments as the outgrowth of time and natural deterioration, opponents apparently view the process as a means of draining their pockets in favor of somehow enriching the pockets of their opponents. To prevent that inexplicable “theft,” the opponents of increasing our monthly assessments further the process of systematically murdering this once idyllic community by gutting its infrastructure and otherwise causing it to decay from the inside out. That’s what’s on my mind this morning. Among other things. I most certainly am NOT grateful to the people who would butcher an otherwise tolerable community to further their own ability to jack up their bank accounts.

+++

My IC misunderstood something I said the other night. Neither of us remember exactly what I said, nor even the context of the conversation. What we do remember is that my IC thought I said something that sounded, to her, like “you’re my bitch.” That is not what I said. But we laughed until we cried when she told me what she thought I said.

+++

When I mentioned to my IC and my sister-in-law that I thought I might write children’s stories, they both looked at me as if I had just expressed an interest in eating live kittens with just a touch of salt. I’m convinced I could write some pretty decent children’s stories. They seem to think my stories would be grim, deeply frightening tales that would scar children for life. We’ll see.

+++

Everywhere is within walking distance if you have the time.

~ Steven Wright ~

A major hurricane, Ida, is poised to slam into the Gulf Coast today, somewhere in the neighborhood of New Orleans. Fierce winds of 145 miles per hour or more and a monstrous storm surge, coupled with power outages and crippled public emergency services, could make August 29, 2021 an infamous day for parts of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. Unlike in years in the distant past, when my attention was riveted on Nature’s cataclysmic climatic abilities,  my focus this year and in recent years has been on other things: Afghanistan. The global COVID-19 pandemic. Physically moving my IC into my house. Avoiding news of humankind’s astonishing race toward extinction. But, in spite of the distractions, I cannot help but listen for news about the impending calamity. I know, firsthand, how awful hurricanes can be. And I have had a taste of the ghastly aftermath of a powerful hurricane. Though my experience did not approach the level of horror that many have experienced during and after hurricanes, it was enough to make me dread such storms. I experience vicarious fear of a hurricane, on behalf of potential victims, when I learn of an impending strike.

Hurricane Celia attacked Corpus Christi on the afternoon of August 3, 1970. Before the storm was finished with the town on the Texas coast, about a third of the homes in the city were either destroyed or sustained severe damage. Sustained winds of 145 miles per hour and gusts in Corpus Christi of up to 160-180 miles per hour did remarkable amounts of damage.

My parents’ house, where—as a high school student at the time—I lived, was among those destroyed by the hurricane. My mother, father, my late sister, and one of my brothers were at home when the house began to disintegrate. First, the roof of the front porch collapsed. Then, the wind tore off the central part of the roof of the house. As all of us took shelter in a hallway, the fierce winds forced the pull-down attic stairway onto us, striking my sister in the head; she was not badly injured, but all of us were badly shaken by the experience. Window glass broke and several windows flew out of their casings. Cars in the driveway sustained damage as limbs were ripped from the trunks of big mesquite trees and plunged into their rear windows.

By the time the worst of the storm’s second wind had calmed (after the eye passed over us), my parents’ home was a total loss. Mimeograph sheets (my mother was a school teacher; mimeograph sheets constituted part of her arsenal of teaching aids) left their purple scars on furniture, walls, and flooring; the wind and rain that swirled throughout the house after the roof blew off scattered debris all over the house.  I discovered, during the storm’s fury, that I was not calm in the face of danger. I panicked and screamed in fear as my father left the “safety” of the hallway to explore damage to the house even before the hurricane’s winds subsided.

When my parents thought it safe, we went searching for a place to stay for the night. We were refused entry to an elementary school, where a janitor had opened the doors to permit his family and neighbors and friends to seek shelter. We found a Methodist church open and willing to let us in. A troop of Boy Scouts, who had been camping on Padre Island when the hurricane took aim at the coast, was there before us. My mother had brought a coffee pot and coffee with her when we left the house. My memory tells me that the Scouts’ leaders initially refused to let her have water for coffee, because water might be needed later simply to drink. I do not recall whether they ever allowed her the water; I recall only that I lost all respect for the Boy Scouts organization that night.

My memory of the days after the storm is fuzzy, at best. I stayed, initially, with friends of friends, I think. My brother stayed at the ruined house for a night or two after we discovered that, in our absence, someone had stolen some of our belongings. My parents were given shelter for a few nights by neighbors down the street, people who until that time we had not known. That’s what my memory tells me. It may be deceiving me, though.  But I recall, vaguely, that people tried to take advantage of the fact that power was out for most, if not all, of the city for up to weeks after the storm. They sold water and ice for exorbitant prices until the authorities confiscated their products and gave them away). The few rooms available in hotels and motels were, I think, priced sky-high. The worst of humanity showed its face during the aftermath of the storm. But the best shown through, as well. A lot of meat from now-powerless freezers was thawed and grilled; whole neighborhoods shared in that bounty. People readily offered strangers places to stay and food to eat. But it was a mixed bag, of course. And I remember the stress I felt. The stress on my parents must have been a thousand-fold worse.

Not long after the storm, my father returned to work with a vengeance. He was a lumber wholesaler, buying lumber from sawmills and selling to lumberyards. He traveled throughout the Coastal Bend (as that part of the Texas coast was (and may still be) called, helping lumberyards stock the massive amounts of lumber products that would be needed in the rebuilding efforts. I do not know just how many flat tires his car had as he drove all through the Coastal Bend and down into the Rio Grande Valley, but I remember the number was significant; lots of debris from destroyed buildings littered the roadways. All the while, my parents had to deal with finding a place for us to live, which they did (a man who owned rental houses nearby provided a place for us not long after the storm). And they had to deal with collecting insurance on their destroyed home and contracting for building a replacement on the spot where the old house had stood. My father and brothers took the ruined old house apart, piece by piece, and sold its carcass. Then, my father served as his own contractor for the new house. I have no reliable recollection as to how long we stayed in the rental house or when the new house was finished. I may have already left for college by the time it was ready for occupancy; I just do not recall. I guess the trauma of the time effectively erased my memories of that large swath of my high-school years.

Hearing of the impending devastation that a powerful hurricane like Ida is going to wreak brings back those fractured memories of my experience with a powerful hurricane. And it makes me prepare myself to make donations to help some unfortunate people recover from an event that truly will be life-changing for them. I await news of death and destruction; of devastation so overwhelming that seasoned reporters and news anchors may be unable to control their emotions while reporting on the catastrophe. But maybe the storm will not be as bad as hurricane meteorologists predict. When murderous hurricanes like Ida threaten, I hope the expert storm prognosticators are wrong.

+++

Today, my IC and I will continue our efforts to move the remnants of her belongings to my house. The movers came yesterday. leaving my house full of furniture, some of which we simply do not know where to put. And there’s still more “stuff” to retrieve: kitchen utensils and pots and pans and baking dishes and on and on and on. Plus more clothes and shoes. And blankets and a thousand “little” things. It shall be down. But the tasks at hand will require us to miss Music on Barcelona at the church today. I sometimes loathe moving, even when the move promises to bring happiness that will grow and thrive.

Onward to face the day and construct a future.

The movers come this morning. They will extract from her house my IC’s remaining household furniture, her refrigerator, a few pieces of outdoor furnishings, and miscellaneous other odds and ends. They will truck the stuff to my house, will unload it here, and will leave us with the chore of making two households fit into one. We already have disposed of a considerable volume of furnishings, but still we have enough to fill a small castle. Enough clothes, chairs, knickknacks, tables, dressers, and assorted other evidence of wealth to spur me to wonder where need ends and want begins. My curiosity is not entirely judgmental; it simply inquires about acquisitiveness. Why do I feel the need, or the desire, to own multiple sets of sheets, for example, or enough chairs to seat all my friends and then some? What comfort do I feel by having bookshelves full of books—many I have never read—or more cooking utensils and implements than I need? Why do I see objects in stores or markets or online and say these words, or some facsimile thereof, to myself? “I want that. I will buy that.” How many pairs of shoes or how many shirts do I need or want? How many pairs of shorts that no longer fit do I need to keep in my closet, especially when I know other people who would fit into them and who need clothing are “out there” and ready to receive them?

Every time I have moved or rearranged my living space or otherwise forced myself to acknowledge the sheer volume of “stuff” I own, I wonder about need and want. Every time I attempt to make room in my closet by eliminating what I no longer (or never did) need, I ask myself those same questions, over and over. Yesterday, I touched on asceticism in my blog. I think the topic came to mind because I recognize how thoroughly I have succumbed to the allure of consumerism and how repulsive to me the lust for “more” can be. A mixture of embarrassment and shame wash over me when I seriously consider how much  crap I own and cart around with me whenever I move. My IC asked me yesterday whether I would want to pay movers to relocate some of the excess evidence of my capitalistic greed, were we to decide to move elsewhere. Well, she did not use those terms; but those terms apply. I don’t want to pay anyone for my mistakes. I just want to learn from them.

+++

Philosophy often differs sharply from practice. The paragraphs I wrote above address both, but philosophy is much easier to embrace than is the practice necessary to implement it. I may feel strongly opposed to rampant “consumerism,” but my behavior says otherwise. It’s hypocrisy in living color, in the weak flesh. Ach!

+++

Last night, we went with friends to eat at a Cajun restaurant at the far end of the Village. The food was good, if not great. The flavor of the fried oyster appetizers was good, but they had cooled far too much between cooking and serving. Étouffée, on the other hand, was hot and spicy and superbly flavorful. The white rice was a cold and gelatinous blob. The jambalaya was tasty but lukewarm. The gumbo was tasty. The bread was a pointless waste of flour. In spite of the hit-and-miss aspects of the meal itself, the evening was an enjoyable and refreshing break from moving.

Spending time with friends can recharge one’s energy and make the hit-and-miss aspects of dining out perfectly acceptable. Every restaurant has winners and losers on the menu. And every restaurant can suffer my heartless criticism, even when undeserved.

After dinner, as I thought back on the early evening dinner, it occurred to me that we could have dined on re-heated tortillas and butter and the meal still would have been just fine. I might have complained about the quality of the butter, but the meal would have been just fine. It’s always the company that matters. One way or the other, it’s the people, not the food. The proof of that statement can be found when eating alone; even at the finest restaurant, eating alone can be a torturous experience with very little joy thrown in, no matter how wonderful the dishes.

+++

Once the move is done and we’ve adjusted our environment to our “new normal,” my IC and I will take some short and not-so-short trips to see the world around us. As I contemplate those trips this morning, I cannot wait! I need to get out and away. I need new spaces and places to take my mind off of ideas that turn my thoughts into grey smudges and dull views through hazy windows.  I am ready for happy excitement! I already have that, of course; but I’m ready for happy excitement in a new place, at least periodicallly.

Refraining from all evil,
not clinging to birth and death,
working in deep compassion
for all sentient beings,
respecting those over you
and pitying those below you,
without any detesting or desiring,
worrying or lamentation —
this is what is called Buddha.
Do not search beyond it.

~ Dogen ~

That admonition is rich with wisdom and, as far as any of us know, truth. But few of us embrace the advice and take it for our own personal guidance. We search beyond acceptance and compassion, looking for something that we are sure is missing; something we cannot define. Yet I think the missing piece is the Buddha within us, buried beneath layer upon layer of the detestation and desire we’re taught to nurture almost from the moment we were born.

I am not a Buddhist. I do not believe in reincarnation, nor do I subscribe to the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path. But I think the teachings of Siddharta Gautama, the Buddha, hold valuable lessons for every human being, if only they would accept their fundamental application to the real world. Like many others, I know so-called Buddhists who are BNOs (Buddhists in Name Only…clever, huh?); people who pretend to subscribe to Buddhist teachings but who are, in their hearts, self-centered beasts who would not know the Buddha if he stood in front of them, glowing like kryptonite.  But if one shoves those dissemblers and charlatans aside, real “Buddhists,” whether “believers” in Buddhism or not, seem utterly calm; yet extraordinarily passionate about the possibility that humankind can achieve peace.

For years, I’ve felt an urge to explore Buddhism more deeply. Not for its “religious” aspects but as a source of serenity. Several years ago, a friend and I discussed spending a few days at an ashram in East Texas, with the objectives of cleansing our minds of the clutter of day-to-day life and replacing that confusion with serenity and order. I found it amusing that the reason we never pursued it beyond discussion was the fact that she was perpetually too busy. I could have gone alone, but at the time I was nervous about exposing my uneducated self to the already-initiated…without some sort of mental and emotional support. In other words, I was embarrassed by my own ignorance. Instead of doing something about replacing that ignorance with knowledge, I have spent the intervening years since she and I discussed it just “wishing” I had done something about it. Madness on steroids. That, I think, is one of the things Buddhism can help one address. Or maybe not. I don’t have the experience to say; yet I say it anyway. I recognize my lack of wisdom, but I feed it with nutrients comprised of ignorance. Empty calories, in a sense, but they make me feel and look full like a balloon.

It would surprise everyone but myself if one day I simply abandoned the life I’ve lived for the past 67 years in favor of immersion in a Buddhists educational experience designed to enable the participant to follow the Eightfold Path. Just writing that over-long sentence was frightening. Could I ever just walk away from it all? Just relinquish all my material possessions—at least for a year or two—in favor of the life of an ascetic. Asceticism, I think, opens one up to seeing reality more clearly and understanding it more completely. God, I’m writing as if I’m a mystic. I’m not. And I find mysticism more than a little irritating. I am so bloody mixed up. Like a Bloody Mary and a Screwdriver poured into a food processor, along with cake mix and pico de gallo.

I’ve written enough. I’m getting more and more distant from the Buddha that Dogen described.

The streets of a small town at a quarter past four in the morning tell stories that cannot adequately be told in the light of day. Those dark, deserted streets reveal the abandoned hopes of people who do not fit the molds into which we try to press them. Those streets express what could have been but was not to be; happy, carefree souls who, though different from the rest of us, could fit into molds of their own making.  Instead, the small town, closed up tight, forces the strangers among us to experience the streets in darkness,  save for the artificial lights that illuminate empty streets. Those few unique people wander in the darkness: an old man on a bicycle overloaded with all his worldly possessions; a bi-racial couple sharing a bottle of vodka, staggering past a car-wash; another bicycle rider, a young man whose shaved head must be intended as a message, though it’s not clear to me what; and a young woman exercising with hand-weights as she walks briskly in front of shops that, in a few hours, will sell tawdry tourist trinkets priced barely high enough to keep the doors open.

Who are these people, these characters who either by choice or chance inhabit the night? Are they really unusual, unable or unwilling to crawl into the molds into which most of us readily fit? Or do they simply opt to experience life from the inside out, sleeping while we wake and waking while we sleep? I could ask them, but I am in my car, slowly cruising by—wondering about them but not sufficiently curious to warrant stopping for a chat. Besides, if I stopped, they understandably might think of me as an aggressor, an accoster, an old man with bad intentions.

The few cars on the streets move about with purpose, as do the delivery trucks. The drivers know where they are going, but I can only guess at their destinations. Where do people go at this hour? Nothing is open, not even fast-food drive-through lanes. I suppose they are like me: they have been some place, or are going some place, suited to four-in-the-morning-darkness.

In my case, I am driving home after a “sleep study” that began at 8:00 p.m. I was attached overnight to wires that measured brain waves, eye movements, breathing, heart rate, and any twitching of muscles in my legs and arms and chest. The purpose was to determine whether I stop breathing when I sleep and what might be done to keep me from taking that very last breath before its time. That’s more dramatic than it is, really; it also aims to help determine what will enable me to sleep longer and better. The technician noticed that I was awake just after four, though, so he came in and removed the wires so I could go home.

Even the classic American main street, with its mixed-use buildings right up against the sidewalk, is now illegal in most municipalities. Somewhere along the way, through a series of small and well-intentioned steps, traditional towns became a crime in America.

~ Andres Duany ~

As I drove through the periphery of the town and into the heart of Hot Springs, I felt the same small-town heartbeat I’ve felt hundreds of times before as I’ve driven through small towns in the wee hours of the morning. The heartbeats of small towns are different from cities; small towns’ hearts are more honest about their pride and about their ailments. Hot Springs’ pride is obvious in its touristy cladding. But it cannot hide its ailments behind that translucent covering. The town sports abandoned buildings and structures that, once majestic, now hide their decay behind gaudy signs and attention-grabbing paint. In that way, Hot Springs is like many other small towns; it is trying to resurrects its heyday with only moderate success. It is attempting to recreate the look and feel of a time before the era of plazas and campuses, an era that made typical small-town street scenes an anachronism. Time will tell whether the town’s efforts will pay dividends.

+++

Algeria cut diplomatic ties with its neighboring country, Morocco, with which it shares a 1200 mile border. How massive would the dislocation have to be to prompt the U.S. or Mexico to cut diplomatic ties with its neighbor, with which it shares a 1950 mile border? Tensions in the rest of the world would escalate to the breaking point if the U.S. and Mexico broke diplomatic relations with one another. Is the world just as anxious about the Morocco/Algeria border? Why not? Geopolitical intrigue clearly illustrates global madness and hypocrisy. And power. Raw, ravenous, greedier-than-greedy power.

+++

Some days are much harder than others, though I don’t know just why. Some days seem filled with blocks of concrete and lead, piled on my chest so high I cannot hope to breathe. But, then, everything suddenly seems fine. The air is cool and the day is bright and all is right with the world. But then it starts over again; I’m brittle and far too easily broken, as if made of thin layers of glass. It’s a mystery. All will be well. It just takes time and patience. I don’t know how much time I have. My supply of patience apparently ran out when I was a much younger man; maybe even when I was a child. Possibly when I was an infant. In fact, I may have been born with out the normal supply of patience and have never been able to grow my own. No matter how much I try to be “Zen,” it doesn’t seem to settle in to the guy I am. But I keep trying. Today, I’m twisting a little. I’m dangling from a string and twisting back and forth between happy and sad; between strong and weak; between certainty and ambivalence.

It was 4:10 this morning when I finally acquiesced; I gave up trying to sleep, opting instead to pee and to seek out coffee and the solace of waking darkness. A small dog lay, half-asleep, in front of the toilet, challenging my aim for the bowl; I was successful, in spite of the animal’s steadfast refusal to move. Had I failed, the dog would have felt the drizzle of golden showers. The idea of “golden showers,” a term I’ve read about but never had any interest in experiencing in any way, shape, manner, or form, is off-putting. Yet here I am writing about it, as if I were a budding pornographer. The mere mention of the phrase makes me want to wash my hands with soapy water and then spend ten minutes under a hot shower, just to be sure I am clean and untainted. But that will wait. First, I have thoughts to think and words to release from the prison in my head, allowing them to flow through my fingers and onto the launch pad from which I will send them dribbling into the unread fringes of the internet. Run-on sentences are my specialty. Sort of like pronouncement after a guilty verdict, wherein the judge informs the guilty party that he will serve 285 consecutive life sentences without parole. The criminal’s body will have long-since stopped smelling like a rotting corpse by the time the dried piece of human jerky is delivered to its descendents. My IC claims she sometimes cannot follow my conversations; I think this paragraph might explain why that is.

+++

Reading a friend’s poetry last night (along with some mood issues of my own) prompted me to give the genre a try this morning. So, here goes; I call it

I pass the time by whittling twigs into toothpicks,
leaving piles of wood shavings at my feet and salty
tracks of endless tears further etching my already etched cheeks.

Twigs are not to blame for the time I have to pass,
yet they are the victims of my need for distraction from
a reality I cannot alter with drink or drug or denial.

The permanent hole in my soul cannot be filled with
wood shavings or tears or a thousand calendars stacked
end to end, covered with sweet memories and stinging regrets.

No matter what I do, I cannot repair the broken pieces,
the fractures I feel in my head and in my chest every day,
even on those happy days when I am wrapped in new love.

Time cannot heal wounds; but it can smooth the deepest scars
so they are not quite as obvious and not quite as tender
and not as prone to open up again in the light of life.

My new role now is to tend quietly to my wound and
gently let the scar dissolve into the mist of time;
never letting go of the past, nor ignoring now.

Living between two lifetimes is an exercise in fragility,
a beautiful but dangerous place in which to worship
history and the future, while exalting the present.

The tree from which my whittled twig was harvested is
stronger than the knife I use to shave it and more
beautiful than the toothpicks it yields.

The tears that etch my cheeks are as fleeting as
the time I try hard to remember and forget in the
same breath, in the same lovely and horrid moments.

Life and death are unavoidable struggles; they make
existence beautiful and painful, wretched and wonderful.
I long for that saving embrace that proves it all.

I, alone, must confront the pain and welcome the peace,
taking help when it’s offered and useful and rejecting
well-meaning attempts that worsen the burden.

But I am not alone; a cadre of friends will catch
me when I fall and will straighten me
when I’m twisting a little.

Some days are much harder than others, though I do not know just why. Those same days seem to deliver so much love that I welcome but feel I don’t deserve. Deserved or not, though, they seem to save me from myself. That dangerous bastard who is capable of being as unlovable as Hannibal Lecter and as professionally competent as Norman Bates.

+++

I’m starting this day in an odd mood. I hope it improves as the day ripens.

My sleep was interrupted by pronouncements, by two alarm clocks, that the time to arise had come. And so I arose, went to the kitchen, started the coffee, and got dressed. By the time I returned to the kitchen, the coffee had begun to cool and I had exchanged a couple of text messages with another friend who likes to wake early. And then I rushed in to begin writing my blog before the time to go to my IC’s house comes. As I write this, I have only a few minutes before I need to leave to meet her ex-husband there; he will detach shelves full of CDs and will take them to his house. My IC does not need or want the CDs; she is fully satisfied, musically, with online delivery on command. Her ex-husband built the custom shelves, though, and seems to be very happy to have them back. All’s well when such good things happen.  But now, I must go. I’ll continue writing when I return. Or maybe I won’t and will let this day pass without posting to my blog. My readership is tiny, so only a very few might even notice the lack of a post. Such is life.

+++

The CDs and the shelves are gone and I moved two bedside tables from my IC’s former home to their new location in my house. My left arm, now wrapped in a “tennis elbow” brace, prevented me from doing any more; probably, I should not have done what I did, but that’s history now and the pain in my arm is a sharp reminder. I acknowledge that I can be stubbornly stupid at times and should be figurately beat with a rubber hose.

+++

A friend who has only recently finally recognized her innate writing talent shared just a bit with me not long ago, but I’ve seen nothing since. She reads this blog from time to time, so perhaps this little bit of nagging will remind her that we need to get together again to discuss writing, imbibe mood enhancing liquid and non-liquid products, and philosophize about the state of the world. Another friend, an aficionado of white zinfandel, needs to return to finish her bottle and, perhaps, help me understand how to use the telescope she lent me.

When the move is complete and we’re settled, we shall have a party of sorts. Not the loud, raucous party one might think of; the not-so-loud, raucous party that brings out the extrovert in my introverted friends but calms the tendency toward extreme extroversion in the others. Hmm. How will that work? We’ll just have to have a party and see. In the interim, I need periodic injections of conversations, with wine, with each of my friends.

Yesterday, the grandiose bed and bedside tables I sold to friends were picked up and taken to their new home. Photos from the new home revealed that the bed and its companions really belong in their new home; much prettier even than they were here. It’s nice to know they are someplace they will be treated well.

The removal of the bed necessitated the relocation of the Sleep Number box springs and mattress to another room and the removal of an old box springs and mattress. The old mattress set will be picked up on Friday by ReStore. The Sleep Number mattress is now on the guest bed in the guest room. Until the bed from my IC’s house is delivered and set up on Saturday, we’re sleeping in the guest room. Last night was just fine; the same old mattress in a new environment. But even little positives can inject minor stress into an already stress-filled period of time. I look forward to the alleviation of that stress.

Better sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunken Christian.

~ Herman Melville ~

Regardless of what I do before I go to bed, sleep cannot be guaranteed. Sometimes I sleep soundly; other times, I sleep barely at all. And I rarely sleep late, which I define as any time after 6:00 a.m. But lately I’ve occasionally slept in; later than 6. I am not comfortable with or happy about that. My time early in the morning is my only totally private, self-renewing time. I need that time. If I had to choose between sleep and that freedom, the choice would be easy. I’ll go with those private times.

+++

This morning, my IC and I discussed my ambivalence about possessions. On one hand, I like art and computers and beds and tables and photos and televisions and refrigerators and on and on as much as anyone else. But I value my freedom even more, I think. Some days, and this is one of them, I feel like I’d be happier and more free if I got rid of everything and lived as simple life as possible. But I’m fooling myself, am I not? Could I get by with no chair that I consider “mine” and no place to which I could retreat? That’s a hard one. I don’t need the chair, though I would miss it immensely. But taking away the place where I can think would be murderous. It would be equivalent to taking away the eyes of a person whose only joy is his eyesight. Or maybe I’m kidding myself again. Maybe I’m a charlatan, a pretender who only thinks he needs his freedom to think.

+++

Even though I had a relatively good night’s sleep last night, I am about to drift off here at my desk. I need to get up and get busy, lest I replicate last night’s slumbers.

The sun had long since risen and the clock was poised to announce that the time was 7:00 a.m. when I awoke this morning. For a person who is used to getting up very early—usually between 4:30 and 5:30, this unusual experience was akin to losing half the day. Though I suppose my body needed the sleep, I wish I had gone to bed at 7:00 p.m. last night so I could have arisen during darkness, at a civilized hour. Two shot glasses full of very high-end sipping tequila (Don Julio 1942) probably contributed to my very lengthy nap. I’m in the process now of weighing which I want more—waking in darkness and isolation or drinking superb tequila. It’s a hard choice; I want both. And perhaps I can have both. Tequila in the late afternoon, followed by bed in the early evening. I suspect I would be up and ready to face the day by 4:30 a.m. the following morning. I’ll have to experiment with this concept.

It is well to be up
before daybreak,
for such habits
contribute to
health, wealth, and
wisdom

~ Aristotle ~

I couldn’t have said it better myself. Aristotle was one of my mentors, though he appeared before me rather late in life, after I had misspent my youth. But his admonition to get up early, while the sun still slept, has been with me since I was just a child.

This blog contains so many mentions of the joys of arising early, before daybreak. It’s a bit like a religion with me; I believe in its value and its strength and power, even without any evidence of consequence.

+++

My IC is closing on the sale of her house today, which calls for celebration of some sort. However, we still have much to do to empty the contents of her house (even though the title is changing to the new owners today, they have given her additional time to vacate and give them possession). So, maybe celebration will have to wait. In the meantime, we’ll continue to lug carload after carload of stuff to my house, where we’ll find places to put it. This process has prompted me to go through much of what I own and to dispose of a lot of “stuff” for which I have neither a need nor a want to keep. And, of course, I have to get rid of some things that I’d rather keep, but that I cannot justify keeping for any reason except sentimentality. Sentiment is sometimes a valid reason. But not always. Sometimes, sentimentality is just a crutch that keeps a broken heart from healing.

+++

Even though I do not have anything pressing that demands my time at this hour (7:34 a.m. as I type this), I feel rushed because it’s well past daybreak and the day has moved along far beyond where it normally have been this soon after waking. So, I’ll put an early end to thinking with my fingers this morning. I have much, much more on my mind, but the call of a productive day is competing with the call of a late leisurely morning—and winning.  But know this, as you wade into your day; you’re on my mind even when I don’t write about you and your exploits. Even now, as I scramble to catch up with the time I’ve misspent by sleeping in, you’re on my mind.

+++

A week or so ago, my IC and I had a conversation that included discussion of the poem, Desiderata, by Max Ehrmann. The poem moves me the way few do. About four months ago, sometimes in April, I included the full text of the poem here on my blog. This morning, a few lines stand out in my mind and help me overcome my embarrassment about getting up so damn late:

… be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here.

And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be.

So, there you go. Here I am, experiencing a morning when I could berate myself for sleeping in; but I don’t, thanks to the words of Max Ehrmann, even in their syrupy optimism. Sometimes, we have to be blindly optimistic that the world is not as horrible and painful as it appears to be.

I got an email from a friend from church yesterday, letting me know she and her husband are leaving in their RV today, heading toward Nova Scotia. Suddenly, I wanted to be in that RV, making the long, intriguing trip to what amounts to another place and time. Nova Scotians live in a different universe, I think. They have successfully bypassed the majority of modern-day urban insanity in favor of an indescribably happy and chaotic serenity. At least that’s how I perceive them.

My friend and her husband will miss church today, I guess. And they will not attend church, this one at least, as long as they are gone.  Which raises a question in my mind: do I have to go to church every Sunday? No. But I have to go every other Sunday because I agreed to facilitate post-service discussions. And therein lies the stress…of feeling an obligation that is deeply at odds with what I want for myself these days: the freedom to just not show up if I wish. It may be selfish…it is…but I feel the need to be able to withdraw without notice; to simply vanish for a week or six weeks or six months. So, I may “give notice” before long; give the organizers enough time to find a willing replacement and myself an adequate carrot to keep me going for awhile longer.

+++

The tension within me is getting tighter and tighter: stay where I am, with its stodginess and familiarity, or move on to someplace unfamiliar but potentially exciting and revitalizing. Before I suddenly found myself in love with my IC, I was ready to sell and move on. Then, I decided I had to stay. But now I’m getting antsy again. Fortunately, she is ready to explore, as well. Still, leaving friends behind is hard. Yet most of us have done it before, though. That’s how we ended up where we are; we left the past, even the good pieces of it, someplace else. A place we might want to visit, but don’t necessarily want to live there.

So, I spend time online, reading about various cities, towns, and communities, trying to imagine life there. And I look at real estate listings, marveling at the price of housing in some places. I find myself drawn to places I have never been.

I’ve explained and previously written about feeling a sense of fernweh, a German word that translates as “farsickness.” Fernweh refers to “feeling homesick for a place you’ve never been or could never go.” I’ve been infected by the disease it my entire life.

Our list of places is odd and unusual. Tulsa. Fayetteville. Schenectady. Decorah. Las Cruces. And so on. One of our first trips will involve Fayetteville. And Schenectady. Because fernweh.

+++

Lost. He understood that men were forever strangers to one another, that no one ever comes really to know any one, that imprisoned in the dark womb of our mother, we come to life without having seen her face, that we are given to her arms a stranger, and that, caught in that insoluble prison of being, we escape it never, no matter what arms may clasp us, what mouth may kiss us, what heart may warm us. Never, never, never, never, never.

~ Thomas Wolfe ~ Look Homeward, Angel

I am not quite sure why I sought out these words, extracted from a book—one I have never read—by Thomas Wolfe. “Why” I sought them out and reproduced them here is of no real relevance. Except, I suppose, that the words are true; that they get to the heart of the fundamental loneliness of our existence. That they acknowledge we never share enough of ourselves with one another to overcome the insurmountable obstacles to real intimacy. I believe the word Wolfe used with significant impact was “never.”

We don’t share because we are afraid. Of being misunderstood. Of being ridiculed. Of feeling shame or embarrassment. Of experiencing the dismissal of matters vitally important to us as frivolous or stupid.  Of seeking and expecting the tenderness of understanding, only to feel the sting of mocking laughter, instead.

Loneliness is born of fear and fragility. We’re taught how to be strong and resilient; what we should be taught, instead, is how to survive during despair and frailty. Strength and resilience, though, they are the goals; so they form the basis of our social curricula. If the curriculum were based on reality, survival would be on the syllabus. But that would admit to vulnerability and inadequacy. And we can’t have that, can we?

+++

I wake up some mornings to grief so strong it could choke the life out of me. It’s grief, it’s guilt, it’s a sense of emptiness I cannot describe. And, on the other end of the fulcrum, there’s joy and gratitude and fullness that keep air flowing into my lungs. But “what if” scenarios run through my mind like runaway trains; powerful and unstoppable and deadly. There’s monstrous tension between what I had and what I have, what I did and what I do, who I was and who I am. Sometimes I feel like there’s no more room in my head for thoughts or emotions or ideas or dreams; a single addition could cause my head to rupture, revealing that everything is artificial—it’s all fluff and mush.

+++

It’s just after 6. Two hours have passed since I got up and stumbled into the kitchen to make my first cup of coffee. I think I’ll stumble back there for more coffee and, perhaps, a breakfast of leftover arroz con pollo from last night’s dinner. And I’ll stumble on through the day. We have a lot to move from my IC’s former home into to her present home. After church, perhaps. Later. Later. There’s always later, up until the point there’s not.

Several months ago, I suggested that the world would be a better place if every culture would embrace the concept of mid-career “mandatory volunteerism.” I argued that the oxymoronic concept be expanded well beyond the idea that conservatives seem to embrace: that recipients of public assistance should be required to “volunteer” their time in order to qualify for benefits. In my view, I wrote, a mid-career “volunteerism” break should be required of everyone who is not exempted from such service for some legitimate reason. I equated the concept to Peace Corps or AmeriCorps. But I proposed an international program; I envisioned a program wherein membership in ANY international or multinational organization would require participation in this mandatory volunteerism program.

Over time, my thinking on the matter has evolved. Every country should replace optional (and compulsory) military service with compulsory humanitarian service. The size of all nations’ militaries should be diminished dramatically in a fashion that would provide military forces only enough resources to defend against attacks, but not enough to initiate them.  Humanitarian services, on the other hand, would be dramatically increased. The discipline and structure that is now so much a hallmark of militaries would become the hallmark of humanitarian service organizations. The top-level generals and admirals who command military forces would transition to humanitarian forces.

+++

I appreciate that people who serve in the military can, under circumstances none of us want to experience, protect the rest of us from invasion, attack, etc. But the reality of our political landscape is that we’re the ones who invade, attack, etc. I still appreciate that people in the military do what their countries ask; I just don’t like what we ask the military to do. I cannot bring myself to say “Thank you for your service” when thankful is not what I’m feeling. Sure, I appreciate the military when it is involved in humanitarian efforts and I gladly express appreciation for that. But not for standing at the ready to launch attacks that should never have been launched.

Those who can win a war well can rarely make a good peace, and those who could make a good peace would never have won the war.

~ Winston Churchill ~

Utopian ideas. Wishful thinking. Fantasy. Gullibility. All legitimate terms to throw at the ideas. Tilting at windmills is a waste of time and effort, I’m afraid. No matter how much time I give to ideas with no possibility of being realized, the ideas will not be valuable or valid. My ideal world does not correspond to ideals held by people far more powerful than I.

Why does my idealism call on people to “volunteer” at mid-career, rather than from the outset of adulthood? I think mid-career people better understand the world than wet-behind-the-ears kids who are just doing what the generals and admirals tell them. Maturity and experience tend to plant the seeds of wisdom, too; the discipline of blindly following orders might morph into the discipline of following orders with a full understanding of the consequences of doing so.

+++

I have no business commenting about the pros and cons of military service; I’ve never served in the military. But I have seen the consequences of military service when used by politicians and a cudgel or a club. I’ve seen the sacrifices of life and limb by people who were commanded to engage in unnecessary battles that serve only political aims. So, I suppose I have as much business commenting on military service as I have commenting about the presidency or decisions of the local school board; I have no experience as president nor as a member of the school board, but I have a stake in what they say and do.

If everyone fought for their own convictions there would be no war.

~ Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace ~

We are at war with ourselves and neither side is winning. We’re battling vaccinations and masks. We claim the right to “live free” at the expense of others’ deaths.  Somewhere, while sipping champagne and eating caviar, the political hacks are laughing at the dimwits who fight so fiercely against the dimwits who fight so fiercely. There’s money to be made and power to be consolidated in pitting one against the other. We are the dimwits and we know it. Yet we battle on, convinced we will win an undeclared war against an enemy in the mirror.

All warfare is based on deception.

~ Sun Tzu, 5th cent. BC, Chinese general & military strategist ~

H₂O

If there is magic on this planet,
it is contained in water.

~ Loren Eiseley ~

A woman who became friends with my late wife while they both attended graduate school at the University of Texas has long predicted the greatest threat to humankind is the scarcity of readily available potable water. I have agreed with her all along, though I haven’t been nearly as vocal as she. Recent events are proving Geraldine right. People who have been paying attention will have noticed that the U.S. government, on August 16, 2021, announced a water shortage declaration (its first-ever) for the Colorado River, triggering future cuts in the amount of water states will be allowed to draw from the river. Arizona farmers will be the biggest losers of water as restrictions kick in. Arizona and Nevada, along with deliveries to Mexico, will see water supplies sharply reduced in January next year. California has not been targeted for big cuts, yet, but the likelihood is high that cuts are coming to that state, as well. I read an assessment that suggests California will see cuts in 2023 as water levels in Lake Mead drop ever lower. The current cuts were prompted by the fact that Lake Mead will be at less than 40% of capacity by the end of this year (its lowest since the completion of the Hoover Dam in 1936.  And I suspect concern about water shortages, always on the horizon for New Mexico, will grow exponentially in the coming months and years.

Nothing is softer or more flexible
than water, yet nothing can resist it.

~ Lao Tzu ~

Pandemics can sicken and kill millions. Water shortages can reduce economies to rubble and kill many, many more millions. We squabble about masks and vaccines as aquifers dry up and lakes turn to dust and golf courses and lush lawns take precedence over drinking water and “breadbasket” crops. And news about LeBron James matters. Really?

+++

Bullets.

• Thanks to my IC paying attention, I got my third Moderna vaccine injection yesterday; some say it is a booster, some don’t.
• Simultaneously, I received a flu vaccine yesterday, the earliest I’ve ever received one in preparation for the upcoming flu “season.”
• Yesterday’s hope for installation of a mini-split to heat and cool the “sky room” were dashed, for the time being. Installers showed, but the unit they brought was too big; we’ll have to wait for a properly-sized unit, which could be weeks, months, or longer.
• Completion of the renovation of the screen porch is nearing; it was to have been finished last Monday, but time has a way of stretching in on itself. Patience, Grasshopper.
• I screamed in pain a few hours ago as leg cramps returned with a vengeance. The real pain coincided with pain in a dream as I was conversing with Janet, Patty, and a familiar but unknown woman about health challenges of  representatives of Allied Member companies of an association I once managed.
• In connection with the pain of my leg cramps, my IC reminded me I should drink more water all during every day.

+++

In one drop of water are found
all the secrets of all the oceans.

~ Kahlil Gibran ~

+++

It probably will surprise almost everyone who has ever known me to learn that I have, off and on, seriously considered abandoning the life I was brought up to cherish in favor of the life of an ascetic. Oh, I’ve written about it before, but I suspect most people who noticed my stream-of-consciousness drivel think I was kidding. I was not. It’s not that I think asceticism has any innate appeal in and of itself. Instead, I think asceticism is a tool with which modern humans can distance themselves from all things artificial, including artificial ideas and artificial emotions. I am intrigued by the prospect of learning what life is actually all about in the absence of material things and thoughts. In my way of thinking, the absence of the artifice of society might enable a person to absorb wisdom by way of interacting with nature in its purest forms.

But I think it’s too late now. I doubt I could ever muster the discipline to be an ascetic. I have grown  too reliant on having the world delivered to me on a custom platter. I am too much like too many; a soft, pliable, malleable assemblage of wants and desires that outweigh needs…so much so that needs and wants can hardly be distinguished from one another.

A friend who calls herself something of a “prepper” is probably far better equipped than I to successfully live an ascetic life, though I suspect that lifestyle is not on her top ten list of things to experience.  People who pay attention to their environment and who prepare for how they might react if that environment changes dramatically are better prepared to deal with massive change, I think, than people like me: people whose reaction to needs is to pull out a credit card or explore the part of the billfold that contains paper money. I don’t necessarily find people like me contemptible, but neither do I find them especially good role models.

That’s enough introspective disappointment for today. Perhaps I can go out in the world and do something of which I can be rightfully proud. Like express heartfelt appreciation to the oceans and to the clouds that bring rain.

Namasté

I honor the place in you
in which the entire universe dwells.
I honor the place in you
which is of love, of truth,
of light, and of peace.
When you are in that place in you
and I am in that place in me,
we are one.

I do not know the source of these words, though I am sure some will attribute them to the Buddha or to Buddhism in general. It makes no difference. I believe it is as close to truth as anything we hope or pretend is true. I will gladly grasp at these words as the ideal toward which I will forever reach.

+++

Patience exists along a continuum. A willingness to bend and flex exists along the same continuum. When patience and flexibility are strained to the breaking point, the world takes on an entirely different and dangerous demeanor. Once restrained and accommodating, the gentle people in one’s sphere of comfort suddenly become as hungry and as heartless as wolves. They tear at the body of a terrified fawn who is attempting to escape the inevitability of Nature’s wrath. Though there are men too gentle to live among wolves, some humans can shed their gentle garments and replace them with steel plates festooned with the fangs of poisonous snakes, still dripping with venom. Humanity, too, exists along that continuum. At one end, the meek gather in compassionate appreciation for one another; at the other, the violent and virulent huddle in vengeful packs, anxious to slaughter their enemies and feast on their flesh. In the middle, nothing is certain; fear is an appropriate response even to friendly overtures. That’s where the rest of humanity resides; in the massive middle.

+++

I learned yesterday of the death of a friend the day before. Though we were not close friends, we took an instant liking to one another when we met at one of the first Hot Springs Village World Tour of Wines dinner events a few years ago. We shared a love of good food, writing, architecture, and travel. He was a retired architect who was instrumental in the design of airports, including the Kansai International Airport in Japan while he lived there. He told me about some of his experiences in Japan, both the culture in general and the unique dishes he learned to enjoy and to prepare.  Paul died after a lengthy battle with pulmonary fibrosis, a disease that robbed him of his ability to get out and enjoy time with his friends. When COVID-19 came on the scene, I suspect he was especially wary of being around people. The last time I saw him was during a brief visit at his sister’s house well over two years ago. What a painful life this is, a life that tempts us with so much enjoyment and pleasure, only to take it all away in the end.

+++

This morning, I will make another try at persuading the medical establishment to take whatever bold action is necessary to address my two immediate and significant complaints: debilitating arthritic pain in my left elbow and wheezing and a need to constantly cough and clear my throat, caused—at least in part—by having stopped up nasal passages. Given my history with the latter of these two complaints, I am not especially hopeful that the medical establishment will take bold action. Though, I have to admit, when I first complained about a cough about three years ago, the establishment did take bold action; it removed a portion of my lung (which, in hindsight, subsequently may have contributed to the present complaint). Hmm. We’ll see.

My complaints about the medical establishment’s failings notwithstanding, I trust its urgings to get vaccinated and to wear a mask. People who refuse to accept the science behind those urgings are stupid and dangerous. The rest of us have every right, methinks, to protect ourselves from those idiots; those idiots effectively are assaulting us and so should not be surprised when we react accordingly and with the zeal of a person whose life is threatened.

+++

I think that is enough. I’ve reached the end of the rope and there’s no climbing back up. Not today. The universe dwells not inside me but beyond me, just beyond my reach. More than enough.

My friends are getting older,
so I guess I must be, too.

~ Greg Brown ~

I think of these lyrics on friends’ birthdays, days like today, when we celebrate the formality of delving deeper into geezerhood. Today, a good friend—several years older than I—is eligible for another of those annual celebrations, those moments when we simultaneously recognize both ripening and decay. Unlike me, this friend is able to spend hours at a time on his knees installing flooring. If he would not have been deeply offended by the gesture, I think I would have paid to have the flooring installed by professionals, thereby saving his knees, and those of his wife, from accelerated aging. I have learned that younger, more agile people are better suited to installing the carpet on my porch. Were I to want wood flooring to be installed, I would hire the same people to do that work. Not that I would not trust my friend to to it; only that I would not want to be held accountable for permanent disability tied to his frozen knees. Hmm. The lyrics to the song might well need changing:

I guess I’m getting older,
so I guess friends must be, too.

Happy Birthday, Melvin T! May the road rise up to meet you. May the wind be always at your back! As always, I recommend a big slice of wine and a glass of birthday pie in celebration of this momentous occasion.

+++

Speaking of bad knees, my left elbow should be arrested for assault and battery. Its constant aching is punctuated by the occasional piercing pain, thanks to what I believe is malicious arthritis. I’ll be off to see my primary care doctor tomorrow in the hope that he will find it in his charitable heart to stab me with a syringe, injecting something like steroids that will alleviate the pain.  As it is, I am of limited value in either packing the significant belongings in my IC’s recently-sold house or in carrying the boxes laden with those belongings into my house. I wonder whether my ailment is psychosomatic, brought on only by the thought of relocating “stuff” equivalent in volume to Central America and a few states of Mexico? That’s not really fair. “A few” overstates it; more likely just Jalisco and Quintana Roo. Oh, my right elbow is experiencing more than a few twinges of arthritic agony, as well. Anyone have a little spare morphine sitting around the house? I understand LSD or cocaine, too, tend to make one forget how pain feels. Or, possibly, enjoy it. The lyrics, “hurts so good,” may have arisen from a cocaine-induced love-fest with pain. Maybe not.

And speaking of visits with medical professionals, so far this week I’ve had my eyes examined, my skin frozen, and a suspicious-looking bump on my left hand sliced off with a razor, ostensibly as part of the process of having said bump biopsied. I’ll return to the skin slicer in two weeks for further discussion. I prefer youth to excruciating maturity.

+++

My IC will take her shih tzu to the vet today. Having spent far too much time so far this week with the human equivalent of veterinarians, I feel for the dog. He is a very nice dog. He does not deserve to be tortured. Not that I think the veterinarian will torture him, but I’m sure he must feel he is being punished when he is taken to the vet. I know I feel I’m being punished when I have to sit for long minutes and hours in waiting rooms that look and feel sterile and unfriendly and that seem dressed in purposely psychotic décor.

+++

In spite of the fact that he’s a nice guy and his wife, too, is very pleasant, I am tired of having my handyman in and out of my house. I want him gone. Whether or not he finished up today, though, his temporary replacement (in the form of an electrician and a mini-split installer) will invade my house tomorrow. If the world is even remotely fair, tomorrow’s invasion will result in a much more pleasant “sky room,” the term I apply to the little room off the master bedroom. The sky room has heretofore been mightily unpleasant when the sun heats up the room and when the deep chill of winter makes the room feel like a walk-in freezer. The mini-split should rectify that. Although I may need to replace all four big, stationary windows and the four panes in the casement frames. But the pain of that expense will be for another time, if indeed I have to do it.  I do so look forward to having the room useable as an office or a refuge or a wildlife viewing area or an exercise retreat. And I look forward to the reliably peaceful environment that isn’t regularly interrupted by strangers who charge me for invading and modifying my space.

+++

Snark. That’s what I feel this morning. Ice-cold snark courses through my veins in place of warm blood. I feel my eyes dart around, lizard-like, looking for insects that I can nab with my prehensile tongue. But I’m not really looking for insects, nor is my tongue prehensile. Yet I feel the way I think a lizard must feel when the world around him is moving at break-neck speed for no apparent reason other than to confuse and confound him. Why is the world so damn chaotic? Why can’t I feel the serenity that comes with gentle, soothing music (in a room otherwise absolutely silent), a glass of nice wine, and a view of a spectacular sunset? I can answer why: it’s because of where I am and who I am and when I am. I need to be someplace else and someone else at another point in time, far in the past or the future.

That’s what meditation is supposed to do for a person; transport one from the hustle and bustle of time on steroids to the serenity of never or always. Tempus nervosa is the term I coined to describe a hostility toward, or fear of, time. Not so much time itself, but what time carries with it, the weapon with which time performs its unwholesome functions. Time rips us out of our comfortable cages and thrusts us into the blinding light of years and years of afterbirth.

The final sentence of the preceding paragraph will one day find its way into a story or a novel or an unfinished dialogue with the devil,  Then again, it may never be written again. That’s the thing with language. It can be docile or it can be dangerous. And it can be carved in stone or written in clouds or steam or the vapors rising from a swamp.

I could spend the rest of the day playing with words. Not playing with words like the games we play but, instead, playing with words as if they had meaning and their meaning had power. And that power had repercussions. And those repercussions had consequences. And so on and so on and so on.

+++

I may cook bacon this morning for no other reason than to satisfy a desire that deserves to be sated.

Last night, just as we sat down to watch Season 3, Episode 1 of How to Get Away with Murder, the power went out. Moments later, it came back on. We settled in again to watch the series. But the power went out again. The second time, it stayed out; from 7:40 p.m. until roughly 10:20 p.m. When I reported the outage, Entergy claimed there was no known outage in my area. A moment later, though, the story changed. The outage affected 188 households and should be back on by 11. A moment or two later, the story changed again. The outage was a “planned outage” to upgrade Entergy facilities. Sometime later, the cause was a “scheduled interruption.” Whether planned or scheduled, Entergy did not bother to notify customers, which rankled me a tad. My mood all day had been borderline bitter; Entergy helped push it to sharp, sour, rancid, fetid, caustic, acrid, and deeply biting and unpleasant.

Night fell. We sat in the darkness; she played games on her phone, I fumed and paced, inside and out. Finally, around 9:00 a.m., we went to bed; no fan, but I opened some windows in the hope of a little breeze. Around 11, I awoke to lights in the living room. I could feel the air beginning to chill. The expectations one has, living in a first-world country in the twenty-first century, again were met. Just over three hours without electricity and I was complaining bitterly about paying my electric bill, but still only living in a third-world country. Shame, embarrassment, and assorted other unpleasant emotions tied to low self-esteem flowed from my brain; they continue to flow, as they should. What a spoiled brat. I was alone in my earned embarrassment; my IC took it all in with stoic resolve.

+++

Day before yesterday, I posted—here on this blog—photos of my canopy bed and my dining table. Good friends noticed and decided they wanted the bed. And they shall have it! Not only that, through a family connection, my IC’s big desk will disappear, as well. I love it when things work out that way; we wanted the beautiful pieces out of our way (though I will, in many ways, miss that glorious old bed) and they wanted that grandeur in their home…as if it were meant to be! Life can be good, even while being dragged beneath the surface by waves of ennui.

+++

I had a very long eye-care appointment yesterday. I arrived on time, just before 1:45 p.m. I walked out into the blinding sunlight (eyes dilated so my pupils were the size of pancakes) just after 4:00 p.m. Yes, I need new prescription glasses. I knew that going in. I do not know how much of an improvement I will get, but the technician who calculated the prescription strength mentioned 20/15 vision more than once. She also said she would increase my reading prescription from +2.50 to +2.75; the doctor, though, backtracked and left it at +2.50. I tend to trust the technician a little more than I trust the doctor. I may buy a pair of +2.75 reading glasses just to see what they might be like. Before I buy new lenses. And new frames. The optician (after the eye exam) said they do not carry magnetic clip-on sunglasses frames, but she said I could find them at Walmart. I may look. Or I may wait and look at Costco, where I bought my last magnetic clip-on sunglasses about 9 or 10 years ago.  Time will tell. It always does.

+++

From my little black book of Zen-influenced quotations:

Truth is within ourselves; it takes no rise
From outward things, what’er you may believe.
There is an inmost centre in us all,
Where truth abides in fullness.

~ Robert Browning ~

I am not quite sure I understand, much less embrace, those words, but I find them comforting, nonetheless.

+++

I had a series of odd dreams last night, In one of them, I was in the passenger seat of a car being driven by a friend from church. At some point, she said something to the effect of “I noticed you flinch when I brushed your leg in the pew. Don’t worry, it’s just my way.” Then, she started laughing uncontrollably as she reached over with a whisk broom and brushed my leg with it. In another dream (or maybe the same one), I had a rope tied around my waist as protection against falling; I tried to lean from a ladder to knock down a hornet’s next. Suddenly, I fell off the ladder and dangled, swinging back and forth, from the rope. I was petrified with fear, but whoever was with me laughed hysterically at my plight. I was as frightened of the hornets that I heard buzzing around my head as I was of falling to the ground, far, far below. Dreams are bizarre in so many ways.

+++

So far, today is modestly better than yesterday. I suppose it’s just the stress of major changes in my surroundings; it will be fine. But I can hear my heart beat louder than ever this morning. It’s like a slow-paced bongo; that’s the kind of noise I hear as the blood is pumped through the vessels in and around my ears. It’s the sort of sound that could, if it continued unabated for hours, drive me stark-raving mad; loony enough to take a machete to scarecrows protecting farmers’ crops of pumpkins. And the farmer, a firm proponent of taking Second Amendment rights well beyond their intended limits, would riddle me with bullets from an AR-15. So, maybe today is not really THAT much better than yesterday. Any day in which one’s imagination includes feeling the pain and seeing the blood pouring from wounds caused by a hail of gunfire is not an especially hunky-dory day.

+++

More coffee, thence to Walmart to pick up yesterday’s online order of groceries.

Try to be positive. But beware that positivity may be impossible some days. Some days drip with sarcasm and skepticism. It’s hard to say why. Even after good news, positive experiences, and a good breakfast, the world can slit the throat of positivity. It will return one day; just be aware of the sutures keeping  the skin around its neck from flapping in the breeze.

+++

I feel an immeasurable sense of weariness with the world. Ennui doesn’t begin to describe it. Afghanistan. COVID. Vaccination rage. Uneducated hillbillies who believe deeply in their superiority and in the words of moronic preachers whose sermons ooze ignorance and anti-Christian philosophies in the name of Jesus Christ, amen. Mothers who refuse to require their children to use seat belts because “God will protect us.”  I shake my head from side to side in response to my own question: “Can I do anything to emerge from this disappointment with humanity?”

+++

If that’s not cheery enough…Do not read on if you fancy a day filled with lollipops and daisies.

Science fiction has a history of accurately predicting the future. Sometimes. But it’s not the only literary genre that offers a glimpse of life as it might—and often does—become. Political thrillers, too, have painted pictures of futures that came to pass. Political satire has done the same. Dystopian novels give us snapshots of futures we hope never to see but which increasingly seem likely, given the apparent degradation of civility, compassion, and simple human decency.

Literature has long disguised the crystal ball peering into the future. We  believed crystal balls were imaginary, make-believe glances forward into a time that has not yet come to be. But crystal balls are real, regardless of material or configuration. Crystal spheres they are not, though. They comprise writers’ imaginations, coupled with either cursory or deeply analytical assessments of the real world around us. The crystal ball is a “what if” device that produces alternate futures delivered by way of printing presses, Kindle e-readers, blogs, print-on-demand technologies, and myriad other ways of looking into the future.

Too often, we read writers’ warnings as if fiction is just a pleasant (or a jarring) pastime. In reality, whether the writer and/or the reader know it, fiction often carries an urgent and ominous caution about what is to come “in the real world.” Fiction, whatever its form, often warns us to change our ways if we wish to avoid cataclysmic failures of human society and the agonies associated therewith. At our peril, we flinch and giggle, hoping the messages are simply artificial alerts delivered by doomsday alarmists.

But fiction can be wrong, too. Fiction can predict fabulous tomorrows when, in fact, the future can turn murky and dark and violent. Today is not the stunningly beautiful destination we raced toward as children. It is more like a return to cholera and smallpox and polio, steeped in a slurry of gasoline and methamphetamine. This yesterday’s tomorrow is one in which pharamacists mainline heroin and worship science-deniers. It is a time when the collective “we” drowns children simply to spite the water and their swimming instructors. It is a time in which nurses, their syringes filled with super-dose warfarin, carry axes and don white hoods before entering medical clinics in poor neighborhoods.

This moment in history will be the one that will not appear in history books because books are being taken to alternative libraries, where they will be banned and burned. Or maybe not. Maybe skilled theologians troll the shores of the Gulf of Mexico for freshwater antelope while snorting FDA-approved cocaine. The point is this: today is both tomorrow’s yesterday and yesterday’s tomorrow, Simultaneously, it is a chaotic mix of irrationality and understandable fear. We have every right and reason to be afraid. Marauding gangs of deeply stupid motorcyclists could reach your street as soon as now. They are, most probably, outside your window at this moment, ready to fling vats of maggot-infested meat and blood through your open doors.

+++

Indoor-outdoor carpet should be delivered soon. Who knows what happens after that? I’m down for no discernible reason. In fact, my mood is utterly at odds with all the good news surrounding me. WTF, I ask? WTF?