John Swinburn

Watching dense smoke flow—like a waterfall—gently down from the ember of a cone of incense intrigues me. The explanation for the direction of flow, counter to what would normally be expected, is a matter of simple physics; but it appears almost magical. I have never had a backflow incense burner, but when I see them on display in shops I invariably stop and stare at them. The ember of the cone of incense and the smoke flowing in the “wrong” direction captivate me, yet something almost always seems not quite right. This morning, as I was skimming a website that sells incense, I realized what struck me as out of place: the incense cone, the ember, and the smoke appear “natural,” but the holders tend to be artificial. Plastic. That juxtaposition interrupts and damages what could otherwise be a sensation of calmness; like viewing beautiful ornamental glass spheres become cheap rubber balloons that pop when hit by a dart. My willingness to be persuaded that I am viewing something almost mystical was suddenly shattered when I realized the experience involves blatantly misleading trickery. Those gentle, magical rivers of smoke flow over molded petroleum products…poorly made in an attempt to look like stone. That realization was like learning the man I thought was Santa Claus had been mortally wounded in a shootout with police over a fentanyl bust gone horribly wrong. Imagine learning that a set of remarkably beautiful stained glass church windows you have admired all your life are, in fact, cheap and brittle colored plastic film. Your world is suddenly turned upside down; nothing you believed can be trusted anymore. You want nothing more than to forget everything  and everyone you ever knew—just disappear from the face of the Earth.

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Distant thunder just interrupted my coal-black reverie. Temperatures are in the mid-thirties at the moment, on their way to barely reaching the mid-forties by 2:00 P.M. Lightning flashed in front of my windows, followed two or three seconds later by growling thunder. The day’s weather will be belligerent again…threatening, in fact. Like a prison inmate, recently released on parole, with no job, no home, no money, and no friends…his only comfort a bottle of cheap whiskey. He could earn a pretty penny, though, if he would just agree to perform a long string of public service assassinations disguised to look like natural causes.

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We are being watched. Even in small towns. In laundromats. In convenience stores. As we use crosswalks to make our way to the other side of dangerous intersections. Quite possibly in our own homes, where Mark’s and Elon’s eyes and the eyes of dozens of others are glued to monitors that track our every movement. Privacy is a fantasy, thanks to Alexa and Siri and the WIFI-driven cameras and microphones hidden in your refrigerators and clothes dryers and shower stalls and doctors’ examination rooms. Malevolent technicians control every device you have come to depend on; your smart-watch, your tablet, your phone, your television, the lights in your home, your automobile…the list is endless. If you ever wonder why a subject suddenly popped into your mind…it was placed there by the technicians or their AI counterparts. And it can be removed…as can anything else in your mind. It’s time we all become conspiracy theorists, assigning blame for all the world’s ills to Atheists and Catholics and Muslims and Southern Baptists and others whose own conspiracy theories paint targets on the backs of the rest of us. Paranoia will no longer be classified as an illness but, instead, as a great gift of foresight…because people with paranoia will have cameras and microphones implanted in their eyes and ears. If you do not believe these are factual statements, look over your left shoulder, where a microscopic camera will record the terror on your face as you spy the reflection of its lens. Do not worry, though. Bird-flu might rob us of chicken eggs, but the transition to platypus eggs will be easy…and worth the fear of cameras.

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Assuming she does not think what I’ve written here today indicates I am dangerous, my sister will come visit soon. As we grow older, I think people naturally gravitate back toward family, even if age disparities in the past made familial connections somewhat more tenuous that in families in which children were spaced quite closely together. The temporal space between the kids in families like mine ensure that all of us have memories that might as well come from different eras. Or, in my case, memories that somehow have largely disappeared over the years. So, gathering with one’s siblings is like making connections with bygone moments some family members did not experience. Hmm. Hard to explain, now that I am attempting to present myself as a moderately sane person.

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When I become emperor of this great domain, I will issue decrees that will cause enormous consternation to those who are causing us anxiety now. Where does one find suitable parolees on wet winter mornings? Would that life were so simple.

I was looking forward to learning the results of my upcoming PET-scan…until I got a call from my oncologist’s office, postponing the scan for a week. The caller told me an injection I had recently was too close in time to the scheduled PET-scan, so the scan would have to wait. And so I will wait until next week. After I learned of the scheduling change, I received a long-awaited call from an ENT doctor’s office, referred by my oncologist, to set up an appointment to explore the causes and treatment of my constant nasal drip and nose bleeds. As luck would have it, I overscheduled the ENT appointment for the same time as my PET-scan. Once I realized my goof, I called the ENT to apologize and plead for another appointment. The doctor agreed to set an appointment for me on a day he reserves only for surgery, with an admonition that I might need to be patient in the event a surgery takes longer than expected. He altered his schedule because of the oncologist’s referral. I can expect to feel acutely guilty when I get impatient at having to wait for someone else’s surgery to be competed.

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Again, I hear the rain running off the roof into the gutters. And I hear a distant, high-pitched buzz emanating from inside my head. I wonder whether the buzz is really a sound, or simply a symptom of tinnitus? The same question comes to mind when I hear the “thump, thump, thump” beat of blood flowing through the veins and arteries near my ears…are the sounds real or simply manifestations of imaginary noise manipulating my brain to believe I hear sound? I have begun to question reality—or what I perceive as reality—in many ways, not just the phantom sounds I hear. The fleeting sharp pains I feel in various parts of my body, just under the skin, may not be real. They are not sufficiently bothersome, nor frequent, to mention to doctors. I have done that before. Usually, it leads to unnecessary investigations that lead nowhere or to dismissal; as if my hypochondria is acting up again. The sounds and pains are not terribly troubling (the sounds, though, more so than the pains), but I hate not knowing whether I am having actual experiences or engaging with phantoms. I just now noticed the sound of rain has stopped; did I actually hear the sound of rain before, or was it yet another illusory sensation?

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When describing the actions of someone who is seeking the approval of another person, the term “curry favor” may be used. When discussing food that has unique sensory characteristics, the term “curry flavor” might be used to describe one of its attributes.  How can we justify differentiating between two terms with such disparate meanings with a single letter? A proper language czar would not permit the use of such potentially confusing expressions; such a czar would require a minimum of four letters’ difference between any such word combinations.

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This post represents the 5,500^th post I have written for this blog. That includes 4,935 published; the remainder are drafts that very likely will never see the light of day. Many of the published posts also should never have been let loose on the world, but most of the world has not had the misfortunate of stumbling upon them…so the harm done is minor. Counting the posts on this (or almost any other) blog is an exercise in pointlessness in much the same way that clipping and collecting the letter “n” from newspaper articles has no value or purpose. Yet some people are driven to pursue an unattainable satisfaction from engaging in such mindless pursuits. Those people apparently believe there is some end to the means. When asked to articulate just what that end is, though, they struggle to put it into words. The satisfaction they seek is never realized, but they nonetheless tell themselves “it” must be “out there, somewhere.” They say “out there” because they have long sense given up looking for it in themselves. I imagine hoarders hoard for the same reason. Something about the hunt must propel them forward. The acquisition of one or more types of “things” must provide a sense they are on the right track. The same probably is true of bloggers and “n” collectors. Despite my recognition that my blog posts are by and large (perhaps entirely) without value, I cannot bring myself to discarding them…just in case there’s a gem hidden amidst the umpteen thousands of letters. Yet I have not taken steps to effectively back up these 5,500 posts, so they could be gone in a microsecond. I probably would survive the trauma.

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If I were to build a house today, it would be a smallish one. But it would have something I’ve never thought about including in my house plans until this morning: a sanctuary. Not a religious sanctuary, but it probably would look like one. Churches have a long history of perfecting sanctuaries, creating spaces with high ceilings, stone walls, beautiful stained glass windows, and a peaceful, quiet environment. My sanctuary would be small but grand. And it would be furnished with comfortable seating…including a couch or two suitable for napping. I might like to listen to the echo of Gregorian-style chants as I relaxed and sent troubling thoughts away. A place to connect with who I am and who I want to be. A place welcoming to like minds. And peace, as deep as the deepest ocean.

I’ve said it before: Time makes a sound as it rushes past our ears. But I’ve also maintained that the sound is so low it cannot be heard, except by Time itself. The sound made by Time is, to our ears, identical to silence. I wish I could rest on an extraordinarily—perfectly—comfortable bed in an absolutely dark room and hear only the sound made by Time. The sound of bed sheets crinkling would not disturb me—nor would the blood coursing through my veins nor the inaudible hiss of my breath—because the impossibly low volume of the sound of Time would overwhelm all other sounds. Yet, because the sound of Time is so incomprehensibly low, I would not hear it. A shroud of silence would surround me. And that shroud would muffle all my other senses to the extent that they would effectively disappear. I would feel nothing, see nothing, taste nothing, smell nothing…my thoughts, too, would become absolutely dormant. I would become nonresponsive to my sensory environment, mirroring the experience of death. But, of course, one cannot “experience” death; my inability to express or explain the complete absence of experience would contradict my existence. I would not know it, though, because knowledge requires the ability to think and to experience one’s existence, which I could not do. Nor would I be able to remember…even if I were removed from that state of non-existence…because memories (and even dreams) require experiences to serve as their foundations. Now, I wonder, if we had no means to measure its presence or its passing, would Time exist? Is Time an imaginary boundary that exists only in the dark corners of our mind?

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You may have guessed I have lost my mind. I think I’ll find it in the Chinese leftovers from yesterday’s lunch. Yes, an inauthentic Chinese breakfast, modified for the Arkansan palate and the tastes of a man whose renunciation of his Texas birthright citizenship grows more appealing with each passing legal assault on human rights. First, I’ll take in breakfast, then I’ll go engage in conversation with a doctor who deals in curative radio waves. I need more sleep, though, so perhaps I will fall asleep in the car on the way to the radio station.

Several years ago, I made a brief trip to Beijing, China to attend a conference for one of my client associations. My stay in Beijing was short, but interesting. On the way home, I had a one-night layover and stayed in the Hilton Tokyo Narita Airport. The morning of my continuing flight, I had a fairly typical Japanese breakfast in the hotel; rice, broiled salmon, miso soup, cucumber, and some colorful splashes of edible somethings (I do not remember what). I’m relatively sure I drank tea with my food. There was something inherently peaceful about that meal—something quiet and calming and so very soothing. The size of the meal was very small, but utterly satisfying. I’ve written about this experience before, I’m afraid; forgive me. Something about it changed my thinking about Japanese culture. The gentleness. The civility. The attention paid to good manners and person-to-person tenderness. The apparent absence of harshness…compared to day-by-day interactions in the United States. Much of what I’ve read about Japan, since then, has enhanced my appreciative perspective on what strikes me as highly honorable Japanese culture. All of that from a one-night stay at an airport hotel…and a little reading. Admittedly, my exposure to Japanese culture has been far too limited to make informed judgments about it. But even with my limited experience, I felt—and still feel—a kinship of sorts with what I perceived as a cultural gentleness; I think the term in Japanese is Yasashi-sa. I read somewhere that Yasashi-sa describes both a behavior and a state of being. If such a state of being ever graced the American cultural and psychological landscape, it has long since been so completely eroded and crushed into powdered rock that it is unrecoverable. Our culture is too deeply imbued with harshness and meanness to retrieve what may have once been gentleness. That notwithstanding, on those exceedingly rare occasions when I prepare a Japanese breakfast, I think I hear a soothing, pleasing echo of Yasashi-sa.

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The clock on my computer registered 4:01 a.m. a few minutes ago. I could not stay in bed past 2:45 this morning, thanks to getting so much sleep over the past few days, but I already feel a growing sleepy fatigue that may allow me to drift off again if I try. Several times during the last couple of days I have awakened in confusion, not sure what part of the day I am encountering…morning, afternoon, dead of night? That is what happens, I suppose, when one sleeps through multiple “normal” sleep cycles. Time becomes a confusing elastic cage that hides clues about hours of the day and days of the week. I imagine even longer sleep cycles could introduce chaos to uncertainty about weeks of the month or months of the year.

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The Super Bowl is to take place today. I watched the game a few years ago and was surprised that I actually enjoyed it. I have no interest in becoming a fan, so I will not watch it again. Instead, I will challenge humans’ common belief/assumption that life requires oxygen and water. Perhaps water and oxygen are required of life as we know it, but does the possibility exist that life might take a completely different form, one that requires neither of those substances? My answer is “YES.” The mere fact that we have not been exposed to life that does not require them does not prove that they are required for life to exist. Yet even the definitions we use to explain what life is presume that our assumptions are correct…that oxygen and water are necessary for life to exist. Why, I wonder, are we so damn certain about something so fundamentally unknowable in the context of our current experience? Our uncertainty extends to almost everything else (if we’re honest about it), but LIFE…we are POSITIVE that is an exception to our general uncertainties. What if we discovered, on a distant planet, that life existed there only in the presence of molybdenum and lead, super-heated to temperatures of at least 13,649°F? Would we even recognize life in that form? Would the circumstances permit us to understand such a completely different form of life? Or would we insist on calling it something else? So many questions remain unanswered. So many have not even been asked.

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This week’s schedule: a visit with the radiologist tomorrow morning, a blood draw and one-week-in injection tomorrow afternoon, and a PET-scan on Thursday afternoon. The costs associated with these treatments and tests are beyond obscenely expensive. If I had no insurance, I would long since have been bankrupted and living in extreme poverty. I pity people who need care and cannot afford it.

Quick and easily attainable proficiency in multiple languages would give me options I can only dream about in the present stage of my life. I harbor envy, jealousy, and resentment toward people who quickly and painlessly pick up languages beyond their native tongues. To be honest, it is not the individuals’ capabilities I begrudge. It’s their good fortune I envy; to have been reared in an environment conducive to becoming a polyglot and to have been encouraged to learn multiple languages. Forty years ago, had I been able to quickly acquire fluency in several Scandinavian languages, I could have planted myself in Sweden or Finland or Iceland. With those language skills, I would have been able to adjust very quickly to the lifestyle differences between the Nordic countries and “home.” I would have been able to enjoy cultures in which civility and general human decency are more highly valued than in my home culture. And I could have gotten used to the weather; I’m sure of it. For many years, I have played with a fantasy in which a person’s speech capabilities could be dramatically expanded with a precise combination of electrical stimulation of the brain and infusion of targeted pharmaceuticals and/or other chemicals. In my vision, a complex assortment of electrical “shocks” and chemical reactions within brain and muscle tissues would artificially implant and appropriately “order” information in the brain and “train” the tongue and mouth to create the sounds necessary to convert the information into language. For example, when I think of the word “rabbit” in my native English, I could speak the Swedish word “kanin.” Or, when I hear the Swedish word “varg,” my English mind would understand it as “wolf” in English. Better still (when the complexities are all ironed out), there would be no translation; it would be pure, unadulterated fluency. I am convinced that this vision of mine will eventually be realized, provided governments do not prohibit scientists or linguists or whoever from conducting intensive research into such possibilities.

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Among the many reasons I tend to delve into hundreds (or thousands) of subjects only “skin deep” may have to do with my lack of confidence in my ability to fully grasp the full breadth and depth of most subjects. I develop an interest, then start to explore it, but soon come to the conclusion that I do not have the intellectual capacity to master a deeper understanding. I tell myself I simply lose interest, but that’s probably not true…more likely, it is because I am resigned to my mental limitations. Either I know, deep in my core, I do not have the ability to comprehend, or I do not want to damage my ego by trying and failing…because I do not have the ability to comprehend.  Had I attempted to get beyond those obstacles many years ago, I might have overcome them. But at this late stage in life, neither my energy nor my thirst for knowledge is up to the task. Wisdom comes far too late to do much good.

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During the very brief period between sleep and sleep last evening, we began watching a brand new Netflix series entitled The Åre Murders. The promotion teasers appropriately label the Swedish-made series’ genre as Nordic noir. I think we viewed three out of five episodes; it was sufficiently intriguing that I could have watched the remaining two last night, except for feeling ill and exhausted. I’ve been too tired or too distracted to watch much television lately; my eyelids droop and my mind wanders off into elaborate daydreams, making it impossible to follow the action on the screen. But last night was different—for as long as it lasted. Now, if I can just hold on to my interest in the show for the two remaining episodes, I will be able to claim that I watched an entire program.

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Even though I slept almost the entire day yesterday, I already feel my limited energy getting spongy like a leaky balloon. I got up around 3:30. It’s not quite 6 now, but I feel sure I will be able to sleep if I recline on the sofa and daydream about impossible things.

Governments naturally operate in ways that will ensure their own longevity. Dictatorial regimes employ tactics involving fear, force, and psychological pressure to maintain their control. Less oppressive reigns use similar schemes, but the pressures they tend to use often are disguised behind artificially compassionate façades. In most—if not all— cases, deceit ensures that the governed are carefully kept in states of powerless confusion. Keeping people worried, uninformed, and distracted is vital to maintaining lasting control.

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If the proponents of “Christian Nationalism” were honest, they would acknowledge that they are, in fact, supporters of “Fascist Christianity.” Whatever that malignancy is called, it is rooted in a desire for crippling power and a complete abandonment of morality and human decency. These are your neighbors and, possibly, your friends.

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Revolution has become much more difficult in the age of ubiquitous social media. Secrets are impossible to keep. Enemies of state control of every aspect of citizens’ lives cannot rely on social media to keep their identities or their plans from “the authorities.” They must resort either to old-fashioned “resistance” tactics or innovative ways to distribute information and enlist support for their causes. Looking back to our days of innocence, we trusted government with enormous power to control our lives…assuming people in government would not take malevolent advantage of their power. Today, that power enables them to watch almost every move we make and to intercept and crush messages that might lead us to greater freedom.

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The effects of Monday’s chemotherapy session, coupled with a sense that I am powerless to stop the dissolution of democracy, leave me feeling uncomfortable, exhausted, and enraged. I tried to expunge this rage from my brain through silent meditation, but the attempt morphed into visions of Buddha beheading thousands of fanatical right-wing deviants in a festival of flowing blood. The muscles in my gut ache, as if I had been doing sit-ups for hours. Anti-nausea medication is, apparently, keeping me just barely away from the threshold of being sick, but close enough to be unsure if it’s just a prelude of what’s to come. Sleep is the only reliable way to keep this sensation at bay.

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My PET-scan has been scheduled for late next Thursday afternoon. Nothing on the books beyond that, so I do not know when I’ll get the results and discuss next steps with the doctor. I’ll find out, eventually. And then I’ll know more than I know today.

When you quiet your mind, you can enter a world of clarity, peace and understanding.

~ Alice Coltrane ~

News of madness and horror in every facet of human life invades my consciousness, too often aided and abetted by my own failure to block access. My desire to achieve a sense of peace and contentment is rarely met. I cannot seem to empty my mind of troubling thoughts and visions of physical and emotional violence done to undeserving victims by merciless demons in human form. The very idea that I would desire serenity for myself, while knowing that others suffer excruciating torment, seems shameful. But I try to exculpate myself by telling myself I can do nothing to alleviate the torture unless I can focus my attention outside my own experience. That attempt usually fails; simply adds to the sense of guilt. Yet allowing one’s own mind to be scrambled by the surrounding chaos virtually assures incompetence. I suspect that only by freeing one’s head of distractions—both positive and negative—can a person realistically expect to achieve any clarity about what an individual can do to solve difficult problems. For that reason, I often think about embracing meditation; but rarely do anything consequential in response. When I commit to the focus required of successful meditation (focus may seem contrary to the concept, but it is not…in my mind), I sometimes enjoy brief periods of relief. But my commitment invariably is shattered by my own self-intrusive thoughts. Perhaps I allow myself to be “bullied” by schedules over which I think I have little control: doctor visits, tests, procedures, competing events or commitments, etc. In reality, though, I do have sufficient control over my schedules to carve out time to devote exclusively to solo meditation. It’s simply a matter of discipline and true commitment. I could, for example, exchange my early morning blogging for an early morning meditation practice. Real commitment. That’s all it would take. Now, do I have the mental strength to require that of myself?

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On rare occasions, I am asked about my process of writing. I cannot claim I have a “process.” Some days, I sit at my computer and just give my fingers the freedom to do what they seem to want; it’s almost like my mind has already made up what it wishes to allow my fingers to do. Other days, I stare at the blank screen for a long time, hoping that one of a thousand thoughts in my head commands my focused attention. Still others, I write a sentence or two about something, then move on and write a bit about something else; then do it all again…several times—only then do I expand a bit on one of more of those sentences. Were I a true author—a writer who craves his work to be published and read—I would develop a writing process of my own. A style that would help mold my writing into cohesive literature readily identifiable as a product of my unique mind. I used to dream of becoming an author, but that shiny object has lost its luster in the face of knowledge that authors are not special, they’re just a little different. I wanted to be special, I guess. Now, I just want to express what’s going on in my mind, even if that means coaxing uncooperative sentences and meaningless drivel in paragraph form from a place of emptiness.

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After a delightful early dinner with a friend—who delivered the meal—my energy faded quickly. Once again, I was in bed around 7:30, but sleep did not come for quite some time. When finally it arrived, it stayed only briefly before I was wide awake, but too tired to get up. Eventually, I got back to sleep in hour-long segments until around 4:30, just half an hour before I started writing this post. I sense a long, mentally demanding day on the horizon; one that requires me to be awake, but one that could be much more appealing if I could be asleep.

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Cancer is just part of my experience. It does not, has not, nor will it ever, define me. But the response to my experience may give the appearance that it defines me. Much of what I have written during the past year (and then some) has dealt with the recurrence of my cancer and the treatments I have undergone (and am undergoing) in efforts to control it. From my perspective, cancer is just a big, unpleasant obstacle to allowing me to continue along the path of self-definition. That may be a strange idea…that a person as old as I still hasn’t finished the process of defining himself. It probably is not as strange as many might think, though. I think some people (maybe many people) reach a point—in middle age, perhaps—at which they unwittingly decide “I’m done…this is who I am.” Later, though, they look at who they earlier thought was an end-product and realize the process remains incomplete. They may look back years—or just months or weeks—and slowly come to the conclusion that more growth and change has long been in store. Now, they consider, the time left to cultivate that development is getting short. So they embark, knowingly or not, on a journey to make up for lost time. What they are trying to achieve is hard to articulate, but I suspect it is different for everyone. It could be building or leaving a legacy of personality, a “mark on the world,” or a hundred other things. Whatever it is, it is different from (and better than), what they had thought was finished. And, of course, they may not know…not really…what it is they hope to achieve. Just…something unique and notable. I wonder how many succeed in identifying and then attaining that goal?

I believe I have conceived of a good solution for men whose bodies, like mine, are not suitable for wearing jeans as they are now configured. In my case, because my gut STILL has greater circumference than my hips, a belt—even a relatively tightly-cinched belt—will not hold the pants up. Unless the hands are at the ready, the jeans can suddenly fall to the floor, causing considerable embarrassment. The tightness required to make a belt actually work is so great that the belt and its buckle dig into the flesh and painfully compress one’s internal organs. My solution seems simple: a onesies-inspired piece of clothing that marries jeans (or any pants, for that matter) to a shirt. The links between the two elements of clothing would be concealed through design, with one’s shoulders bearing the weight of the jeans by way of the connection between them. The specifics of the design will require someone with far more expertise than I, but I think I could work with a good clothing designer to come up with a prototype. An expert clothier/needleworker would be required to assemble the mock-up. Once viewed and experienced in the real world, I feel confident it would become the clothing of choice for men (and women) whose bodies do not comport with current fashion design.

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My almost-10-year-old car has only a touch more than 120,000 miles on it. Well-maintained and serviced (and it is), it should easily last another 120,000 miles. The second 120,000 miles probably would take more than 10 years; most likely a good bit longer than I will last, considering the condition of my health. Whenever I allow myself to entertain ideas about replacing it, I remind myself of these points. And I contemplate the costs of buying another car, versus keeping the one I have; buying would be FAR more expensive. The only potentially compelling argument in favor of replacement involves improvements in, or new, safety features. A not-so-compelling argument is my desire for the smoothest, quietest, most luxurious ride I can afford. That argument might hold more sway if I had reasonable expectations of taking my car on long road trips. But any such expectations are not particularly reasonable; more like fantasies. So, for now, I continue to be ready to fight sudden bouts of new-car-fever. Only time will tell whether I win the battle. I hope a long time passes before I have to say I lost. But I’m too wise to make promises; I know too much about my fickleness and hypocrisy.

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Morality is not always a simple matter. For those of us who believe an individual’s murder is an immoral act, for example, we tend to believe the murderer should be stopped and/or punished in some way. But what if we could save the life of one innocent person—and perhaps two or three more—by taking the lives of ten proven serial killers? Would saving the lives of the killers, and allowing the innocent to die, be a moral act? Or would we be more moral by saving the individual and allowing the ten killers to be executed? What if we did not just allow the executions, but performed them ourselves? Morality is an incredibly complex concept that is defined as much (or more) by elaborate sets of circumstances as by rigid, black and white rules. If one agrees with that, then, morality is situational. And if morality is situational, are ethics…based on morality…also situational? Such ruminations can challenge life-long assumptions and beliefs. At the very least, pondering the morality of unthinkable acts that, from a specific perspective,  may be the only “right” things to do can cause one to doubt the certainty of morality and immorality. Doubting and questioning one’s own moral core can be among the most disturbing things to cross our minds. We want absolutes; absolutes are illusions in an environment in which reality is circumstantial.

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Gratitude and condemnation can live side-by-side in a world full of goodness and injustice. Too much of either one can knock a person off-balance, altering perspective so much that it is impossible to have a clear view of what is real and what is a self-fulfilling attitude of joy or sorrow. Though it might seem counter to common sense to hold on to enough condemnation to balance joy, that may be the only way to retain even a shred of sanity in the face of a flood of injustice.

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Early to bed, early to rise. Even though I was in bed for eight hours—and slept moderately well for five or six of them—I can feel my energy draining from my body this morning. The thick grey layer of fog outside my window is blocking the sun and keeping the the sky from any morning brightness. That’s an ideal visual environment for sleeping; a pleasant dimness that wraps around one like a protective blanket. Just enough light to prove, when opening the eyes, that one is awake and alive.

Moments with the scourges of illness, injury, clouded vision, labored breathing, or physical or emotional pain visit us during the course of a lifetime. If we are fortunate, those visits are brief. But, finally, advanced age takes its toll in the form of weakness and  lingering reminders of the decay brought on by a lifetime of warfare against the inevitable end.

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Both Canada and Mexico apparently have agreed to bend to some demands from a criminal enterprise. The lesson we have learned from that is that extortion works to achieve a malevolent objective. Whether extorting friend or foe, making threats can elicit behaviors we want. The recent educational example is what I would call a protection scheme—in which we demand material benefits at the victim’s expense that, if not delivered, will result in the imposition of painful experiences for the victim.  This important lesson will become part of our K-12 curricula in the new Criminality Class, which replaces Civics Class. Speaking of education, we still expect Voting 101, which has been discontinued, to be replaced by a class on Submission to Unjust Authority. However, there is some dispute among different factions, with some calling for Permanent Anesthesia 101, instead, to take the place of the class on Voting. Others insist on Early Death by Natural Causes as the replacement, and still others favor Modern Rebellion. Time, the speed of which has slowed dramatically of late, will tell.

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On a whim, the first thing I did this morning was order, online, a belt and two shirts. My most recent acquisition of jean fit me a bit better than the ones I ordered earlier, but they still tend to fall to the floor at inappropriate times, without a belt. A still smaller pair of jeans would not solve the problem because my hips apparently are still narrower than my gut and even smaller jeans would not allow me to button them. A belt, though, can be cinched tight enough to keep them from dropping. If, that is, there are enough holes in the belt. I have run out of holes in the other belts in my closet. The shirts were just more mere whimsy. Why not? They were cheap.

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It seems my oncologist is weaning me off chemotherapy chemicals, but that’s probably not really the case. When I started radiation, she paused one of the two major drugs, which is still paused several weeks after my radiation has been complete. Yesterday, she reduced the dosage of the other major drug. I expect to have my PET-scan “soon,” so I will learn something more. In the interim, I will return for injections (my red blood cell count and platelet count are still too low) and a lab blood draw. Actually, my oncologist explained why she is doing what she is doing, but I do not remember details.

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Owls are making quite the racket outside my window this morning. I wish I could see them, but darkness prevents it. Darkness gets in the way of so many things. Without light, it is hard, if not impossible, to drive safely. Even walking in the darkness is unsafe. So very many other things are intensely unadvisable in darkness: plowing fields, diving off of cliffs, swimming in snake-infested waters (unsafe in daylight, as well), welding, etc.

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This damn blog let me write considerably more, but then froze. The paragraph above was twice as long and I’d written yet another paragraph. I’m too angry at the blog host to try again, so I am giving up for now.

I have a lot of rage about things that didn’t happen to me, tied up with watching an immigrant, working-class father struggle to make his way through the world – and seeing how society was modeled to keep him in his place.

~ Dennis Lehane ~

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My inexpensive espresso machine has never produced an end-product that is as hot as it should be. Lately, I’ve felt a distinct decline in the temperature of my morning elixir—enough to cause me to consider replacing the machine. I crave espresso from a high-end espresso maker—the kind that involves using fresh roasted beans, ground to a powdery consistency. But I have become increasingly lazy and impatient with advancing age, so at present I settle for a machine that uses pre-filled aluminum pods. No matter how much I might enjoy the time-consuming product of an upscale machine, I am satisfied with the rich flavor supplied by the rather pricey pods. Just as importantly, if not more so, the extraordinary speed of my little machine meets my need for almost instant gratification. So…I may look into a replacement; a machine that uses the same pods I use now. I am pleased with everything about my morning espresso except its temperature. And, of course, I could survive without replacing my machine. But I am greedy and needy and innately lazy.

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I have twice postponed a procedure that is said to correct the epithelial basement membrane dystrophy condition that negatively affects my vision, especially in my left eye (which would be the first one to be addressed). My reasons for delaying the procedure are complex; and probably understandable only by me, so I will not attempt to explain. In years past, I opted to decline other opportunities to correct physical flaws; the deviated septum in my nose and the attention-grabbing diastema between my two upper front teeth. And, of course, long ago I could have corrected my obesity, rather than waiting for cancer and its treatment to partially do the job for me. As I consider the fact that I have refused to take actions to correct troublesome aspects of my physical self, I suspect there is a mental or emotional aspect to my decisions. Well, of course there is, but I am not clear about exactly what that aspect might be. I have suspicions, but my brain refuses to sufficiently focus on them with enough intensity to verify them. It’s well past time to give the matter significant thought; yet I do.

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Assuming the results of today’s lab tests reveal my red blood cell count is sufficient, last week’s chemotherapy session—which was delayed—will take place today. The delay gave me an additional week of feeling a little closer to “normal,” which I appreciated. Getting out of the house for a restaurant meal was a nice change, for example. But I wonder how much of a negative impact, if any, such a delay in treatment might have on its effectiveness. I think I’ve posed that question before to the oncology nurse who shares treatment responsibilities with my oncologist, who said it does not. I still wonder. I may learn today a more specific timeline than “soon” for my next PET-scan. I am anxious to get the results of the scan; more importantly, I want to know details about the meaning of the results. Time will answer my questions.

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The power of the U.S. presidency should be curtailed…dramatically. Assumptions that the checks and balances available through Congress will constraint the abuse of power have proven to be wrong. This Congress will not place any restraints on the president’s power; even if it tried, its members do not have the courage to override presidential vetoes of legislation limiting those powers. A popular uprising—complete with pitchforks and rage—may be the only remaining option. The problem with such an option, of course, is that nearly half the population support illegal and immoral actions by the president. That part of the populace would support wholesale slaughter of his opponents in the streets. Ach!

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We have allowed poison and rabies to take up residence in the White House.

I daydream about a small rural cottage, made of stone, situated high on an ocean-view ridge where a forest intersects with natural pastures.  The cottage is warm and comfortable. It is hidden by topography from the few people who might have reason to be in its vicinity. Even if those people knew of the place, they would respect my privacy. In that cottage, I would allow myself to think and to imagine and to dream—to lose myself in ideas that can be fully explored only in quiet solitude. Reality complicates my daydream when, to my chagrin, I allow practical thoughts to intrude: How do I get food and fresh water, what about electricity and internet access, how long can I stay? Absent those irritating practical interruptions, my daydream might be precisely what I want and need to distance myself from the pain and disappointments of the real world. How, I wonder, can I prevent practical matters from invading my thoughts? The more I consider this dilemma, the clearer it becomes: if I cannot spend time in my imaginary cottage, I will spend time in a fantasy world in which my imaginary cottage is real; and practicality is an unwelcome and unnecessary obstacle.

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A powerful longing for peace and serenity admittedly is at odds with smoldering embers of anger that periodically erupt into volcanic rage. Yet those contradictory emotions are intertwined with one another, separated only by immeasurably thin threads of rationality. But those threads of rationality—always subject to immense strain—sometimes snap, enabling competing temperaments to blend into emotions no words can adequately express. At their extreme, those indescribable emotions enable a loving father to put himself at great risk to rescue his daughter from the grip of a would-be rapist; and, then, to hack the assailant to death with a machete. Those blended emotions, though, only rarely reach that extreme. Along the spectrum of their intensity, they can unleash levels of anger ranging from harsh words to unspeakable physical violence. Most people are innately limited in the degree to which they approach the extreme. Yet almost everyone is capable of bypassing those limits in certain demanding circumstances. At least that’s my take on the human condition.

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Is the world unraveling? Are we witnessing (and complicit in allowing) the fall of an empire of which we are a part? If the empire is falling, can we say with certainty its dissolution is a bad thing? My answers to those questions are irrelevant because I am not qualified/equipped to answer them. But I have opinions. And I have experience with the neck-deep propaganda advanced by the defenders and enemies of the empire. And I have limited experience which allows me to compare some of the propaganda with reality; my opinion is that reality is more believable. China is far more advanced, for example, than Western political zealots would have us believe. The people of China, from what I’ve seen, are much better off than those zealots tell us. That’s true of many other places, as well. The world outside our borders is more sophisticated, more interesting, more educational, more intriguing, and more attractive than we are taught/led to believe.  Which of the remaining empires will fill the void we leave—if, indeed, we leave a void to fill? Should a void be filled…or should it be left open and unsullied by thought manipulation and indoctrination? I feel deeply skeptical this morning. Nothing is as I once thought. A look in the mirror tells me I am not who I once claimed to be.

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My mood has shifted from sad to surly…with a bit of somber sorrow thrown in. It will be best if I crawl back under the covers and hide from the light.

Just leave us in peace. That is the desire most of us feel in our hearts, though we may not say it aloud. We just want to be left alone to go about our lives, without threats or unwelcome intrusions. But maybe I am wrong. Maybe I am among a minority who want to be left to my own devices; to live without interference from power-hungry lunatics with control-fantasies. Either way, just leave me in peace.

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Animals in the wild (non-domestic) have very little “free time” or “leisure time.” They are forced by Nature to engage in an almost constant search for resources: food, water, places to sleep, and protection from predators. When scarce resources cause animals to compete with one another for them, life or death struggles may ensue; not because they are looking for a fight, but because they are in combat for their very survival. Consider humans facing similar challenges; we would have little “leisure time” available to allow us to pursue conflict for the sake of supremacy. Like animals, we would, instead, be too busy battling for survival. Unlike those animals, though, today we do have choice. And it seems we have collectively made our choice. We devote a significant amount of our “leisure time” in pursuit of power and control and utterly unnecessary luxuries, as if they were just as important to our survival as are food and water. Assumptions. Just assumptions. I know no more than anyone else; and less than most.

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When reading about today’s so-called “resistance” to the burgeoning authoritarian state, I wonder how members of this “resistance” think they compare to the French Resistance of World War II. Unlike the French Resistance, the domestic resistance has (so far) not engaged in deadly tactics like bombings, assassinations, sabotaging authoritarian telecommunications infrastructures, etc. I wonder whether such tactics might be judged necessary at some point and, if so, when? In every circumstance in which such a response is deemed critical, there is a point at which it can be too late. At this early stage in the evolution of dictatorship, the opposition strategy seems to rely on the courts to block the most egregious power-grabs. Whether that reliance is intended to show “due process” before more aggressive action, I do not know. I suspect, though, that reliance on court assistance is largely a waste of time and opportunity. Will there come a time when a unified collection of cells of resistance comes together to take whatever actions are necessary to fight a dictatorship? If so, will it come in time?

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We enjoyed a very satisfying visit with friends yesterday afternoon, when we stopped by to make a delivery. What was intended as a brief pop-in turned into a considerably longer visit, filled with casual conversation. I miss having more of such unexpected opportunities to chat about a range of relatively unimportant but pleasurable topics. I would get out more, if not for my damned waves of fatigue and concerns about risks of viruses, etc. Exposure to even minor contagions could be especially dangerous for me, thanks to my weakened immune system.

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As usual, I have nothing profound to write—even to think about—this morning. My head is foggy and my body is sending me signals that I got up too early. Just two and one-half hours out of bed and I’m already feeling the need, again, to go back to sleep. Maybe I’ll write more after a while. More likely I won’t.

I was reminded this morning that the first successful U.S. launch of a satellite into space took place on January 31, 1958, only a few months after my fourth birthday. Not quite three weeks before my fourth birthday, the Soviet Union launched the first satellite into space, Sputnik 1. The Soviets’ unexpected success in being first into space spurred the U.S. to accelerate its efforts. The U.S. satellite was launched only 27 days after Sputnik 1 fell back to Earth. I find it hard to believe that I would remember either launch, but I have vague memories either of the launches or of hearing conversations about the accomplishments sometime thereafter. The more I think about this matter, though, the more I think my recollections are real memories, rather than false memories created through later conversations.

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Speaking of memories, I think I’ve spent most of my life misplacing them. Whether I left them unattended in a library or forgot to take them off the hood of my car when I drove off, many of them—most of them—simply disappeared and I have been unable to recover them. I envy people who remember lengthy periods of their childhoods, but I think I’d rather remember meaningful moments from early adulthood through the present. Unfortunately, my brain rarely records a permanent record of my thoughts or my experiences. I know of some of my earlier thoughts and experiences, but it is a rarity for me to feel that the memory is mine; instead, it’s as if I recall witnessing someone else’s experience. This preoccupation with nonexistent memories has been with me for a long time—evidence that I remember being disappointed in my inability to remember. I have written brief notes about this for quite some time. I wonder whether I have some form of amnesia or whether the affliction is indicative of progressive memory loss. Or just a natural circumstance that just happens to impact me to a greater extent than it tends to affect other people.

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Believing one’s eyes is no longer a reliable route to reality, thanks in large part to artificial intelligence (AI). AI can create images that appear stunningly real but are, in fact, fake. The internet is awash in AI-created “photographs” and “videos” that convincingly manipulate the viewer’s vision and brain. That deception has become so commonplace that actual original images often are assumed to be—and are labeled as—fakes. In the hands of people with refined expertise in directing AI’s abilities, those talents can cause doubt and confusion. In the hands of “average” people who are both competent and have malevolent intent, AI can lead to all manner of nefarious consequences. AI’s can manipulate not only images, but sounds, computer calculations, and a thousand other things. Security systems, cars, temperature control thermostats, translation services…the list may be endless…can be controlled by or through AI. Under the direction of controlling governmental authorities, AI has the capacity to unleash catastrophic results. Until reliable mechanisms are available to identify AI-crafted fakes, the only weapons against AI’s unsavory potentials are crude, indeed: checking multiple sources (the reliability of which may, unfortunately, be doubtful) to learn whether a suspected AI product can be verified…or protected against. In the interim, a healthy skepticism may be the only defense against AI manipulation.

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When Trump threatened Colombia with massive tariffs in response to its government’s refusal to allow military planes carrying undocumented immigrants from the U.S. to land in the country, Columbia missed an opportunity. My thought was that Columbia could make immediate overtures to Russia and its companion states, offering open trade of Colombian and Russian, etc. goods. Whether the offer would be accepted, and the speed with which it could be implemented, is unknown, it might have sent a message that would be more favorable to Colombia than did the country’s instant capitulation. However, the size of the trade imbalance between the US and Colombia is such that Colombia’s switch to open trade with Russia might not have had the impact I would have expected. Trump is not a believer in the principle that negotiations should maximize benefits for all parties; his attitude seems to be “win at all costs,” which unfortunately pairs well with his undeserved macho self-image.

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I’ve forgotten more than I ever knew.

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Signing up for a funeral plan is like getting engaged to be buried. I do not wish to be buried, so the engagement is off. By the way, cats do not bark.

The choice is deliberate: become either the victim of circumstance or the beneficiary of experience. Unfortunately, many people default to victim, when the more advantageous and more profitable option is to benefit from a lesson learned. The more unfavorable of those two perspectives is ingrained in us from an early age and tends to stay with us until and unless conditions urge (or force) us to consider the alternative.

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Rain fills the gutters and washes the roof this morning, creating sounds conducive to sleep. But I am awake; wondering why certain sounds are calming. Rain, waves gently splashing on an ocean shoreline, wind rustling through dry leaves…those sounds are like natural sedatives. But other sounds—sounds unconnected to nature—can have the same effects. Soft notes from a distant piano, for example, or the mysterious melodic vibrations of hypnotic Hindustani classical music. Those reassuring sounds must be reminiscent of a mother’s breathing or her heartbeat, suggestive of safety and comfort and peace. How do we know those are the sensations babies feel? We do not know, at least not with certainty. We make the assumption, based on our adult experiences with the way we understand our own perceptions. We ascribe the same sensations, and their impacts, to babies. That may be reasonable, of course, but it is not “knowledge.” It is “assumption.” So much of what we “know” is, in fact, an artifact of belief.

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During our last trip to visit my brother in Mexico (and probably during earlier trips, as well), he prepared breakfasts consisting of a wonderful mix of fresh fruits (blueberries, strawberries, watermelon, papayas, etc., etc.). That’s what I would like for breakfast most mornings. But sitting inside at the breakfast table in my house would not be the same as sitting on their open-air terrace amid a lush garden filled with greenery and flowering plants…with a view of village rooftops and the lake in the distance. Sitting outside, enjoying fresh fruits and a glorious environment and the company of my brother and his wife has the effect on me of washing away tensions, anxiety, and concerns. Sitting here, in my office, having just eaten an unripe banana and drinking lukewarm espresso and a café mocha Ensure with a Propel chaser, is not even remotely as soothing. But it will do, in the absence of nirvana. I could be drinking water from a muddy stream, eating week-old crusts of bread, and viewing—from a crack in a concrete wall—a body-strewn battlefield. Gratitude for my experience, in lieu of fear and discomfort hatched by my imagination, is a better choice.

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I had planned to join a friend for a group dinner last night, but as usual I could feel my energy begin to ebb during the afternoon, so I opted to withdraw from the gathering. And, as usual, I was in bed early. Though I missed going to dinner, getting under the covers felt comforting, as if I was escaping anxieties and concerns and replacing them with a deep sense of relaxation. I fell asleep quickly and slept most of the night.

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The gentle rain I heard earlier has grown more aggressive. It is now accompanied by thunder and lightning and a sky too dark and grey for this late (8:00 AM) in the morning. This house is my unlocked cage most days; today is one of them. I could venture out, but why would I?

There comes a moment when the only available options are surrender or violence. Surrender is always a minute too early. Violence is always a second too late. Both options can be tailored to circumstance, but customizing a response in the face of inevitable failure is a waste of energy. What are the real choices, then, in reply to intolerable actions or inactions? Transforming a barbaric struggle into a hellish war requires physical and emotional fuel. Equipping angry, terminally ill patients with nuclear weapons and an opportunity to leave a legacy for a mortally wounded planet might be worth a try.

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Discouraged does not begin to describe the emotion. Despondent, hopeless, desperate, or irreparably cynical comes a little closer to capturing the emptiness of utter powerlessness. The images from last night’s dreams remain hidden behind translucent grey veils. None of the pleading words spoken in the dreams were coherent. I remember inhaling sand-laden seawater at the intersection of sand dunes and powerful waves—where the ocean was eating the remains of the corpse of the continent. It was a wretched experience…but one’s imagination does not constitute a real experience, does it?

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I arrived at the hospital around 7:30 yesterday morning. The long process of getting a transfusion of one unit of blood finally concluded around noon; the actual transfusion took less than two hours. My patience wore well; I allowed myself to drift into a strange combination of fantasy and sleep while the blood inched its way down the long tubes into my chest. At home, after a post-procedure lunch, I took a nap that lasted until this morning—with just a few moments during the night when I found myself awake.

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For some reason, I am still tired. A warm bed beckons me. I want to shut off the sizzling electrical current to my brain, at least for a while, so I can get some true rest. Last night was not restful, despite the amount of time I was more or less asleep. I will try again.

Yesterday’s chemotherapy session was postponed for a week, due to a very low red blood cell count. Instead, my oncologist arranged for me to get a blood transfusion at the hospital this morning. Therefore, I will head back into Hot Springs in an hour or so to wait patiently for my blood to be typed (we already know the type, etc., but their policy is to double check). Then, I will wait while the requisite blood is located and delivered to the staff who will arrange to have it pumped into me. My medical procedure is one of a few taking place at roughly the same time with other people in my social sphere. Advancing age seems to closely correlate with increases in health-related processes and procedures. The transfusion should boost my red blood cell count enough to permit my chemo session to go forward next Monday. Sigh.

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Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.

~ John F. Kennedy ~

When dictatorship is a fact, revolution becomes a right.

~ Victor Hugo ~

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The U.S. Constitution’s system of checks and balances seems to be dissolving, thanks to Republicans in Congress (and the courts) ceding their responsibilities and authorities to a lunatic they obviously fear. While the dissolution is not yet complete, most signs suggest the process is unfolding at an astonishingly fast clip. By the time this reality sinks in to the “masses,” I am afraid it will be too late to avoid the trappings of a dictatorship and all the ugliness carried with them. The rise and fall of an empire of sorts… It is far too early to tell whether a large proportion of the population will react to the collapse of our semblance of democracy with rage sufficient to foment revolution or insurrection or whatever you want to call boiling intolerance to authoritarian control. I think the “preppers” who have spent years readying themselves for dealing with massive social unrest and disruptions to supply channels may not have been so crazy, after all.

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My patience has been tested many times. In most cases, it failed.

Most people who know me don’t really know me. They know a public façade. It is not my intent to deceive by presenting a façade. In fact, I do not even realize that’s what I’m doing until I relax back into who I think I am at my core. The façade, I suppose, is a protective mask that appears almost automatically when I am in the presence of people who I do not know well. And I suspect those people are wearing masks, as well; until they feel safe and comfortable in the presence of people they do not know well. I think façades are natural for introverts. Sometimes, though, an introvert can get so good at presenting a façade that he can be mistaken for an extrovert. But when his attempts at disguise fall short, he is looked at with skepticism; others do not know what to make of his botched extroversion.

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Silence is the absence of sound. Darkness is the absence of light. Death is the discontinuation of life…not simply its absence. But silence and darkness could be present in death…yet how can that be, inasmuch as both are progeny of absences?  Is it possible to have vision without eyes to see or hear sounds without ears to listen? Is life possible without its foil, death? What state of being precedes life and what follows death? Are they one and the same?  If ignorance is the absence of knowledge, what is stupidity? Is stupidity a coupling of ignorance with the willing refusal to learn? The answers are obvious, yet inaccessibly complex and impossible to understand. That is true of almost everything. People have a cursory understanding of the universe of which they are an infinitesimally small component. But that superficial awareness is enough to get us through—it must be, for that’s all we have. Consider, though, how much more we might accomplish if we worked, both individually and collectively, to vastly increase our knowledge and understanding. We cannot even conceive of that imaginary future, though, because of the limitations we allow to be imposed on ourselves.

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Another almost-day-long chemotherapy session today, with a return tomorrow for the routine day-later injection. I cannot remember exactly how “normal” feels. To remain alert and fully awake for a full day at a time…to be blissfully unaware of the physical presence of my torso and its contents…to breathe without the constant reminder of phlegm in my airways…to have enough energy to walk for a few blocks without losing all my energy and most of my breath. Those aspects of “normal,” all together, sometimes seem impossibilities. I wonder whether those daydreams will come true. It depends, to a great degree, on the success of these interminable treatments. Today will be chemo session number 16. I finished radiation treatments (there were 25 of them) about two weeks ago. Sometime, I hope soon, at PET scan will reveal the results of the last several treatments (of both kinds, in tandem). And I’ll go from there. The possibility that the results might not be good often interferes with my daydreams. I can be sailing along with positive, hopeful visions of the future, but then suddenly I hit an iceberg and find myself thrashing about in icy water. That’s when long periods of dreamless sleep are so inviting. I do not recall any of my sleeping dreams involving my cancer or its treatment; I consider that a positive thing.

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I woke this morning to another wave of nausea. Not nearly as aggressive and unpleasant as the one a day or so ago, but disagreeable enough for me to find it offensive. All’s well now, though. I suppose the nausea is an artifact of having had so many chemo treatments. I wonder whether my hair will ever grow back to some semblance of the way it was before I lost it all to chemo drugs. It’s quite sparse now, each strand is extremely thin and soft, and almost entirely white, with some grey thrown in. My “salt & sand” hair color is long gone and the circumference of each strand of hair is a fraction of it pre-treatment size. I’m getting used to it, but I do not like it.

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Out of curiosity, I looked back at the second blog I created years ago to see what I might have posted on this date back then. Here’s what I posted on January 27, 2011, fourteen years ago, under the title “Safe Places:”

There are places where one can be alone with one’s thoughts…places where it is safe to question beliefs, ideas, and conventional wisdom. It’s safe there even to question one’s own motives. The key is finding those safe places. We all have them, though they may be hidden deeply within the crevasses of our minds, hidden beneath all the detritus left from the surging flood of socialization.

It may be that our cosmic curiosity…is a genetically-encoded force that we illuminate when we look up and wonder.

~ Neil deGrasse Tyson ~

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Brontology is the study of thunder. If I had ever seen or heard the word, before this morning, I had forgotten it—until a short while ago, when I conducted a cursory search of the internet to refresh my memory about what causes thunder. According to people who claim expertise in the matter, thunder is caused by lightning, which heats the air around the electrical discharge, causing the air to rapidly expand and contract. The temperature of that super-heated air can reach up to 54,000°F, five times hotter than the surface of the sun. The different characteristics of sounds we hear (loud cracks, dull rumbles, etc.) result from atmospheric conditions, distance from the lightning source, and other factors such as sound waves bending around (or being absorbed by or bouncing off) objects in the path of the waves.

Despite the scientific explanations of the sources of thunder and the reasons thunder can sound very different from moment to moment, that celestial noise leaves me awestruck when I hear it.  And those explanations do not even address the process by which lightning, the source of thunder, takes place. The sight of jagged fingers of brilliant blue light leaves me equally as spellbound as, if not more so than, the sounds that accompany those massive sparks in the sky. Incidentally, those electrical discharges take place between clouds, within clouds, or between clouds and the ground. Why does lightning take different paths? I imagine the answer lies in “paths of least resistance,” but I did not get that far in my exploration. Why did this topic enter my head this morning? It probably had something to do with my memory, recorded in yesterday’s post, of fulgurite. Petrified lightning and blackened and broken tree trunks are among the few pieces of physical evidence remaining after lightning has bathed the sky in blue light. Why blue? That may be a subject for another episode of curiosity.

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Once again, I went to bed quite early last night. I felt mildly out of sorts, physically, and thought more sleep might help. Just moments after getting in bed, though, a wave of nausea suddenly overcame me. Fortunately, I was able to rush into the bathroom before it unleashed its unpleasantness. I do not remember dealing with nausea during my first round of chemotherapy six years ago, nor did it affect me during the first six months or so of chemo sessions this time around. Different restorative poisons, an older patient, and a weaker body might explain, in part, the changed experience this time. Not that it matters. I’m not sure why I occasionally feel compelled to document the unappealing experiences of cancer treatment; maybe just so they will jog my memory some time in the future.

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There was a time, not too many years ago, when the music of Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Foo Fighters, The Killers, and Stone Temple Pilots (alternative rock or grunge) held no interest for me. Over time, though, my tastes have broadened to include a substantial number of tunes from those bands. I think the expansion of my musical interests took place in response to hearing more of those groups’ music, thanks to Sirius/XM radio, in my car. Today, I’m just as likely to like music by Red Clay Strays as I am to enjoy old Gordon Lightfoot tunes. And, of course, I still enjoy classic folk, rock, classical, and various other genres. But the crossover between genres is making it increasingly difficult to characterize where tunes fall along the musical spectrum.

If my musical preferences can be classified by what I listen to on Amazon Music, my musical tastes are eclectic, with favor given to what Amazon calls Alternative and Alternative Folk, both of which seem to be more recent sounds. Though I am quite fond of some music I first heard during my high school and college years, much of the seventies sound has long since left me cold. A number of members of my high school graduating class, who are planning a 53-year reunion (a 50-year reunion was not held), are asking prospective attendees to supply a list of dance tunes from our time in high school; the list is to be given to a DJ hired to provide entertainment. If I had been waffling about whether to attend that event, the idea that I would be expected to dance the night away to music I do not particularly like has cemented my decision not to go. I have not attended any reunions since I graduated, nor have I attempted to stay in touch with any of my classmates. There’s no reason to start now. Sitting at home, listening to music I really enjoy, is much more appealing to me.

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The recent spate of wildfires in southern California renewed my concerns about living in a densely wooded area. Though the climate here is wetter and lacks the predictably fierce Santa Ana winds, there is no guarantee that an errant spark during a dry, windy period would not ignite the forests surrounding us. Our experience last March, when a relatively weak tornado uprooted trees and left the only road out of our area blocked with fallen trees, offered evidence of our vulnerability. If trees hugging both sides of an exit route street were ablaze—or if burning trees fell onto the road—we could be trapped. The likelihood, of course, is low. But the mere potential is enough to generate worry and a heightened sense of awareness of conditions around us. Persistent anxiety of that kind cannot be good, mentally. Consequently, it might pay to engage in mental health exercises which could help allay such concerns—but how smart would it be to actively thwart an acute awareness of the possibility of fires at any moment? Another Catch-22, I guess.

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I have a vague recollection of being shown examples, as a child in Corpus Christi, of the results of lightning striking the sand on the beach on the bayfront and on Padre Island. I was shown pieces of “beach glass,” which captured the effects. I searched for information about “beach glass” this morning and found another name for it: fulgurite, also known as “petrified lightning.” Some of the photographs of the resulting sculptures formed by lightning striking sand are stunningly beautiful. I suspect sixty years have passed since I was introduced to petrified lightning; I wonder why it has taken so long for that memory to surface?

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Last night, while bending down to try to capture the cat (which had slipped into the master bedroom, off-limits to her), I twisted my right knee and lost my balance. I went crashing to the floor in what could have been an ugly accident. Fortunately, as far as I can tell this morning, no significant damage was done, either to me or to the floor. But the sensation of hitting the floor was unexpectedly powerful, as if I weighed much more than I do, and hit the floor at high speed. The force of my hip and butt smashing onto the hard floor startled and worried me; I immediately thought I could have broken a bone. But I was fortunate; no injury, except to my ego. I had to listen to a suggestion that it might be time to get a medical alert button, “just in case.” That sort of device—a means of calling for help—is for frail, delicate old folks, not for young, strong bulls like me. Give me twenty years—maybe then I’ll consider getting one.

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We watched a Netflix Swedish crime mini-series (just one season, four 40-minute episodes) last night. The series, entitled The Breakthrough, is based on Sweden’s second-largest criminal investigation. Two murders, which took place in 2004, were committed only a few feet apart in a public space. The crimes plagued the main character—a Swedish police detective—for what seemed (to him and to relatives of the victims) an eternity. The short series kept my interest and attention from the beginning until the credits rolled. It has been quite some time since I’ve been so absorbed by television entertainment.

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I concocted a tomato-based soup for yesterday’s lunch. Beginning with a cheap can of tomato bisque, the finished product was laden with canned corn, frozen peas, canned tomatoes, and a minor assortment of herbs and spices. It was surprisingly drab—almost flavorless. The days, the dividing line between overly-spicy and painfully dull is hard to find. Thanks to my cancer treatments (I assume), spicy foods that once excited my tastebuds now attack them with molten-hot pitchforks. And foods that had been bland seem to have taken that emptiness to new depths. Like chalky caves, miles below the surface of Earth, that have never been touched by light or delight. I no longer have as much of an emotional investment in foods and flavors, the way I once did. Sometimes, food is just a necessary nuisance. Lately, though, I have had much more of an appetite than I did only a week or two ago. That is not to say I really enjoy food (though I do find some foods very appealing); but at least I feel hunger and can tolerate food far more than I did a short while ago.

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It’s Saturday morning and I’m tired, again. Just past 7 and I could use a nap. I have things to do today; best to be rested and ready when I embark on the day’s adventures.

Seven years ago, my late wife and I went on a self-guided arts and crafts tour of the countryside around Malvern, Arkansas. A  day or two ago I was reminded of one of the highlights of the tour, when I came across a photo of my wife petting an alpaca while standing in the midst of a small herd of the animals. My wife was giddy with enjoyment at being among such soft, sweet animals. As I remember, the couple who raised the alpacas made yarn from the animals’ wool, which they then used to create sweaters and caps and the like. On that same self-guided tour, we visited several craft shops and art studios, where the artists and artisans were happy to demonstrate their skills and talk about how they came to devote their lives to their crafts. I remember being entranced as I heard of their experiences. I felt a longing I still feel today; I wanted to feel the same delight I saw in those people—the pure joy they felt when they pursued their passions. But one must first know what can ignite one’s own passion. I still do not know what, if anything, can spark that sense of joyful creativity in me. I did enjoy that leisurely day of immersion in art, seven years ago.

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About once a year, an artist who taught me the basics of working with clay gets in touch and suggests that she and her partner want to go out to lunch with me. I respond by saying I would love to do that; I ask her to say when and where. And then, about a year later, she contacts me again with the same invitation. I do not know quite what to make of this annual overture.

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I have felt considerably better the last few days than I did during the previous week or two. That is fairly common; the worst of the effects of chemo decline a week or two after treatment. But just about the time I feel almost human, it’s time for another treatment session. Two or three days later, it starts all over again. Not awful by any means, but definitely not something to which I look forward with great anticipation. My next treatment is scheduled for Monday. Ach. Maybe it will be different this time.

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Expensive jewelry holds no appeal for me. None whatsoever. But that does not mean there’s anything wrong with people who find expensive jewelry—diamonds and such—extremely alluring. I just do not understand the attraction. The same is true of “classic” cars; they do not trigger automobile lust in me, but some people find them incomprehensibly (to me) appealing. Do I find any physical “thing” almost irresistible? Nothing comes to mind. Maybe, though, irresistibility is a matter of mood. Perhaps I find some things almost magnetic…but only when I am in a certain frame of mind. What, though?

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A warm bed could easily lure me in right now. My hands and feet are cold and my eyes seek closure.

The angel realized, when it was too late, her audience was gone. She had become a witch—a powerful, awe-inspiring, angelic witch—at the same moment they had stopped enjoying the antics of witches and angels. And they had no interest in transmogrification, either. Nor did they care about her claims of supernatural connections with the netherworld. Their only remaining fascination was with themselves. Even as she melted, she heard them complimenting the cracked mirrors that reflected their perfection.

“If only you could have seen me before I flew into the sun,” she muttered, her black feathery wings dripping wax onto her wiccan tunic. “I was stunning!  My black platinum halo reflected only the purest light and my…” 

Her speech slowed and the volume of her voice fell to an inaudible whisper. With that, she and her words melted into oblivion. Her worshippers had paid no attention to her demise. They were too absorbed by the abstract images in the broken glass to notice.

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The only way you could know my deepest thoughts would be for me to allow you inside my head. But I cannot do that, as much as I might want to share myself with you, else when you leave you might carry my secrets with you. What value could those mysteries possibly have, though, to anyone but me? Their value is not in being divulged, but in being maintained in a vault—behind a lock for which only I have the combination. Secrets protect one from revealing realities that might paint an unflattering picture. The jealous, violent monster hiding behind the façade of a gentle, caring husband, for example. Or the neo-Nazi thug living beneath a thin veneer of civil rights activist. Or the libidinous beast counselling sexually harassed women. Or the serial killer who expresses outrage and disbelief at the horrific actions of Ted Bundy and Jeffrey Dahmer. My secrets, though, are not so shocking. Just revealing. Yours, too, would expose a side of you few have seen. If you were to share a secret with me, you might learn that my secret and yours are one and the same. And, if you shared your secret more widely, you might find that ten of your friends hold that same secret in their own impenetrable vaults. But you could find, instead, that your friends recoil at your revelation, unwilling to admit their own versions of the secrets hidden  and protected within that locked safe.

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I had lunch at a Mexican restaurant yesterday, one of the rare occasions I allow myself to go out in non-medical settings in public. I could have gone into town, but for some reason the time and distance involved in going to a sushi-bar or a Vietnamese restaurant or some other more “exotic” place seemed a bit much. Back home after the adventure, I napped on one of the long, white leather sofas in the living room. When I started napping on one of those sofas, I was surprised at how comfortable it is. The sofas are quite long, so I do not have to bend my body to fit (not that my body is especially long, but still…). Sometimes, the sofa is more comfortable than the bed, if for no other reason than its convenience and easy access. If only the living room had a wood-burning fireplace stoked with big oak and hickory logs, it might be the perfect retreat for a geezer in decline. Sometimes, I have Alexa play soothing music while I nap, a relaxing respite from the harshness of television and internet news. There are days…or weeks or months or years…when I wish I had absolutely no access to news. Times when living the life of a dedicated recluse would be as pleasant as anything I can imagine.

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Until yesterday, my calendar included a visit to an ophthalmologist in Little Rock, who was to fix my left eye. For a thousand reasons, I decided—again—to postpone the procedure. Among the reasons: I would rather be done with my chemotherapy treatments and all their side-effects before delving into the after-effects of a procedure that would give me discomfort and reduced vision for a week or a month or more.

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Is anyone willing to share the name and contact information for an anesthesiologist who might be willing to place me in a temporary coma for a month or two? I am asking all three of my regular blog visitors—it could be down to one or two by now—for input. In other words, I am whispering into the wind. I hear my words come back to me as I ask the question; but the words are garbled in the powerful breeze. Ach!

Peeking out from beneath the covers, I looked outside—past the window blinds’ wooden slats—to see budding evidence of what might become a brilliant sunrise. Two hours had passed since I woke, intending to get out of bed and go about my day. But, instead, I had drifted off to sleep again, wasting the precious darkness of those pre-dawn hours on pointless dreams.  I wonder which are more likely to come to fruition: dreams that fill my head while I sleep or fantasies that keep the world at bay while I am awake? Both, I fear, are futile efforts to stem the relentless march of predictable reality. All of us dream or wish or hope or yearn for a different reality. But when a different reality presents itself, we realize the mirror’s glass is irretrievably fractured.

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It was never soon enough to take action to prevent the inevitable collapse. But it was always too late.

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The trees, with their jagged grey branches, long-since barren of leaves, seem to have given up. Fighting the relentless winter season, the trees decided, is wasted effort. Only time will reveal whether any life is left in their drab, brittle boughs. But the forest floor, littered with broken twigs and shattered limbs, suggests the time left to those trees is brief—if not already gone. The trunks of the larger trees already fallen will take years to decompose. Eventually, though, the only evidence they existed will be in the soil that feeds new growth. The inexorable cycle of life and death will continue in these forests until the land is cleared and covered with temporary housing for the next three or four generations of interlopers who insist on four bedrooms and temperature control in every room.

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Happiness is contextual, as is sadness and catatonia. Everything, in fact, is contextual. All emotions and all responses to internal and external stimuli exist on an immeasurably long spectrum. That continuum seems so long because it is circular; every point a beginning and every point an end. We express opinions that follow that circuit, too. Everything that is, was. And everything that was, is. When the sun’s fuel is finally exhausted, as it unquestionably will be, time as we know it today will have been exhausted, as well. The end of the universe could be just over the horizon, you know; but you dare not express the possibility for fear of causing the termination to come sooner than later. How could you explain your role in causing the end of everything? It’s best to simply ignore the one final certainty until it’s too late to do anything about it. And it’s always too late to do anything about it; unless you had started to act when there was still a possibility…but there was never a possibility, was there?

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I am finished for the moment. How long does a moment last? When does it begin? Can a moment be extended?

I feel restless in the extreme. The urge to hit the road gets stronger day by day. Assuming my cancer treatments do not go on forever, the prospect of making massive changes in my life and lifestyle is more than mildly attractive. The time may be right to “sell everything,” buy a big Chevrolet Suburban or Ford Expedition, and head to Victoria, British Columbia. “Sell everything” is a euphemism for “downsize in the extreme.” I doubt I would want to take the time or expend the effort to sell everything. I would rather just empty the house as quickly and easily as possible, sell the place, buy the things necessary to make a slow, comfortable, meandering cross-country drive, and take my time relocating to a place that better suits my politics, my personality, and my mood. Yeah, adapting Carlos Santana’s lyrics just a bit…I could change my life to better suit my mood. Initially, I would apply for a six-month visa and, assuming I received approval, I probably would apply for an extension after about 4 or 5 months. Is this sheer fantasy, or does it have some roots in reality? I think it’s real, but only by developing and executing a plan can I be sure. If I were to find it is not what I had hoped and dreamed, nothing would be cast in stone. Hmm. Health is the key obstacle. As I sit here this frigid morning (it’s 12°F warmer in Victoria right now than it is in Hot Springs Village), I regret I did not do this years ago. And I regret I was ever a smoker. And plenty more.

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A ruffled mind makes a restless pillow.

~ Charlotte Bronte ~

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A renaissance of vengeance is upon us—an era in which retribution emerges as the victor over justice, dignity, compassion, and intelligence. Powered by hatred, willful stupidity, undeserved power, and limitless greed, a beast has placed its hands around our necks and—with our collective willing support—is squeezing the life and decency out of us, leaving our helplessly writhing corpses as evidence of a epoch of shame. The murder of civility is celebrated in the public square, to the cheers of millions of delusional reptilian zombies who are being led to their own slaughter.

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I spent much of the day yesterday avoiding television, internet feeds, and other sources of endlessly depressing news. Sleep, when it tried to grant me a few moments of peace, instead was accompanied by apocalyptic fantasies in which corpulent cannibals swimming in rivers of blood greedily dined on the flesh of innocent migrants. This is not a good time in the final minutes of humanity. Even if the species survives, the eternal guilt for having allowed and even facilitated Armageddon will forever stain and ruin any possibilities for self-forgiveness—a rancid eternal bitterness will fill the mouths of survivors until well past the end of Time.

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In hindsight, liberals and progressives and others who fancy ourselves “better” than our conservative counterparts should accept much of the responsibility for the decay of the human condition. We should have learned from, and lived by, the message carried in the aphorism: “people who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.” Rather than cast blame, we should seek to understand and to ameliorate the pain and trouble our so-called adversaries go through. But, instead, we condemn them for their experiences. We amplify their rage by mocking them. We shatter our own shelters when we assign guilt to others for seeking solace in the same ways we seek our own. Yet, still, even when we recognize our own responsibilities for the conditions in which we find ourselves, we seem unable to stop ourselves from being mean-spirited. I call my own attention to the phrase “delusional reptilian zombies.” Stephen Stills got it right when he wrote “nobody’s right when everybody’s wrong.”

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I have been restless for as long as I can remember.

~ Henry Rollins ~

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I can imagine that, one day, I might just disappear. Leave a note, letting people know I am okay, and then go incommunicado for long enough to clear my head. That could take years. Or just a weekend.

The chief problem in using gasoline to douse a fire is obvious. Equally apparent is the fact that employing rage to quell anger will lead to similarly unsatisfactory results.

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My computer clock gently reminds me of the time: 4:57 AM. By the time I surrender in my effort to write something that carries even a touch of value, the sun probably will have risen. I wonder how it is that the temperature outside the windows of my tolerably cozy study can be only 14°F, while the surface of the sun is roughly 10,000°F, a difference of 9,986°F.  The sun is about 91,472,000 miles from my house (depending on the route taken). Assuming the ambient temperature declines at a constant rate over that distance, the rate of decline would be about 0.000109 degrees per mile. Among the reasons I believe that is not true is that space exploration vehicles would fracture into billions of icy pieces before entering the atmosphere. Speaking of space exploration, I have mixed feelings about it. On one hand, I am fascinated by the scientific advances uncovered during the course of pursuing space exploration. On the other, I am woefully disappointed that the human and financial resources invested in space exploration have not, instead, been devoted to addressing famine, war, poverty, inadequate availability of potable water, climate change, and dozens of other existential problems facing the inhabitants of this planet. Human beings have been too stupid for too many millennia to cling to any realistic hope that the species will long survive the damage we have inflicted on ourselves—this is in spite of the incredible advances we have made in gene splicing, metallurgy, heating and air conditioning, and several other stunning achievements. If only we had directed our attention to the core problems facing us…

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One of the myriad drugs injected or dripped into my body as part of my cancer treatment is a brand-name drug called Aranesp (generic name: Darbepoetin alfa), which is labeled an “erythropoiesis-stimulating agent,” or ESA. While the drug is meant to be beneficial in addressing anemia by reducing the need for red-blood cell transfusion, it comes with some rather significant risks. Among the many, many warnings associated with the drug:

• ESAs shortened overall survival and/or increased the risk of tumor progression or recurrence in clinical studies of patients with breast, non-small cell lung, head and neck, lymphoid, and cervical cancers.
• ESAs increase the risk of death, myocardial infarction, stroke, venous thromboembolism, thrombosis of vascular access and tumor progression or recurrence.
• In controlled clinical trials of patients with cancer, Aranesp® and other ESAs increased the risks for death and serious adverse cardiovascular reactions. These adverse reactions included myocardial infarction and stroke.

If I were afraid of dying, such warnings would be terrifying. But I’m not. Nor am I looking forward to it, though. I would much prefer a complete remission. But a recurrence of the kind of lung cancer I have comes with the unhappy understanding that its treatment does not seek a cure but, instead, is meant to extend life (and, presumably, enhance the quality of that extended life). I’m all for that…but only with the provision that quality of life is improved.

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My attempts to keep my mind off the side effects of my cancer treatments are largely unsuccessful, thanks to constant reminders of those effects: fatigue, nausea, upset (should I say fiercely angry, instead?) stomach, weakness, runny nose, bloody nose, moodiness, etc., etc. I think my complaints about sleeping so much may be misplaced; sleeping through the side effects is far more tolerable than confronting them while awake. Again, though, I have it relatively easy, compared to some people whose lung cancer experiences are truly monstrous. I am grateful mine are just irritants and not full-blown hardships. I keep promising myself I will get serious about meditation as a means to minimize the impact of the side effects, but thus far have broken most of those promises. Perhaps I break the promises as a means of punishment for whatever infractions justify them.  I hope note.

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I’ve taken a break or two since beginning this descent into the bowels of the Earth, where I hunted for rabbits and conversed with gnomes. Among the semi-conscious dreams that interrupted my serenity was one in which I finally returned to a car dealership several weeks after purchasing a car, only to find it had been sold to someone else. Probably part of the same dream, when driving a luxury car at night I realized the car’s headlights were not on and I could not get them to work. And I left work for several days, telling my long-dead, real-world boss that I had to pick up a rental car at a massive, cheesy resort hotel in Florida. There was more, but the confusion involved in the dream-like experience was beyond my comprehension.

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Time to plunge ahead into Monday…after exploring the possibility of an early-morning nap and some easy-on-the-gut apple sauce.

I feel as useful as a bag of wet rocks in a dust storm. I need to sleep again. No matter how much I sleep, it’s never enough. No matter how little I write, it’s always too much.

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Big, challenging, and probably cumbersome ideas may be the only hope for the survival of humankind and, indeed, all life on planet Earth. If those visionary ideas form in time, where will they originate? In a world of skeptics and pessimists, who will embrace them?  Who will cultivate and nurture them? Who will provide the global leadership necessary to implement them? The ideas, probably, are the easy part of the process. Achieving sufficient consensus around them will be considerably more difficult. Assigning priorities among hundreds or thousands of crucial ideas will be vital and—if human history is a reliable indicator—close to impossible. The overwhelming task of identifying priorities is already on clear display with regard to climate change; the current status of the Paris Agreement illustrates that reality. Subsidiary self-interests tend to usurp the importance of what should be universal interests. Perhaps the “big and bold” ideas are too big and bold…or not big and bold and audacious enough. Maybe a collection of ideas, with intersecting areas of importance, would be viewed as more achievable.

A globally-supported Manhattan Project, for want of a better metaphor, dedicated to ensuring adequate supplies of drinking water for every human being on the planet might be a good start. Though the global supply of clean, potable water already is widely recognized as critical, an infusion of fresh, collective energy worldwide might actually enable us to achieve permanent or long-lasting solutions. Food security, worldwide, might be another Manhattan-style endeavor enlisting the direct, committed engagement of governments and people around the globe. Collective solutions to food and water insecurity would offer evidence that human needs are overwhelmingly more important than conflict and imperialism and protectionism. Remaining challenges might then more readily fall in response to our collective efforts.

Finding charismatic leaders willing to take the risk of promoting the critical global cooperation necessary might be the most significant stumbling block to progress. Leaders of nations tend to want to present images of strength, independence, and power. The characteristics we might need, instead, probably include a willingness to embrace collaboration, cooperation, and shared responsibility. Charisma, again, is a necessary quality of leaders—not ferocity, not dominance, not imperialism—charisma. And intelligence. And a willingness to give careful consideration to a broad array of perspectives about relevant issues.

It’s easy to think about these matters. Putting them in motion is akin to lifting the weight of the world with one hand.

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Perhaps the first and most important task among us is to change mind-sets. Private property is a fantasy. The air we breathe and water we drink have no owners, only caretakers. Borders are synthetic boundaries established to create artificial perimeters of power. Allegiance to one’s various sub-communities is always secondary to allegiance to humanity. Changing minds is like chewing granite.

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My desk is littered with facial tissues bloodied by an annoying nose, a banana peel, an empty demi tasse, and reminders of tasks I have not yet completed.