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.
