“Extinction is the rule. Survival is the exception.” Carl Sagan
Christ, it’s Sunday and I shouldn’t be writing. I have now gotten into the habit of publishing stories on Friday afternoon, usually because I sit with them for at least several days. It is creatively unhealthy to let them fester in my face, but I do it anyway. Today, I can’t seem to help myself and this story is about telling you why.
First, I just got in from rucking, which I have written about too many times already, so Google it, if you need to. I have kept my ear pods in, which I have never done before when I’m writing. A couple of days ago, I had my ears cleaned and it is unbelievable what can come out of these tiny canals. It was like sneakers and old laundry and even more that shouldn’t be able to fit in there. I thought my hearing was fine before, but now, it is like interstellar and I love it. So, these little plugs are an aural celebration.
I read something interesting this morning about how art thrives in times of turmoil. My last story was all about dealing with this looming kerfuffle in a way that allows you to still be able to find joy in your time here. For the record, I don’t believe it is either stupid or naive on my part. Nobody has the right to fuck with your quality of life, but you also have to appreciate why you are here, for however long you are here.
Now, this is very important to me. I am not an artist and wouldn’t ever dare to call myself one or to be referred to as one. I am a terribly emotional guy and being able to use words is a heaven sent catharsis for me and that is all.
I have been feeling tired, after having written a ridiculous amount of stories over the past ten years. I have probably written too many times that I feel like I have run out of things to share with you. I’ll be a son of a bitch, I am feeling creatively energized. It feels like I have been given a bright, white canvas and a palette of infinite word colors to slap on this white canvas, a computer screen having to substitute for these keyboard paintings.
There are short term and long term issues on my mind. While, I am totally unqualified, I want to tell women you are by far the more powerful gender. Men have perceived you as a threat from the time they wiped out all records of the matriarchies that ruled the world. The magic of birth is something that has left men feeling completely inadequate and your way of loving your children is something guys will never understand, because they can’t.
Guys, you need to take their lead and begin acting with a level of caring for each other that has been absent and likely never has been. We are so afraid of expressing our feelings and seem to be much more at home with violence as a way of expressing ourselves.
Both of these go back to that last story, which I hope you’ll read if you haven’t. Remember, I am not in this for the money, so I am not enriched by my suggestions, maybe you are. I am not about to leave the cushion, rather I want to take it with me, wherever I go.
What I was writing about was the ability to take control of our own lives and our feelings. I don’t for a minute think that writing about changing our lives has anything to with with changing our future.Trust me, I don’t for a minute think I am writing to all mankind, pardon the term, ladies.
In the long term, we are totally fucked. Not necessarily you and I, but future generations will reap the poison we have heaped on each other and Mother Earth for millennia. As a species, we are incredibly flawed and have our history to prove it. There have always been Trumps in every culture in every century. The better we have gotten at living, the better we have gotten at sucking the teat of Mother Nature dry.
No other animal has ever behaved as if they were better than the environment they were gifted with. Other than us, all sentient beings have lived within their world. Only we want to transcend it.
Around 66 million years ago, a huge asteroid slammed into earth and changed it in ways that are unimaginable to us, because we actually believe we are all powerful. Godzilla was created by the Japanese as a way of dramatizing the effects of our atomic savagery. If there were no dinosaurs, I don’t know if that nuclear feeding monster would exist in the imagination. There were some dinosaurs that were so incredibly large, it defies the imagination. We are vulnerable like them, although they never thought of themselves that way. They were just dinosaurs and we are just humans.
Those real, all powerful Godzillas lived within the world they inherited. It took one fucken asteroid to disappear them, becoming fascinating fossils for us to study millions of years later.
Tragically, it will take an asteroid to castrate our vanity, because we have refused to learn and will never learn that this little planet in the middle of infinity is still here by accident. For thousands of years, we have gotten better and better at hurting each other and this precious environment, called earth.
Life needs to start over here, because we are destroying our future. This is the dilemma for all of us and to be perfectly honest, we are going to do nothing about it. This is why I talk about short term and long term. Today, you and I can do something about our lives. We can bust our asses to put hatred and anger aside and aspire to be better at being human.
Don’t think for one minute, you are going to change the trajectory of our species, long term. I love Bernie Sanders and wish I could give him a hug. He really is a good guy, who gives a shit about the sanctity and quality of our lives.
The guy, who is about to take the wheel, will continue to speed us toward the precipice of our precocity.
For the record, I just took the ear buds out and have returned to earth. Wouldn’t you know it, Sugar Magnolia just came on and the Grateful Dead rule. This gets back to one of my earlier thoughts about art coming to life when life needs it most. I am waiting.
LISTEN TO IT HERE:
https://www.buzzsprout.com/admin/1292459/episodes/16115936-kiss-my-asteroid