What am i doing writing into a non-responsive aether¿ Do i expect at any moment there will be a clamoring to understand better what i attempt to share from the heart, but can only touch on without having questions to which i might respond? Or am i crying in my beer to soothe the fear of dying alone in a foreign land - i think not. I can only guess that the prospect of facing a typhoon just off the coast has prompted high anxiety; that because my electric bill has more than quadrupled from having moved two house over without altering my routines, i am suspicious; the putz in the white house couldn’t win on his merits, so he’s playing the fascist race card everyone knew he would, but no one wants to confront; now there are jackbooted thugs in the streets beating up people exercising their civic duty objecting to a wanna be dictator from the investor class. who wouldn't have doubt?
My intrinsic sardonic wit is not rising to the occasion of my 66th rotation around the sun, and my “L” key is sticking; it seems to be a transient fault that started on the “4” key some weeks back and then moved to “A”, so it’s not even adjacent spaces. I’m at the point where a computer failure would not be an entirely unwelcome event, preferring the up close and "persona" misery found on any street corner of the world. It could the god of mindfulness just wants me to stay awake to what i’m doing and if i inadvertently type “persona” when i meant "personal" that would be from inattentiveness, not technological error. Yesterday afternoon after writing was finished i searched for ways to help the harried farmers bring the rice in before the rain - i was not the worker i’d been 5 years ago, much less last year - not an auspicious insight when changing ages.
As a cheery sort of bloke, i’m growing weary of uplifting dour people, or if it turns out that my new landlords have piggybacked their home electricity bill on mine, (hyper-vigilance is tedious) but so is patience with penny ante flim-flam; a popular sport for the oppressors, and sadly one willingly mimicked by the oppressed - monkey see, monkey do. But for the long haul and imagining a new economic paradigm based on equality and an even distribution of the resources of our dying world, dishonesty doesn’t bode well for the wee ones who watch and learn from what we do, not from what we say. Oddly enough it was exhilarating to, even for a moment, pit my muscles against heavy sacks and to try and not slow down the more nimble, much stronger younger men. What i realized is how powerful the mind is.
Were it i alone attempting to shift one of those full bags of rice, my knees would buckle and i’d have lost my grip grappling to raise the bag, but when faced with the smirk of youth at the old man out of his depth, my bile rose and my gall got the better of me - a sad truth, but a truth nonetheless; i am too proud a human to be seen relenting to infirmities i seem helpless or unwilling to stem. But for those fun few moments, i was a kid again on some labor line throwing bulk back and forth for the fun of it, and it felt good. So it is important that rather than curtail my efforts, i press on - just like writing this curious daily memorandum of an old man’s existential detritus - it is not so much for your wellbeing, as mine.
It is necessary at this late date in life to acknowledge flaws of character, like pride, sloth, conceit - the things i discover about myself while trying to blame others for the predicament i am in that can be resolved by no one but myself; i am the one that created the mess and must be the one to extricate myself into greener pastures, if indeed there are greener pastures anywhere in this miraculous, but sorely mistreated world of ours. I’m sure it’s the same for all the people i meet, agreeable or not; they cannot be that much different than myself - a speck in time looking for an even break and as honest as their ability to peer into their own hearts allows them. I am tired and will rest now, thanks for pressing this far along with me.
jts 17/09/2020
http://stoanartst.blogspot.com
reprinted with permission - all rights reserved
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