I don’t think, nor feel i’ve ever lived in as loving a country as where i now reside - without counting · i’d imagine that to be 12+, but i also used to tout a 1,000 as the number of different jobs i’ve turned my hand to - an inflated number, but not by much · It mystifies me how i can find so much dense affection for existence as i feel from the people i pass daily on my bike ride. They barely notice me, a blessing in and of itself; the culture from which i flee is subsumed by celebrity - the “who is” and the “who ain’t” of modern consumer marketing. I fear that fictional identity is not far off from this culture given the pernicious infiltration of fb ideology of who likes what and who doesn’t like who. This morning at the end of my ride with the last wheezes of my withered frame, my kind neighbor allowed me to confiscate his garden utensil to pull a few weed roots from the crop ground. He and his friend were more than gracious as i spewed sweat after 10 minutes of desultory tilling and surrendered my commandeered tool back to the masters of the soil.
Nor am i being kind to them anymore than they me - i don’t possess the discipline or standing to evoke the growth they have teased from a war torn and ignominiously poisoned fertile soil, patiently revitalized crop after crop and year after year, but i appreciate the generosity of soul they demonstrate, allowing me to take, as the say where i hail from, “a whack at it.” This is not to say that as i mend and my heart grows more acclimated to the toil born of decency, that i may too contribute more substantial effort than my few arrogant whacks, that i am even allowed the handle of a tool is more than the rigid hierarchy of job development designed by the bean-counters of my homeland. There anymore, one cannot deliver newspapers on a bicycle, because all the stories are now published on phones that have been programmed by wannabe digital tycoons based on the “bezos ‘take it all and let them eat cake’ school of economics.”
I had to chuckle coming back down the hallway from my last cigarette chewing on Pema Chodron’s observation about “getting kicked out the nest again.” Were i politic, i’d restrain my tongue, or in this case, fingers and find quiet language like what my family had tried to evince from my confused cycloptic existence - from where i stand evrything that has had any meaning to my socialization has been ripped from me by a universe clearly more informed about my future than those sage voices who murmur, “if you would only do this . ..” life would become _____fill in the blank. I don’t want that life. I want to hear from myself an inexplicable love, i feel but rarely find. I have tried many strategies to encourage its presence, but all seem hollow efforts to effectuate the normal pattern of existence - love begets love · I’m not sure at this stage of my death whether my lack of understanding about love explains my seeming predicament or whether my delusion about predicaments explains my understanding about love.
It doesn’t matter, for i shall certainly pass and without children; what you read here are my only progeny - (look it up, language is your friend · opinion not so much) Why shouldn’t i be entertained by an angel of the caliber Master George Carlin enjoyed ¿? Where is it written in the everlasting log of “rightness” that my base desires and expressed wants constitute devaluation of my wants and desires for the well being and comfort of all my brethren - known friend or known enemy ¿? What does that even mean anymore ¿? We as a species are on the brink of extinction - we, as near as i can tell have exterminated ourselves based on manipulation and misrepresentation between ourselves of our more noble instincts by a selfish cadre of greedy souls who bear less resemblance to the greater number of humans than your knowledge of who i am is based on, what i have written - don’t be that stupid · stand up and fight for your loved ones; present, past and future.
jts 03/10/2020
http://stoanartst.blogspot.com
reprinted with permission - all rights reserved
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