Why does it seem so easy and practical to me for human beings to live in peace and harmony - and yet find so many human spirits i cannot, or will not abide? I have gotten far enough to understand i have no control over another, and harbor great resistance to others’ attempts to control me, overtly or covertly. Paradoxically i fancy myself as one of the most cooperative individuals i’ve ever known: mote in one’s own eye - aside · Yet for example, anyone reading this, please feel free to provide me criticism to the contrary. I welcome others ideas, to a limit. It seems others welcome the opportunity until their thinking is countered by alternative reasoning; an observation that may be pure “projection” and wishful thinking on my part. I feel good just getting that far, for there was a time that i was in such pain from internalized familial judgement, that i likely more resembled a spitting kitten at the end of one’s wrist than a supple existential panther looking for a sunny place to lounge.
I welcome doubt, and abhor conviction because the former allows for inquiry, while the latter is a constraint on curiosity. But the paradox regarding circumstantial ethics and its incursion into historical foundations of decency leaves me cold - not the priggish conventional thinking of moralists, but the time-honored practice of kindness and generosity which seems to have been derailed by the manipulations of social engineering that demands we as a species turn a blind eye to egregious income inequality, ecocide, perpetual war and genocide, be it racial, cultural or religious. I come from a family of teachers, several generations deep - it is one of those two-edged swords that is useful until you start teaching and stop learning; my experience in the class has always been most fruitful when the students take possession of the process and lead the way.
Now i believe the bigger the classroom the more valuable the lesson and find teachers and lessons every which way i turn. The difficulty is that the questions become more challenging commensurate with the import of what is being considered. These is the “Extinction Chronicle”, and as such leaves little to the imagination - seek a path for all to survive or perish - there is no middle ground. But if you never tried to induce conversation with a stranger about the odds of our species surviving mid-century, you’ve never really induced a conversation. And you can’t really fault people who have been up to their assholes in a virus that has now mutated and grown 70% more contagious after having killed 350,000+ ‘mericans in less than a year. Then again, talk about your “striking while the iron's hot.” What better time to drive home the threat of mass extinction than when people are dropping like flies?
You may find that to be a gruesome simile, but from what i understand about exacerbating climate catastrophe coupled with the 13+ typhoons and resultant flooding i witnessed on the mid-coast of the Southeast Asian nation where i live, you might feel differently motivated about finding the next Gucci knockoff or latest gaming console or trendiest gaggle of hipster doofus homies to hang with. I’d like to say i feel a little like “Chicken Little” clucking about the sky falling, but the only trouble with that thinking is the sky is actually falling. What are the odds at 66 years of age i would have been taught a children’s fable at 6 about exaggerating dire consequences only to find 60 years later that it was a non-fiction-fable after all? Aside from being a passionate teacher, my father was relentless and did not know the meaning of surrender until at age 86 he tripped and crushed the neck of his trochanter of his right femur - it was decided that replacement was not viable so he was left to convalesce as best as he could incontinent with a catheter to pee through.
He crossed the dangling leg with his other to the point of callouses at the intersection: two months later x-rays showed the compound fracture while not knitted had in fact calcified to the extent it was determined that he could, if he chose, attempt walking. I watched my grimacing father take 22 steps from his bed to the door before exhaustion and narcotized pain determined an end to that experiment. For me it became a lesson in self respect - that he succumbed to his injuries less than four months later is not the point, that he literally sucked his existence to the marrow is. Whether that anecdote will jolly you into a conviction that your individual existence is powerful, or whether you feel greater solidarity with the general suffering of mankind, enough so to join forces and work toward mending the broken leg of our kind and hobble to our collective future is not mine to say; i can tell you this sharing was from the heart and meant to fortify and enlarge you, rather than demean or discourage your very likely similarly brave and courageous efforts.
jts 06/01/2021
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