You know, I thought the last story about my lost shoes touched upon a subject I dread. Things you could never imagine thinking about when you’re younger, start coming to life. Parents no longer recognizing their children, living in a maze mind, when the lines are straight as an arrow to everyone around you. I think it may be the first time I was so anxious to share a story, day and time didn’t matter.
I am always thrilled to get one story out each week. The shoe episode was a big one for me. Then it went out and disappeared from my mind. it also wrecked my compulsive schedule, leaving me with time to write something else, with most of the weekend still ahead of me.
I smiled, a big smile, like this should be the biggest problem I ever have as a writer? I really liked the story about how fear can take your mind hostage and make you feel like a stranger to yourself. Man, that was an incredibly difficult time for me, like my mind had been hijacked by the evil forces of unrequited fear that feeds on itself.
Then, the unexpected happened and that is often the entree into a world with no precedent. Someone at the brewery tested positive for Covid, an inevitability in today’s pandemic.
All of a sudden, I had a three-day holiday, closing the brewery Thursday thru Sunday. Honestly, the writer side of me said there is definitely a story to share, but I had already launched the shoe saga.
So, here I am with the gift of time and no self-imposed pressure to write. You know, I like the idea of being a mind astronaut, looking from a distance as to what is going on down below. Honestly, I’ve been wracking my brain to find some linkage between “the election was stolen” to “the vaccine has secret chips, to “global warming is a hoax”,etc.” It would be easy to simply say all of those people are stupid, which would be blind pomposity and miles off the mark, because that’s not what I believe at all. Disagreements are a social inevitability, but the degree of polarity today is stunning.
You know, I could just sit here, where I always sit and mine for words that mirror my mind, but this is such an incredibly tricky subject to even try and corral into a paragraph or two. It seems life has become more charged for many, some looking to vanquish an invisible opponent and others seeking to lay blame on anyone, but themselves. It is so effortless to hold others accountable, rather than seeking out any kind of commonality. “We” doesn’t seem to exist, replaced by “Them”.
I want to get back to that astronaut comment above and relate to our concept of time and our myopic vision. Imagine you are able to mentally rocket far above earth and see all that has happened since the beginning of earth’s life? Of course, I know it is ridiculous, but I am struggling to make a very obtuse point.
Everything kind of flowed naturally, without any interference from earth’s living inhabitants throughout time. Bluntly stated, shit just happened. In the midst of an abundance of cataclysmic changes, life began to become more sophisticated and complicated, but still victim to external forces.
While the living world continually adapted to its ever changing environment, becoming more physically sophisticated along the way, it was the brain that was the game changer. So, before the tree fell, these early beings were able to get out of its way, a miracle!
At some point, our predecessors began making changes to nature, getting one step ahead of it, rather than simply being swallowed by it. Somewhere in there, our upright ancestors began taking advantage of their natural world and each other. Now, this is where you really have to look closely at what began unfolding down below. These are the roots of our today and why we find ourselves in an incredibly, complex predicament.
Now, just stay up there a little bit longer with me, because this is the best part. Our hairy brethren began to justify their actions of brute force and mental manipulation, with language as a tool to fool. High above, fast forwarding through time, the trajectory of us humans has been on full display for thousands of years. Actually, I just read that our family began around 300,000 years ago. It is an understatement to say this provides us with a clear roadmap of our evolving behavior.
“Thank you for taking this time-warp voyage on Larry X and welcome back to this moment.”
What we are doing, we have always done and that’s my point. We get up each morning and don’t think today has any history. Every goddamn, dominant society has trodden the exact same path. Up there, you can see it so clearly. They have done exactly the same as the one before and egotistically thought the outcome would be different. Who we are is who we have always been!
Our only true genius is our adaptability, reacting to what we have wrought. The Marshall Plan rebuilt Europe after we destroyed it. Jesus was crucified and a religion was born. Our planet is grossly overpopulated and nature, plus our incredible stupidity will shrink it. The denigration of our environment will require adaptation, causing and incredible adjustment in its carrying capacity. Our forever mistreatment of each other will continue, birthing consequences from a deprived population, many who live in countries you have never heard of.
Everyday, we are distracted with things like Djokovic’s visa or Kanye becoming Ye. I applaud the optimism of those, who think we are going to fix a world that is badly broken. Up there, you get to see our paint by numbers past, our behavior replicated and then replicated again. The powerful have always gotten their way, consequences be damned.
In a way, the future is out of our hands. Our rowboat will not navigate through the tidal wave of inevitability. Each of us needs to find a place to land, one that reflects the kind of person we are. The little worlds have always survived The Big. As trite as it sounds, love is our weapon and it is unbelievable what it can overcome. Caring for ourselves and each other is the light that will forever shine, regardless of what comes.
In my lifetime, I have never seen so many, so distracted. Over the last 300,000 years, we have gotten better and more efficient at most everything, racing toward the cliff of consequence. It is often mistakenly called progress, which is a terrible misnomer. What has always put us at the top of Darwin’s ladder, is our heart, not our mind. It is our only future. We will survive, because it is our genius. I feel it.