Fairness. The forces of evil. Forces for good. Changes. So what. We are, the world is on the cusp of social and governmental (what is often refered to as seismic) transformation. Very soon, things ain’t goin’ to be the same. Populism, capitalism and Covid have guaranteed, inked, signed on the bottom line a contract that binds us to change, but what else is new? Any study of history, committed, cursory or maybe just casually ignored shows the same result. We are always in flux, whether on a pleasant summer day spent sitting out under glorious trees and reading a nice book or, on a pleasant early fall day spent sitting in, trying to write one. There is always change, even in my daily habit of a tea and bagel at Starbucks with my electronic pencil and paper to hand. Change is happening now, we can see it. It is right before our eyes, two blocks away, next door, halfway around the earth. At any moment, things could go either way. It is a game or a tense story. We are at the precipice, we are the brink. We worry. We fret, we elect politicians, we save our money, we can vegetables and soup but why worry? We always get to three strikes and then it’s the top of another inning. The game is also a many inning opera, a play. We always get to act three and the curtain falls, to rise again on another play whose death scene drags through another few acts. There is an indeterminate number of innings to the intense game and an endless supply of dramatic stories. We will know it is almost over when the fat lady sings (or Yogi Berra does or St. Peter does). I don’t hear anything yet. Not really.
I am at two strikes and one half for Starbucks. Saturday, they did not have my favourite tea. Sunday, they didn’t have my favourite tea or my favourite bagel. Today? No tea. Again. That is two and one half strikes. Compounding my frustration was the fact that I forgot to drag along my little wireless keyboard. That made typing difficult, I haven’t acquired speed or agility on the touch screen at this point. Many folks I know can click away without seeming effort but I can’t. I am stuck in the IBM selectric past of thinking with all my fingers and not just one. Ha. Today’s frustration all added up to “Why am I doing this?” again. Indeed, why? Am I saving myself? Am I saving anyone else? Is typing away into the wilderness solely a habit? Is this a valuable avocation? Am I stuck in the past with my little keyboard? My guess is that I type ritually, habitually and that it has little value.
Typing does give me something to do. It is a habit that I prefer over drinking all day. That is option number two and a very sound option. My old neighbour spent his retirement years doing exactly that. Starting at nine or ten a.m., he continued drinking until supper time. After supper, he would have one more while watching tv and retire early. His life was very still, predictable, without sudden, noisy movement or change. He didn’t seem aware of flux, he was ‘away’. Each day, save for the weather, was the same. Pop….sizzzzz, gulp. No upsets, all good. “What’s for dinner?”
Sitting, typing on my electronic devices is a habit I cultivated, thinking it would come to something maybe. As it happens, I prefer the pretend writing to drinking or busying myself with myriad tasks around the house, getting life-work done. Typing passes the time for me. I enjoy it. As tense as my consideration and chatting about how our reality can be, I would rather type and think with my fingers than clean or cook dinner or drink. At least sometimes. Sometimes, the story or the game get to me and I would rather drink or eat fresh cookies. And, there are times I realize that spending time doing the daily life living with mindfulness can also lift you away from the insistence of a NOW world. Making a loaf of bread takes you away from Donald and his demands for attention.
It is no surprise that drinking and eating can be more enticing than thinking and writing about our world of flux, craziness, wacko cries in the wilderness. Things can seem intense, impossible, urgent. That upset, the noise, is the world as it has always been. I like typing but when doing so I am confronted with the current of our days, my days. I often see only the hysterics, the panic, the possibility of losing to the opposing team. I start to see the heroine and can hear her aria. I try to go with the flow but there can be an awful flow at times. It is both electric and liquid that invades, floods my need for peace. It pours over the opera stage, zaps down as lightning in the outfield. Lately, that flow appears when I start thinking about anything and typing. It leaks out of my fingers onto the back-lit screen. It’s exciting. It is also a sham, an illiusion itself. There’s nothing to be excited or worry about…as it is, it ever was, as it is, it ever will be.
This is always true of being human and probably will be for the future of being human. Ancient Egypt was a culture and a government that existed in the same form for 5,000 years. They didn’t have baseball but they did have music, poetry and upset. They didn’t have the wireless keyboard with them. They couldn’t type easily, it was more a clunk, clunk into clay. Their world was pretty stable for the whole of their time, if you don’t count the wars, famine, regime changes, earthquakes, floods and other catastrophes they wrote about with a clunk, clunk and a cartouche. Our world is pretty stable, too. Maybe it’s best not to get too excited? Hm.
Robert On The Air 