November 13, 2021

I am trying to make changes. It’s hard for me to accomplish. When Earth changes, it’s a thing that looks to be done well, done easily. A simple tip in one direction or another and all else follows suit: All things change up their gear, putting away the speedos and bikinis for something more practical and warm. The fish head for the bottom of the lake, where the water is less turbulent and the temperature more reliable, their home more liquid. The Canadians head south. The sky darkens. The wind blows. Christmas music appears out of nowhere. Yes. Earth’s changes are more easily made? oh, I don’t know. This spinning ball must require enormous force to move, to tip, to be sent flying out around the sun. It must require a somewhat larger force to stop. Yeah.

The force needed to move earth is similar to the force it takes to move me.  The force that moves the earth and the force that keeps earth still are equal, until one or the other spikes a little. Earth moves or remains still when the ‘force’ becomes inequal. I am moved by a force a bit more than equal to my inertia, whatever that inertia is. (resting or moving) I am only changed by a force a bit more than equal to my inertia.

A body or an earth at rest is a powerful thing.  I am a power.  This ball of rock and slime I am drawn down upon is a powerful thing, it is more powerful than my simple urge to fly up and away.   No matter what, inertia must be overwhelmed if a thing is to change, to move from stillness, to improve or to decline, to come to rest.  If I want to fly, I need an inequal force to gravity.

I choose, for explication of my point, to understand and name this force that overwhelms inertia as God. God is equal to inertia but neither God nor inertia are perfect, greater than the other — always. It is a struggle for balance of the power and  balance is rare, my friends. Inertia can be right or wrong, God, right or wrong.  Inertia is not a bad thing, God is not a good thing. God assists everything, inertia gets in the way of everything.  Sometimes. You can’t stop, if you are moving.  You can’t start if you are stopped.  Sigh. A great force must be applied to change the way things are.  They say that God is the force.  Okay.  That works. Some folks use the ‘greater power’ of God to move away from a substance they are addicted to.  The substance is usually a thing that makes a tragedy out of living.  The substance, when over-used, when depended upon destroys more than it heals. Social media is such a substance.

Social media can be inertial, a habit. I have suffered the inertia of social media.  It will take great power (God?) to pull me away but I am willing to try, to keep trying.  Today, I received a rocket boost of power toward pushing me away from Facebook.  I saw evidence, physical and undeniable proof that Facebook is a dangerous thing.  A dark and deeply negative power accidently shows it’s raw edges from time to time.  I saw a tiny edge of the dark in my newsfeed this morning.

Today, a tiny bit of irritation pushed with the power it needed and I am moved.  One last, little insanity made my oyster soul cough out, not sugar-coat the grit.  Can you believe that (in this world of being aware of dark things) Facebook’s algorithms would ‘suggest’ as ‘friends’ a teen-ager and a much older person?  Two individuals who are basically strangers?  How could that not be an invitation to danger?  um…  Nossir.  That is going way too far.  I am at last moved to close the door, tip my world away from the fire, to cool off a while.  I have only my power to say “Enough,” and I shall.  I hope my power is greater than the algorithm of destruction.  Bye, Facebook.

Now, without Facebook to spread my words and delight my soul with the feedback of friends, I have an idea. I will continue posting my bloggys on the website: robertontheair.com If this pleases you as a reader, then I welcome you to attend the festival, you can climb aboard and receive regular notice of my postings but I won’t belabor this. I won’t inundate your newsfeed, I won’t keep sending emails or messages. Only this one note. If you like reading the mini-essays, the poems, the goofy crap…then it is all a mouse-click away at any time. The advantage is your privacy. Facebook won’t know you are reading or where you have gone. You won’t get any advertisements for weird things, either. Cheers!

Sunday

October 31, 2021

The Mayor is dead, long live the Mayor?  Yeah.  Now, I am filled with guilt that the two of us didn’t get off on a better foot.  I was a bad neighbour.  There you have it.  I was mostly okay.  I cut the grass, I didn’t have loud parties that stretched into the late evening, I didn’t park in her space, that sort of thing but I did make noise on purpose one night.   No excuse.  It was my fault that time.  It was the only time that I know of where I interfered with the quiet of the evenings here but I did do that one night on purpose.

The bad blood started right away after I moved in. She creeped me out by looking me up on Facebook, then sending me a message of complaint about how loud my TV was.  That was the first full night I spent at the townhouse and it was about 8 pm.  I was upset but I did send her a message back of apology and promised that I had considered the noise I might be making.  Further, I told her I was planning some renovation to the basement that would take sound transmission into account.   We closed our conversation but I blocked her because I did not like the idea of being ‘creeped’ on Facebook. So, that was the frosty beginning.

A few days or maybe a couple of weeks after our first conversation via Messenger, I was playing music with all of the equipment downstairs.  It WAS loud but I honestly hoped it wouldn’t travel that well because of the brick wall.  I was drinking and playing records at high volume.  I started playing music about 5 or 6, I am not sure.  Within an hour, I got some loud thumping on the basement wall.  I knew it was her, she is the only one who could possibly have heard me.  I don’t think I turned it down at all and I did get a little angry about her thumping.  At around 8 or so, I shut everything off and went by foot to the beer store for more supplies.  It was one of those nights of over the edge drinking that happen from time to time.  It is a thing I do that I am not in any way proud of or happy about or trying to excuse. It just happens.  I try not to drink but it just happens.  When I got home at close to 9, I turned it back on.  I don’t now remember whether she thumped again or not but I was angry and determined to go ahead and play music.  At 10 or maybe 10:30, I shut it off and went to bed.  I was tired and very nearly that crazy drunk where you just don’t think anymore.  A sad end to the evening.

In the morning, I was on my way out and discovered a hastily hand written note from her in my mail box.  It was a lengthy and very angry note where she expressed her disappoinment in my behaviour.  She was so angry that she got a little off base and went on a bit about having been living there for twenty years and that the noise is not something that was ever or would be acceptable.  She explained that her bedroom is right next to my living room and that she had to be in bed at 8:30 in order to get u for work in the morning.  She was upset that I had blocked her from messaging me and read me the act about what I had done the previous evening, that she had valiantly attempted to stop me by banging on the basement wall…etc.  That was the end of  our relationship.  I tried to write her an angry letter back but I threw it away instead.

Well, then.  Later, I noticed her giving instructions to the parcel delivery man about where, when and how to deliver packages to her neighbour to the east.  That was the day I decided she should be called The Mayor of Otton Lane.  So, Mayor she was and we grunted at each other in passing from that time forward.  I did change my music habits and shut it off early, turned it down, moved it to a further room…that sort of thing.  I had no more complaints but I am not sure she was totally satisfied, maybe she just gave up complaining.  

We lived together, neighbours with an unsolved border war, in detente.  I came and went, she came and went.  I did notice that she made no effort to maintain the area between our townhomes, half of which was her property.  I just accepted the role of staff and that was it.  About two years ago, I noticed that the Mayor was incommunicado for a period of about two months.  When she returned, her hair started disappearing and that told me she was suffering from cancer and it’s treatment.  She was in and out after that with several periods of more than a few weeks at a time where she was missing.  She was not working any longer so I figured she must be on a medical leave.  Then, about 8 weeks or so ago, I stopped seeing her move about.  There were caregivers in and out, I assumed she was declining.  Now, the last four days or so have seen a lot of activity at her place.  People I have not seen before in and out and packing up things.

Yup.  A check of obits revealed the Mayor’s death on the 28th.  Oooops.  Now, I have the guilt of yet another person who died without any form of resolution to my being a bitchy sort of person.  She behaved badly, I behaved worse…. This is not the first time.  I have been bad to people over the many years.  I was adamantly cruel to a friend who may have been inconsiderate of the changes I was making but did not deserve the cruelty I offered to him.  I was bad to my ex-wife during the time I was discovering my sexuality.  I never felt love for my Husband, not really, not in the thirty years we spent together. I separated my emotions and my physical love from him.  I could have been better but I knew we needed counseling.  He was not willing to do that.  As to my ex-wife, I was more than cavalier and did not fully understand the effect my sexuality changes were having on her.  These are things I cannot forgive myself for.

Finally,  I was mean to my mom (so much so that my brother asked me to stop) and was even callous to Ed’s Mom once.  I can be a cruel bitch.  I am capable.  Perhaps the worst of it is that I am intelligent and clever enough to be a real pain in the ass.  I can hurt a person.  I have hurt people, badly.  At least three people I have hurt emotionally have died.  The Mayor being one.  Boys and girls, Uncle can be a real shit at times.  Sorry.  Now, I have this additional sign from God (the death of the Mayor) to deal with.  Will I learn the lesson and thus climb to the next level in this Super Mario Game of living?  Tune in next week.

Bad Man

October 28, 2021

I am having a fun morning. I can say things like that because, this is my blog and…it is all about me. Haha. I found a post on Facebook that has caused me to think about the Devil, God and evil, generally. Part of this morning’s thoughts were orchestrated by the dream I had. I dreamed I was at work again. Yes, that evil place. It won’t leave my psyche and I am now thinking that perhaps, I have Post Traumatic Stress Imagining about it. Was it truly evil? Did The Devil run the place? Were everyone’s hormones subject to gravity waves from the moon? Was God too busy to get involved?

Work was pretty bad. Near the end, people would shout at each other as they walked through the office. One fellow said he would ‘beat the shit out of you’ to another guy and they started pushing. I am guilty of being caught up in it, myself. I once corrected someone’s English (abysmal) and he exploded at me. I received an extremely threatening, inches away from my face tirade. He would have attacked me physically but that I acknowledged his complaint as accurate. Yes, I did correct his English and yes, that may have seemed to have ‘put me on a pedestal’ and yes, ‘who the hell did I think I was’. I agree. As ever, that day no one said a thing about it or tried to intervene, defuse. In fact, my co-workers just ignored it. That sort of misbehaviour happened on a daily basis. Yeah, it was kind of evil. This Devil guy that we hear about or have heard about (we Christian indoctrinates, anyway) must be alive and very well, thank you.

The post I saw on our beloved Facebook spoke about the Devil as being a fictional character in The Story. Yeah. He was ‘an element of the text’, as they say in literature class. While I have had some rough experience in life that might tend to put ‘the fear of God’ in a person, I agree God and Devil may not be more than text elements in a series of books. The books got bound together in a different fashion for different folks. There was a Facebook post about it. I took that post and ran with it. It gave me cause to reflect on Devil and God and life and truth. Who is telling the Truth? Is there a Truth?

I think The Story is exactly that. It is one culture’s attempt to explain the big three: Where did we come from? Why are we here? Where are we going? The Bible, because I was born into a Christian cuture, is our take on how and why. The indigenous cultures had their own ideas. Some of the other ideas around the world are a bit more colourful, some are more clever, some are more rational – as in science’s conclusions. Still, science has some pretty far-out and hard to believe ideas, just like the Bible. The Big Bang Theory? is that any different than ‘God saw that it was good and on the seventh day, He rested’? Quarks and black holes and Charm? Why do we tend to believe that sort of malarkey? Because it is measurable? Because we can see it and it’s effects and because the theory seems to work? Well.

I am stepping back a bit from the Science explanation, from the Christian explanation, from the Hindu explanation…etcetera. I think that the very likely truth comes somewhere in between all of the different theory and opinions. When everyone finds a point, small point of agreement…we are probably on to the truth. The exact truth will take a whole bunch of analysis yet. We have to grow, improve. The data can’t be trusted, our machines and minds are not well enough developed. Yeah.

I imagine that life and soul can be reduced to this: we DID come from somewhere. we DO exist and MIGHT have a reason for being. we ARE going somewhere. Yeah, we see folks being born and more folks kicking the bucket or buying their farms. We see the little creatures keel over and get eaten. Sometimes, we do the eating and the keeling them over. The plants green and grow, then brown and curl up. The sun rises, the sun sets. ‘Swiftly go the years/ one season following a-no-ther/ laden with happiness and …tears’.

Could it be God who makes the sun shine and the Devil who has power over the moon? Is it a Quark with Charm or some other kind of particle that wiggles and builds sentience, then wiggles again and shuts the whole she-bang down? Is it the Great Spirit who built Turtle Island and our stubborn imperfection that puts the garbage out without a tight-fitting lid, causing all manner of ill things to happen?

Maybe Diablo or God are elements of the text and not real things? How and why do either of them play into this, Our Story, Our Realness? I think that in all cases (science, too) a Devil is just an object, a theory, a thing to blame for the crap we don’t exactly care for about living. “The Devil made me do it!” or “To the Devil with that nonsense!” Hitler was the Devil incarnate!” (BTW – as an aside to thinking what The Devil made folks do. Yes, it seems Adolf Hitler may well have had only one testicle. What puzzles me is: either Eva had a big mouth, or somebody took his pants off when they found the body? If somebody took his pants off for a look-see, then why? Were they thinking, “Well, sir…the only thing that could make a man so crazy is to only have one ball. He won’t mind, let’s have a look!”).

In some cultures, angry Gods caused the difficulties, the floods, the famines, the poor television reception. It wasn’t The Devil, it was just God on a tear. I am thinking, God, Devil, Quark, Black Hole…if you say so. I have to take all of it on faith, since I have not got a method to prove anything. I can’t say for certain that Earth is round. Sure looks like it is but I haven’t got an evidence of my own. I can’t say there is or is not a God. As an experiment, I prayed once and I didn’t get what I wanted. The test was inconclusive because the wild card was – I may be a sinner and God wasn’t happy about it. Perhaps, God thought I didn’t need what I wanted and that a couple of stained glass windows for the church were a budget priority.

I did bad things once. It was me, being stupid…I didn’t feel the hand of Satan, pushing me, his voice in my ear, “It’s cool, Babycakes…go ahead and smoke it.” or “Sure, it’s your Dad’s Christmas money but you could use it for now.” Of course, my belief that trouble happened by my own action isn’t proof of no Satan, either. It could have been the God of Hell-Fire who got into my head or put butterflies in my trousers that time. While I don’t have a particular affinity for apples, I do like fruit and I suppose the Tree of The Knowledge of Good and Evil can make substitutions. If I were to be tempted by Satan, I think it would have to have been a cherry pie tree. Hear that, bad guy? Get it ready for the next time.

I am not righteous nor evil, I suppose. Each condition is a temporary thing, not an intrinsic one. I am, you are, all are moving between states (conditions, not entities). I am born, I will die. I am like the sun, on it’s rounds. I am warm, I am cold as the moon. I am alike as any creature, plant or star. I do good things, I do bad things, good things happen and bad things but there is no God and no Satan. (I say this equivocally – since I call the unviewable, the unknowable, God) The scientists are probably making their stuff up, too. The possibility exists of no actual moon landings or space stations – just movie sets and props that show well on TV.

While this could be wild theorizing, I am not in conspiracy…I just made it all up by myself with a little help from Facebook, People Magazine or sometimes, The Smithsonian. I keep trying to read more of The Bible but it gets a little boring with all the begetting and begotting. Sometimes, it has a high point or two, like when God catches Adam and Eve, then they each throw someone under the bus about the Crime Of The Millenia, before stitching up some loincloths and heading out. Yeah. The Book can get cloudy and hard to finish. I am reading it, slow as molasses in Damascus but finishing will happen one day, I am determined.

October 27, 2021

Funny stuff today… I saw a very incommunicado-looking truck pull up to the beer store. It was a stealthy approach, as though it were actually a Brinks truck in disguise. No, it wasn’t a Brinks truck, it was a ‘Blue’ truck sneaking up to deliver valued cargo. This is Canada and a beer truck needs not announce itself, for safety’s sake. There have been hijackings. I remember the great ‘Moosehead’ robbery on the east coast some time back. They never did recover the load or discover who stole many thousands of dollars worth of the liquid. We have our suspicions but no facts to back them up. Somewhere, maybe in Newfoundland and Labrador, they are still enjoying a free brew. Down the shed, they are not fixing fishing nets but watching some hockey on the portable tv and drinking a surreptitious cold one.

Speaking of cold ones, it’s chilly but finally sunny again. Times have changed, the earth has tipped away from the sun up here, near the 42nd. I find that interesting, if you were standing at the centre of earth and looking upward at approximately 45 degrees from the horizontal, you would be looking at a lot of Canada. You would be hot as hell and thinking how nice all the ice and snow would be, right about then. Maybe you would be laughing about some old skit from way back that involves Doug and Bob MacKenzie. “Oh, those Canucks,” you might say. Would diablo be sitting there. enthroned, with his tail curling around? Maybe the great red one would be roasting marshmallows on the prongs? Nah. I hear he is actually slithering around on his belly, watching out for women’s stilletto shoes and behaving himself. Now, I am wondering why we got this idea of Hell being below? Must be from the Bible again. Darn book. …and how did they figure out it was hot down there, did they watch a volcano and put two and two together?

The Bible. Did God really say, ‘Hey, write this down’? Maybe He used a machine like the one that Margaret Atwood invented. It writes what you write, only it does it four thousand miles away. Or, do you think He put people in a trance and pushed their hands back and forth? Maybe folks just imagined it was happening and actually wrote their own thoughts. Beer and wine and wacky tabaccy were all over the Middle East by then. Even Jesus, himself had a drop for his rheumatism or a glass ‘with supper’. With all that It would be easy for someone to get a ‘little TOO high’ and think that God was speaking to them when the television got too loud. Happens to me all the time. Or, were Paul and Peter and Mark and Luke and John just making stuff up? If they were and he could prove it, my Dad would say, “They are talking out of their asses!” He would say that adamantly.

I hear Mary Magdelene wrote a book for the Bible, too but some pages got lost, so they didn’t go to press with it. The whole thing makes me suspicious, I think the committee screwed up. Yes, the committee. It was earthly and political. An f’ing committee made the decision about what was and wasn’t God’s word and they made the decisions about 300 years after Jesus had died. By that time, all the principals were also dead so nobody could argue about stuff and/or keep it out of print. It was like Nixon and Watergate and Deep Throat. Now, we are some couple of thousand years further on and, after several reviews, changes and translations — we have the literal word of God to follow? yeah, right. I think I will just go on being a homo until I get some better proof that God ain’t down with that.

As far as being a homo goes, it has been a pretty dry spell. Darn. I know my aunt doesn’t like me to talk like that but, hey. It is what I is. Yeah, it’s thin out there these days. The pickings could be better if I didn’t have an ‘affinity’ for cherry pie and ice cream. That stuff is making me fat as heck. The not getting exercise situation is keeping me where cherry pie put me, too. I see lots of potential in the everyday world around me but those handsome young things are looking elsewhere. Sigh. I did see a fellow at the beer store who is a sort of possibility. He is very chatty and personable. I save up empties and take them back, one at a time, so that I can chat more often. It helps to have a good excuse. Returning empties is better than keeping on buying more. He could get suspicious, I suppose, if I come back to his kiosk every day with just the one bottle. Gonna have to step up my game. Anyway, that’s my story about the beer truck at the beer store….

October 17, 2021

Trafffic, traffic, traffic…sigh. Must everyone move about at the same hour, using up our limited resources? All I wanted was to get to Starbucks for my tea and bagel and writing. What a crowd on the road! We should do this relocating of our persons at allocated times. That’s how they handle vacation overcrowding in the Netherlands. Half the country goes off in early summer, the other half in late summer. Some of us are up and out early, some later so let’s restrict ourselves. We will draw lots or straws or something. We can do odd and even Social Insurance numbers. That is the way to progress. If we keep on the path we are on, it will soon be impossible to move about. There is, of course, the possibility that economics, heading into the end days of earth, will make our choice for us. We might well be kept home by high costs and dwindling supplies.

High costs are making big changes in transport. The more fuel costs, the more insurance costs, the more licensing costs…the wilder the so-called alternative vehicles on the roads. Each day, things turn more in the direction of a Mad-Max scene. Add to that the social mood of anger, frustration and rebelliousness and you get a wild mix out there on the fair boulevards. It’s hard to predict what you will find on your way. Today’s assortment of oddities included bicycles of wild design, electric two-wheelers of limited speed, stuck together pieces of whatever from wherever and a high-handlebar affair that appeared very hard to steer safely.

With the wild mix of vehicles comes a wild mix of ideas for traffic safety, a wild and broad interpretation of traffic rules. You might just as well admit defeat and keep your head (while driving your vehicle of choice) spinning about in a defensive attempt at observation of road conditions with an eye for self-preservation. The general mayhem is approaching what the streets of India look like on National Geographic tours. When the drones are set free, I pity us.

Yesterday, or the day before (it blurs a bit) a young-ish woman with long, beautiful brown hair and a non-descript bike cut me off. She was so casual and deliberate about her error that it astounded me. I was traveling southbound in a standard automobile of recent vintage, she was on her bike and traveling at right angles to me. She had a stop sign, I did not. This meant that I had the right-of-way, she did not. She looked at me as I approached, she saw me, I saw her. I was traveling more than the posted limit of 40 kmh (as we each and all do, don’t we?). When I got close to her, she calmly kept her moderate pace and sailed right past a bright red hexagonal stop indicator, exactly into my path. I had to hit the brakes to avoid her. She smirked at me and drove off in an unhurried, relaxed manner. It was such a casual and aggressive rudeness that I was dumbfounded. Suppose I had been texting?

We all have these stories to tell; stories of the fellow on his powered mobility cart who simply turned left in front of you, never looking left or right, the older gentleman who wore a neck brace and dragged himself along by pulling his wheelchair with his feet IN THE MIDDLE OF THE TRAFFIC LANE, a bicycle coming out of the fog, southbound in our northbound lane, the tattered, elderly contraption that spewed smoke and spare parts as it lurched along…and… the usual collection of farm machinery, busses, transport trucks. Wild. Mad Maximum. I blame the money.

We do have the approaching future high cost of transport to complain about. It’s frightening. In the end, I suppose I shouldn’t worry much about Mad Max when the benzina is over $1.40 a litre should I? Ha ha. What else are people going to do? I will be maybe walking soon, too. Perhaps, I could construct an unusual and affordable fuel vehicle of my own? I have a couple of garbage cans and an extra recycle box. With a bit of string, I could make myself a quite comfortable example of rolling stock. It might be noisy as heck, rolling the cans along the pavement. What a roar that could be! Likely, I will be walking, although, by my powers of deduction, there is no doubt that walking could be dangerous in this environment. I see the occasional, timid pedestrian hidden in the crowd of jaywalking ‘sashayers”.

Oh yeah, the sidewalk is a dangerous, Maxian place also. The words ‘excuse me’ have been lost in the noise and confusion of our modern, digital age. No bicycle bells drrrrinnnnng out a warning anymore. I witness the near-trampling of the meek on a daily basis. If tail-gating bothers when you are ensconced within the bounds of a steel vehicle, can you imagine someone ‘drafting’ you by walking very close behind to reduce the wind drag on their own person? Yikes! Look out!

Fortunately, in all of this change, in all of this reconfiguration of sidewalk and road traffic, in all of this unsettled grimace we are living through, we have the HORN! The horn. Ah, that age-old curve shaped musical instrument, intended for communication. I am sure I read that initially, the horn was ripped off the skull of a murdered beast and sounded as an invitation to a meal of fresh beast flesh or a celebration of victory. That must be what it was. The horn was designed for glory. Oh, I am sure the horn was not intended as an urgent, impatient prod or a negative feedback instrument. No, no.

Myself, whilst I am about on my four wheels, I hear the horn often and wish to use my own, similarly. A shake of the fist is only modestly effective and only as a personal relief. “The fist shake prevents a kill,” I always say. I did have an interesting idea that should be put into development. How about a horn that sounds out loudly when the button is pressed, with, “ASS-HOLE!” That only requires technology for two loud sounds, perhaps a whole step apart? ASS hole! I will get right to work on the drafting-to-concept. Cheers.

The world starts again today. Schoolkids, full staff behind the bar at S’bucks, cars, traffic, political cartoons – er – campaigns. Folks are going back to work, opening up to the world but we are damaged. Things are almost as before but yeah, it is different, feels different. Everyone is angry, now. The anger is bubbling up in the smile and outward ‘good times’ attitude of the staff here. The anger honks hard, suddenly and too easily at a minor annoyance on the roadway. The anger frowns mean at some fool who isn’t walking on the sidewalk, is dawdling in the street, is on the phone and not paying attention. The strength of this modern vicious impulse is surprizing. If you pay attention to the daily news, it seems more and more of us are overwhelmed by the impulse. It’s hard to tell when but anger appears so quickly nearly everywhere. I am feeling it, too, like some forgotten gas well that is leaking. Where this blows up? is a good question.

We have been deceived and our lovely illusions about the world of peace and plenty we inhabit, here in the west, are gone.

Part of what we are feeling is the legacy of one Donald J. Trump and his filthy cohorts – the likes of Roger Stone, Rudolph Giuliani, Steve Bannon, Tucker Carlson. Another part of our malaise is fed by companies like CNBC, Fox News, CNN, and the wonder-tech of social media. It is twenty four hour days, seven day weeks we spend filling ourselves full of garbage that masquerades as truth. To misquote and paraphrase the Beach Boys, “Scroll on, scroll on sailor…” into the fiery sunset of civility or respect for one another.

We have been cheated and our lovely illusions about the blessings of modern life and stable governments, here in the west, are gone.

What to do?

Well, take no leader at the promise of a salvation. None can do that. Even God and Jesus or Buddha and the Golden Calf have no power here. This delicious planet rolls to it’s own will. There is lots of proof we can’t limitlessly control our future, our days. That is illusion of power. “…there is always something…” Time and again, smoke rises from best chosen incense and our earnest prayer…time and again, evil dominates, sets it’s own uncontrollable fire and good gets singed, swept to the side. Sometimes the sweepers are political flamethrowers, masquerading as saviours to all yet secretly built of hatred and miscommunication. Sometimes, the sweepers are blazing organs of the church but the facts are that evil is a part of life. It will always be. Life is a gamble no matter what. The only thing certain is disruption. On earth, in our lives, a fuse always blows. It does not matter what you pray to or whom you elect or what or whom the church or the town council sacrifices for the good of all. That bad shit happens is just the chaotic nature of being alive, like the other creatures and gelatinous things.

We know this. Inside, down deep we know God and politics won’t save us, that chaos reigns supreme but I can’t deny that pray, we do. Point fingers, we do. As example: Reverend Phelps (and a good many others) have condemned things like same-sex love as the source of our modern problems. The Republicans (and a good many others) have condemned situations, like migrants who flee oppression, as the source of our problems. “God,” it is claimed by a vocal few, punishes us with storm of all kinds for our misdeeds, whether or not the misdeeds were born of innocence or compassion. There are social blamers, I blame, too. I blame political leaders, church leaders and, wickedly, I blame this new-fangled Facebook and the twenty four hour news cycle. Yah. If it were up to me, I would shut it all off. “Give us peace!” I would say. “Unplug yourselves,” I would say. …but I can’t. That is, oversimplified, my error.

I am addicted to the news, to Facebook, to politics. I also, somehow…fear and love the church? It is my illusion that if only we could tweak the bad guys out of office, change the church, modify Facebook, life could be made whole. If the pedestrian would obey the law, as I interpret it… all would be well. If the @#$hole who scared the hell out of me with his too-ready horn would just ease up… all would be well. I believe that shit and my believing is akin to Donald Trump saying, “We could live with order and peace if only everyone did as I said.” Hmmmm

Are we all doing this?

Yah. We are getting to the ends of our tethers. Modern living, ancient living, any living kinda does that to folks. The fact is, though, that hey…shit happens. In the words of an old friend of mine, “The main thing is, to not get too excited!” or “Let the rough side drag and let the smooth side show!” It’s ours to learn how to deal with the new contraptions, how to relax. I should relax a little, that minor effort will help this world – wide flame cool a bit. It is up to me.

Biden can’t save me, Jagmeet can’t save me, God can’t save me, Jesus won’t ride in on a white donkey. Sure. Stressing out about the Wild West Show of Facebook won’t save me. It is up to me to save me, I have to carry on in the best way I can. I have to let go and let the mouths wag, the pedestrians zig and zag, the horny – honk. Ha ha. Finding something in church, is up to me and up to me if I want it to be. That is my only defense. Who knows what evil waits around the corner but, in the main, (I am) we are okay for a while yet. We still have the ability to shrug and carry on doing the best we are up to. Cheer up, Robert. Shut up, Robert. Go ahead and have an ice cream…or… pie?… no, donuts! mmmmmm