People sure are acting wacked out lately.
Is it the end times?
I shake my magic eight ball…signs say maybe. Tsk, tsk, not good.
So how will it all come to an end?
Planet killer asteroid (Don’t you love that, like just plain asteroid isn’t enough, its needs to be extra special), Iran finally tests nuclear missile and accidentally blows self up sparking thermonuclear war? Okay, that’s too much, lets just say nuclear war. How about a global oven or a world wide ice box…how do you dress for something like that? Super plague or alien invasion? Economic and/or Enviormental collapse, possibly a diluation of crop diversity due to over use of GM seed? Posioned flu shots? Too much flourine in the water? Reactor melt down…hell governmental meltdown, either would be severe. Killer nano bots, supersoldiers, mutants, zombies, RFID chips, really the list goes on and on. We could probably turn it into a parlor game. People have been worrying over and predicting the end of the world since they figured out they could make such prophecies.
There is a lot of fear out there but then I think there always is, I remember back in college when the big deal was then polar shift and there was some talk then about global warming. I went to college in the early 80s. I think uncertainty and insecurity are greater causes of fear than most anything else except the fear of loss. Loss of someone or something that is more than important to you but is an intergral part of your life. As I look back over my short meager existance I begin to realize that the world I live in today looks almost nothing like the world in which I dwelt before 1988. Lost a lot of family over the ten years before culminating with the death of my mother. The family that remained and the relationships that were once so rich quickly decayed. My brothers and father no longer even seemed to be the same people.
Houses and apartments I rented are gone, stores I frequented have vanished, friends whom claimed undying love and loyalty disappeared far back along the horizon. It is in its own way the very nature of our fragile ever changing world. We people, I think, like to think of the world as a stable static place and work hard to maintain that frame of reference in our minds. So when something horrible happens it is a shock, regardless of how often it has happened in the past, we continued the struggle to gleen those horrific images and feelings from our minds and go on as though those risks don’t exist. This is where we find ourselves trapped. Every night when we go to bed, a world dies and when we awake in the morning we come to, in a new world. True the differences may be slight or subtle but over time the changes can be profound until finally we, those of us who survive, say, where did all that time go? I was twenty just yesterday, when did all this happen? 60, I can’t believe I’m 60, I never thought I’d live this long.
Being human means being vulnerable.
I would love to believe that there is some type of a fix that would remove those moments that bring so many terrible emotional pain but there isn’t. I know this myself, several times over. The world is uncertain, life is short, bad frightening things happen, we have little power to influence the reality in which we live…all of this is true. So what to do?
Make your home sacred space and bring not the darkness from the outside in when you pass through the door.
Find more joy and ways to express it, even if it is something a simple as a party or as complicated as pursuing the arts.
Don’t be afraid to be different.
Don’t worry about what other people are thinking.
Be prepared to trust with the understanding that there in lies risk.
Finally, remember, you never know when the words you speak will be the last words. Either your last words or the last words any given person might hear. If you truly care about a person then make as many words as you can good words. hesitate before you react emotionally. Tell them you love them and understand that it isn’t for them that you express this, but for yourself.
mutteringsfromtheotherside 