The American Dream in 2020

The American Dream in 2020

    It is helpful to be able to write and share feelings and facts during times of stress and pain. I would like to do so this, the last day of this unique May of this somewhat ominous year. I hope the month of May 2021 finds us in a much better place. Things could be worse.

    Stresses and huge concerns are prevalent throughout the country and the rest of the world this weekend. I will share a few things; I hope to assess and reflect on some important issues and matters that affect us. First, some global issues before I address the rest of the United States, the home to some 330 million of us 7 plus billion residents on the planet earth.

• A large locus infestation in east Africa ranging into Asia is causing immediate and future situations of extreme hunger and famine. At least 20 million people are in danger of serious food crisis.
• The COVID-19 pandemic continues to spread across most of the world. China claims that they have tamped it down and contained it to Wuhan province. The United States alone has lost over 100,000 people to it, Europe has lost many more, and some Asian countries like India and now large parts of Latin America is being hit hard by this deadly respiratory illness.
• Some wars continue across the globe, mostly in Arab places like Libya, Yemen, Syria. Afghanistan has continual what might be called civic violence that ends up killing many of their citizens weekly.
• The United States and most of its allies are at continual tension with China, Iran, North Korea, and to some degree Russia.
• Local, regional, and worldwide economies are suffering greatly because the shutdowns due to the pandemic that became very serious since middle March of this year, 2020. Bad economies mean people are at risk for hunger and other social maladies, including mental health problems becoming exacerbated.

    This past week a 46 year-old man in Minneapolis, Minnesota named George Floyd was pinned on the ground by a policeman and his cohorts while arrested for suspicion of a forfeit bill, and while put in too much physical stress while being detained and trying to explain his dire to the man who had him illegally pinned, he died, which was all captured on video/film and "blew up" through the media. The policeman, now the infamous long time law enforcement officer Derric Chauvin, and his three peers who also seemed to do nothing to prevent this senseless and tragic death, are now fired and in process of being charged for this egregious crime.
    Despite the wheels of justice marching on these ill-doers in Minnesota, who are paid professionals and should know better, thousands if not millions of demonstrators and protestors got on their feet, grabbed their horns and tools of protest, and went to the streets, many of them gathering at police stations, federal buildings and monuments, public parks or monuments, or strip malls and other public spaces. And things got ugly, way too ugly. I watched some of it on TV and followed other parts online and on my phone.

• Two Federal Protective Service workers attacked and injured in Oakland, California, one of the first nights of protests. One of them, a Homeland Security employee, died from his injuries. I ask all: what is his name? If it were a woman would we care more? #metoo, stop the harassment and violence against women? Amen! Do any of the righteously indignant protestors breaking curfews across our land care about him or his family? Is he just another first responder who is "paid to die"? Like a nurse or EMT or doctor with infected patients, we simply expect these workers to risk their lives and die with no call for concern? WHAT IS HIS NAME? Would George Floyd and his family want us to know? I hope so.
• A young man in Detroit is killed during the protests there late Friday night. Was it the police? No, it was some type of criminal or thugs that the police tried to save him from.
• Another young man in Indianapolis died last night. During protests. How does this happen? Are governors, mayors, police chiefs, Home Security officials, law enforcement and fire department personnel trying to stop the violence and mayhem? Yes, and now we have thousands, 13 thousand plus in Minnesota alone, activated to stop the madness. 
• Beyond Minnesota 9 other states have called up National Guardsmen to keep the peace, protect hard earned property of citizens and the save the lives of the people themselves.
• Over 1400 demonstrators arrested for excessive actions in the streets over the weekend.
• Approximately 170 businesses and structures looted, vandalized, and burned in Minneapolis alone.
• Protesting and rioting across dozens of American cities, scuffles and injuries sustained by citizens and law enforcement alike. The police and Guard and other security are following curfew and other protective measures decreed by their bosses and elected authorities. They are paid to uphold the law in regular times, they respond to increased threats in abnormal times. This is what they do. This is their role, responsibility, and duty. God bless them. Some make mistakes and some end up being incompetent, but the grand majority keep the peace and prevent us from getting threatened, robbed, or worse.
• Major buildings in Washington D.C. and Philadelphia burn. Other structures across the country are damaged, broken and entered, looted, pillaged, burglarized, burned and desecrated. Thousands of people lose their place of livelihood and accrued wealth through an already hyper-stressed economic downturn, bordering economic and social crisis. Regular business owners and workers do not deserve to be victims of these protests, their whole lives invested in their crafts torched and snatched up over night. Burning down police stations? These are the men and women that keep us from dying and being assaulted in nightmare scenarios? Which dream are we living? Give them and us a chance, like the court system that will prosecute Officer Chavin.
• Dozens of police vehicles and other privately owned cars and trucks attacked, smashed, and burned. Does this adequately address the question of police brutality? What? Take out your anger and aggression in more positive ways! What American dream are you attempting to live?
• Words are shared and proclaimed across all platforms, including this one, a blog. Some invectives are uttered , some wise words are offered . I really liked Brandon Tatum from Tuscon, Arizona. Many smart and wise people are trying to respond to this situation. Listen to them. Heed their counsel.
• Black lives matter. We need to let each other breathe. When hands are up, don't shoot. Don't be a punk and hurl bottles or rocks at the law enforcement when the peaceful protestors are shielding you. Cowardly punks, hoodlums, and thugs. Those words or labels are not racially charged. Those are accurate interpretations of a bad human and his/her behavior, nothing to do with the color of skin. Similar to labeling a crooked, corrupt, bully, or excessively forceful law enforcement official, or cop. Respect their authority until that particular one does the wrong thing. I understand many feel threatened by them all. They are principled and good in grand majority. Give them the benefit of the doubt, as they will for you.

     The American Dream: Work hard and prosper 

      I will finish this article, this report, this screed-like rant, if you will.

    

     We as Americans are extremely privileged to live in a country where we can be free and taxed to support things for the benefit of ourselves and for the rest of society. We work for our own livelihoods and savings, doing what we can to get by, and even prosper as individuals and families and groups, including corporations and agencies. Many people in our nation have suffered from multi-generational poverty, which is a severe problem. People of color, in particular, have had many uphill battles to achieve a level of decent life; the white majority of the population recognizes that. There are always some idiots who hate, no matter their ethnic background or socio-economic class. However, as a white man, of a economic class that others have contributed to but now is on me and my loved ones to maintain or grow, allow me to explain that no matter what color you are, we all try to play and work by the same rules and succeed. We try to be fair and help others, the grand majority of us. We vote our consciences and continue to work, both paid and unpaid labor, for the good of one and all. We drive our vehicles and follow the rules in order for all of us to arrive safely at our respective destinations. A metaphor, yes, but I believe it is very apt.

    We follow the rule of law and respect the granted civil and political authorities for the good of ourselves and all others. We pull off the road and cede space to ambulances and firetrucks when they are in go mode because the life they save right this second might be us tomorrow. We respect the police and medical personnel, to include military, because they also protect and save us, every shift they put their uniforms on. People in uniforms? Heroes. Even the local security person at the car lot deserves our utmost respect and esteem. There is a reason he is there. Security exists for real reasons, because the alternative of absence of such people, with weapons, keeping the peace, is much worse.

   I pray that all of us realize our blessings and recognize our collective and individual opportunities to get ahead, learn, save money, invest, live freely, contribute to yourself and others, enjoy life. It is not always fair or just, I get it. No matter who we are, black or white, male or female, young or old, English speaking or Spanish or other, athletically or academically gifted or not, we all are in this together. We are here to help and abide by each other. We all pay it differently, but we are all equal as people with different circumstances.

   Last pleas: do not take from others what they have worked for. Do not destroy their labors and dreams, do not threaten them with loss of property or life. Obey the law, respect authority, and do better at living with and enabling all people of all backgrounds to live the American dream. Things are not perfect in our country in 2020, I know, but we have perfect opportunities to make our lives prosperous and good. Born short or in a way that seems unfair? Overcome it. Born with a health or bodily defect? Overcome it. Born with an obsessive/compulsive nature or other mental issue? Deal with it and overcome those disabilities. Born poor? Born in a family with addictions and violence? Born with parents that do not value you or support you, that abuse you? Overcome it, outlast it, keep going. A better life awaits. I have seen it over and over again in the United States and elsewhere.

  

   The American dream is all up to you, it is all up to us. We can protest peacefully, as Martin Luther King urged and preached. Let us not spit on and disregard those that try to uphold it, throwing away the American dream, as some paid authorities have done, and some street punks have decided to do. Wisdom and foolishness have no color, we all bleed the same, even those outside our borders.

Thanks for being responsible and thanks for caring. Don't quit.

  

Memorial Day Heroes in Pandemic Times

Memorial Day Heroes in Pandemic Times

    
      We certainly want to credit the brave men and women who are valiantly fighting the awful virus; many first line responders have succumbed to COVID-19, to include doctors, nurses, EMTs, police... There are many essential workers who have continued to work in order to make things run, to give us necessary power and services, to include food, water, medicine, and all those things that keep us alive.

      Many older people, in our country and around the world, have died from this pernicious virus, as well as people of all ages, mostly those with morbidity factors or underlying health problems. While we are dealing with these physical threats, there are the emotional and economic threats that make life harder, more stressful, and more deadly.
    We reflect and remember those cut down prematurely, to honor our fallen dead from our numerous foreign wars: from 1775 till now, we have millions to recall. Not as many as Germany or Russia or China, or perhaps a dozen other long lasting nations like Turkey or India or Iran, or even Greece... But in U.S. history we have many dead war veterans to venerate. I read that 83,000 soldiers', marines', and seamens' bodies are still to be recovered since World War II alone. Some half of those, 40 plus thousand or so, are trapped in the seas and oceans, and likely irrecoverable. On the ground, forensic researchers and scientists are still scavenging the mountains, jungles, and plains of places where soldiers and airmen and the others perished and went off the radar. More remains and remnants of our fallen are found yearly in places like North and South Korea, China, Vietnam, the mountains or deltas of Laos or other lands, still very much forgotten to the rest of us.

    We remember them, thank them, and wish to offer our prayers and gratitude to their lives in the body, albeit washed away by distance and time, and their souls in the spirit.

     From the 24 concentric tombs outside of Leesburg, Virginia, at the smallest federal U.S. Civil War battlefield, dedicated to the unknown fallen there, to the thousands of unmarked yet hallowed graves of our brothers and sisters from Belgium to Afghanistan, from the Coral Sea and a dozen other Pacific locales across thousands of miles of atolls and waves, to the swamps and rivers of Panama, or Georgia, we honor and hail your lives, your input to who we remain today, in the waking sunny hours of the day, and the cooler, peaceful hours of night.

   Thoughts and prayers to each of you. Very much remembered. We will never stop searching for you.

---A U.S. Army Guard soldier

Community and Meaning, Collective Health

Community and Meaning, Collective Health

      The worldwide pandemic is bringing to light in new ways and means that there are things that we human beings need to improve and change in order to be healthier: healthier as individuals, healthier as families, healthier as communities and healthier as units of organized society.  

     We already knew that we as individuals and collective entities have preventable issues that would make us stronger for a better state of healthier living. Drugs and alcohol, to include tobacco and other smaller chemicals, are known products that can prove for a less than optimal state of health. Sugar, excessive fats, a non-active lifestyle, and other poor habitual choices can also lead to obesity and other "morbidity" factors that reduce our otherwise healthier lifestyles. Covid-19 has stricken those with underlying conditions heavily, because the virus attacks the lungs and other organs that are already non-optimally positioned to combat potential diseases and illnesses, to include mental illness.

     There are obviously many "underlying factors" that afflict us humans, a term that has been huge during this pandemic and the subsequent lock-downs and polemics of work and social distancing, the world since March of 2020. So many of these factors cannot be avoided, or are not the choices that those afflicted have actively acquired of their own volition. This also includes mental stresses and problems that are not a consequence of the choices or actions of those that suffer from those issues.

     There are obvious and some subtle physical intake factors that can help us be healthier, agreed. However, beyond the physical conditions and inputs that we employ, there are social aspects of our physical and mental health that can also help us be healthier. For example, I just heard on the radio today that those who are alone during a heat wave, where people can actually suffer and die from excessive heat and its affects, die more often because there is a lack of another who observes the detrimental heat factors that induce heat casualties to suffer and even die from heat stroke or heat exhaustion. Other people help us, in other words, either through direct or indirect observation, or the level of companionship that that person or persons afford the individual. Connecting and interacting helps most humans be healthy. Call it mental, emotional, spiritual, social, or whatever label you like for a person's "connectedness" or the inter-textual "community". Many of us have switched a lot of former social or even intellectual connections to virtual media, therefore the telephone that my mother employed tremendously throughout her life has been replaced with chatting on social networks and advanced computer technology. Many realize that this is good and bad.

    All this said about the physical structure and means of connecting, and how that changes and adapts over time, I really wish to touch on the content and sociological structure of our communal connections. Who or what do you belong to? Was the gym a place where you communed when times were less dangerous? Restaurants offered their place to connect, and certainly pubs and bars, where drinking was the major driver of social interaction and communion. Church, synagogue, mosque, temple, shrine, and all the other religious sites of community and communion with a base of their own. Venues of music and theater and dance, arenas of sport and play, stores and markets of food and commodities,  even the smart phone centers and lounges, play grounds and parks, clubs for social or physical activities, like amusement parks or those designed for games, or air port terminals and metro stops, despite their mostly anonymous features for us social creatures, also provide a sense of community. We are all going in different directions and destinations, but we all share the physical circumstances of a common community. Delta, American, United, Lufthansa, Avianca, the Cinnabun and coffee shops, the book nooks and novelty stores.

     What do we spend time connecting with, thinking about, contemplating and learning, after figuring out who those people are that we will do said things? Drinks? Plates of food? The items of the menu, is that what garners our interest and passion? The gossip of the neighborhood, the news of the day, be it local or national or international, or even delving into outer space and the cosmos? Discussions of science and existence are endlessly fascinating to many of us; there are so many topics that can fascinate us and enthrall our minds and souls: social justice topics, history, economics, sports, art, parenthood, health and medicine, stories, memories, weather patterns or current weather, on and on, our souls clamber for inputs and interactions, the sharing and caring of knowledge and the "new".

   

   Yesterday was good for me on a community level, having a lot to do with my faith community and religious beliefs. Allow me to explain. I am normally an active member of my faith community, which takes place on many different levels. There are things that I have invested in the religion privately and personally as an individual, and then there are "intertextual" interactions that also help me, and what I would like to think help others as well. Others of my same faith community and  those on the fringes (really, everyone else) hopefully feel an added value to my faith, membership, community standing or position, and my efforts in good will to fellowship and minister.

    My basketball group got together and played basketball for the second time in a row, which win or lose, is a stimulating and fun event for me. I run, I breathe hard, I participate in a game that is challenging and entertaining, I talk to my friends and cohorts, I sweat and get in better shape. Later I think about the good and bad of the games, and I count my blessings and vow to improve or alter an aspect of how it went and improve, progress. Pandemic note: I realize that many people may have a problem with this, but our reasoning is that none of the participants are infected with the potentially deadly virus, and even so we are playing outside where the possibility of contamination is lower than indoor venues. I purposely avoid to be too physically proximate, and also hand contact or germ spreading of other kinds. So this interaction, in non-pandemic times not as hard to dispute, at least in normal times is a positive activity for me on many levels, and it relates to my church affiliation and membership.

      My church of my lifetime membership, made up of over six million on the books in 2020 in the United States, has a lot of things other than basketball courts, (disclosure about the games: my buddies and I were playing in this pandemic time outside at a public park, to lessen chances of passing the virus, by the way); our church has a large network of food programs called Bishops' Storehouses. Yesterday my son and I were able to participate in this program by driving to our nearest Storehouse in nearby Maryland and pick up a large food order approved by the local Relief Society and Bishopric for a local family in need. This family lives close to some of our congregation members, but they themselves are not members. However, being part of my local church leadership and administration by virtue of my secretary position within the body of the adult men, called the elders quorum, I have been privy to discussions of us as a congregation not only our own members but anyone else in the community who needs it. This is what happened yesterday, and it was great.

     As much as we could do our part and help this family in trying times, for their direct benefit, I know that I myself benefited in this charitable endeavor by being part of my community, taking a direct role in the community of who we are or who we purport to be. We want to be Christian participants in the building up and relief of Zion, God's kingdom on earth. Part of that is addressing our physical as well as spiritual needs. We are a community of Christ, an interwoven tapestry of God, and we need each other, both the "needy", and the "needed".

   We are, as a quoted and eulogized phrase from a pop musical performed by my daughters at their high school recently states, "all in it together." We are. We are one community, but how do we engage ourselves within it?

    I am very grateful for my membership in my faith community, for the way it enables me to personally and collectively connect to myself, my family, my neighbors and greater community, which ends up spanning the planet. I am very happy that I am part of a community that at times maligned or misunderstood or for lack of better words attacked for being the way it is, or tries to be, I am incredibly impressed by what the group does and what it has done, and what it, we, plan to do in the future.

    I believe, as its leaders, our church leaders, preach and proclaim, that the present and future of the Church of Jesus Christ is still brightly ahead looming on the horizon. I wish for me and all I speak to be a part of it. Like the factors that contribute to or against our health, a lot of the decision to be a part of it is up to us. Some of the participation is not up to us: just look at restrictive environments found in China, or certain religiously austere nations, or in the crime ridden parts of our country where everyday freedoms and liberties are at risk. Freedom is certainly not free, and community and good health is not created over night. 

       Good health and good community are derived from purposeful and careful planning, effort, and execution. Discipline, inspiration, action, kindness, effort, sweat, blood, tears, love, charity, community, interaction, reaching out, fellowship, ministering, prayer, song, searching, growing, communion, unity, faith.

     May you find it however and wherever you can. Be healthy, and find your personal meanings in your respective communities. It needs to be nourished, like plants and flowers, day by day.

    What will your day be like? Are you part of the community? A positive, giving community? I am, and I love it.

Time Talks Page 22 --End of First Week of June 1989

Time Talks Page 22 --- End of First Week of June 1989 

History was interesting in June of 1989. The Tienanmen Square massacre occurred in Beijing, China. Like so many other Chinese tragedies, we will never know how many Chinese citizens perished. Be it typhoon or earthquake, flood or famine, pestilence or military or political purge, the Chinese victims are unending.

The Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini died in Iran. Americans, and perhaps a few other Westerners like me, were glad he was gone. He was one of the seeming endless boogey men of the Middle East for the United States. There would be many more; I did not really have an idea of how that would continue, from Libya to Afghanistan. 

Michael Chang beat Ivan Lendl at Wimbledon. Historic feat. That was a big deal to me, at least. Major tennis championships can be a part of the context of history. 

22 is one of my favorite numbers.
Good morning June 6 198**9.
What posesses [sic] a person to write? 
Egotism?  No . It's about 10:00 am and this paper and the adjoining deal is not necessarily grammatically and/or compositionally sound, whatever that means.           .
Disect my life ...   !Adious!  ^--sp. [arrow pointing towards "Adious"]

4:00  p.m. How the time HA! flies!

I don't know. The irony of it all. Life, 1989, the 90's, 2000, 2001, 2010. All of it there, and me too, I hope.

Oh babble on, oh babble on

Babylon. 

I bid thee farewell. --^ ! [Arrow pointing at exclamation mark to the right]

Forced to write at the frustratious [sic] point of boredom.

All those years I knew I should have been writing. All those hours I knew I should have been studying. I wasn't bored, nosiree.

I was collecting! Information in my own lackadaisical way. My own way.

_______________________________________________________________
   
    I look back now, May 19, 2020, and I see the foolishness and the wisdom, the universality and the particular peculiarity, the oneness and the allness, the simplicity and the commonality, the me and the you, the we and the they of it. I am like so many others, an American, a member of my state, the third of three children, a guy, a sports fan, a recent high school graduate, and hundreds of other things that make me like anyone else.
   By the time I was in high school I would tell people that if you were one in a million, then that meant there were at least 30 other people just like you, in California alone. I was always fascinated by populations and demography numbers and statistics, and I was always wondering about the state of who we were as humans, how many of us there were, and what we were about.
    In short, identity, quantity, quality. Were we all uniquely independent, or was the collective part of our hive the predominant trait? Where did God and chosen ones fit into all of it? Do they? Do we? Am I one? Are you? Who are you? Who am I? Read and write on...

Decades later, writing and ruminating in the same circles.

I am still collecting, as it were.

After decades, seeing some of the world and seeing some of life, living and experiencing some more of it, along with observing some death.  We all collect, we all process, we all filter and remember and keep moving... books, articles, music and plays, movies and series on television and now computers and smart phones... We see life and lives through many prisms and kaleidoscopes.
 
22 is one of my favorite numbers.
Good morning June 6 198**9.
What posesses [sic] a person to write? 
Egotism?  No .

    
     The first number, twenty-two, is the reference to my birth date, back in 1970, which then became my fav. The date that I wrote this, the 6th of June, 1989, (little was I to know that) this date would be the birth date of my first born 12 years later, the futuristic year of the next century, the next millennium. Symmetry, anyone? Perhaps this yet is an indicator of another normality of life and existence: one lives long enough and the things of life occur: going to college, getting a job, marrying a wife, have children, start a blog, buy a car. These are normal things for a lot of us.

But maybe not so normal to reflect and respond to one's own journal 30 plus years after one started it...

      Here we are. Ego, is that what drives us? No, still no. There is id, and ego, and super ego. All of them, all need to know more and process more. We do things and have multiple motivations for others, sublimating our own egotistical or selfish desires for the benefit of others. This is why we write. Ask George Orwell. My daughter, born on that June day, prizes her journals the most of any of her possessions; she is my same age of 18 when I wrote this... Closer to the age when Ernest Hemingway was earning his journalist chops in Kansas City, or when John Steinbeck was scribbling his way to Stanford. I don't what Jack London, William Faulkner, or F. Scott Fitzgerald were doing as they approached their 19th years... What about Maya Angelou, Toni Morrison, or Alice Walker? Ot Virginia Woolf, Annie Dillard, Pearl Buck, or Isabel Allende? Or the luminaries Vargas Llosa or Garcia Marquez? Most likely reading their fair share.

It's about 10:00 am and this paper and the adjoining deal is not necessarily grammatically and/or compositionally sound, whatever that means.           .
Disect my life ...   !Adious!  ^--sp. [arrow pointing towards "Adious"]

4:00  p.m. How the time HA! flies!

 Time. 

What bigger concept is there, really? It encapsulates everything, right? The ephemerality, the immensity, the perplexity, the curiosity of it-- From morning to afternoon to night.

Time. What a thing always changing and never changing. What a mystery, and such is life. And death. Timeless and timeful. Eternal and finite.

I don't know. The irony of it all. Life, 1989, the 90's, 2000, 2001, 2010. All of it there, and me too, I hope.

Oh babble on, oh babble on

     Very existential these lines, feeling like life is ironic, like how Alanis Morrissete would sing so poetically a few years later in the 1990s, when I would be a college and post college student. In 1989 I had the hang up of those mathematical and science class grades weighing on me and against me, plus even the Spanish language was somewhat daunting in front of me: in the very daily conversations that I had with my Spanish host family, dealing with the demons of the high school homework and tests that I had fought, like some new age Don Quijote, only much less heroic, or less in every extreme. And not much of a Sancho Panza or steed to accompany, either. Maybe it was only the future me all along. And now to some degree the lector, as in you.

It is good to establish what is not known, and what is known. You know? I don't know. No sé. (Any irony there?) No sé yo, no sabes tú, no sabe Ud., no sabe él, no sabe ella, no saben ellos, no saben ellas, no sabeís vosotros, no sabeís vosotras, no sabemos nosostros.

 

 Hemingway might say something similar with his "nada a nada." We know little or nothing, and perhaps, in the end, there is little or nothing. A bit of an Eastern notion, perhaps like zen Buddhism.

Not that I am him, or anyone else is, but because of him and all the collective conscious readers and cogniscenti across our planet, we are aware of his messages spread across time and page, so it ends up we know something.  At least a little of him, at least a little of Spanish and Spain.

So then I prognosticate a little on the future, and contemplate the times that I would live to see and observe.

And I have written, spoken on those years in years past, and hopefully will do so again.

Hopes fulfilled.

And I go babbling on and babbling on, as the brook does outside my windows above the sloping hill, in the late night on a Friday eve, no this 23rd of May, 2020; no longer the 22nd, a favorite number in dates.

And there is a reference to time once more, the ubiquitous and intoxicating elixir, or panacea, or placebo, or ether that makes us fall into sleep, or eventually death, eternal and resplendent, sublime.

The Biblical and church hymn line, of course, memorized and internalized into me, even before the full time mission when it came up again in my conscious and conscience while our U.S. bombs were leveling the Iraqi forces:

"Oh, Babylon, Oh Babylon! We bid thee farewell! We're going to the mountains of Ephraim to dwell!"

I happen to be of Ephraim. And, years later I had a harrowing experience late at night, while raining of all things, in the pitch darkness, driving through a desolate mountain of mountains, with none other than Ephraim as my destination. Irony, luck, chance, destiny, fate, coincidence, happenstance, weird connections or links...

Spain to Indiana to Utah to Chile to Indiana to Utah. All quite linked, quite circular, a cycle, a loop. Some say time of the clocks and planets and stars do the same: travel in loops, circuits. Like electricity, like electrons circling nuclei in their quadrillions of universes...

Babylon. 

I bid thee farewell. --^ ! [Arrow pointing at exclamation mark to the right]

Forced to write at the frustratious [sic] point of boredom.

Babylon represents the world, and sin, and carnality, and ruin, and distance and death from God.

Babylon is the evil empire, the lustful goal, the carnal conquest, the cheap thrill or pleasure.

Babylon must be fled, and bid adieu. Repent and live, give up sin and the world for the higher kingdoms, the higher glory.

Farewell old me. Look to Jesus and live. Live again, reborn and newly minted. Newly cast, as God would have you. 

Was I bored? Yes and no... In many ways I have had times in my life, up till when I was 18, my youth, where I was bored. But there were so many other things that interested me. My top 10? Sports (I have my top ten of those), world affairs, politics, religion, fiction, science fiction, history, science, movies, television, foreign cultures and languages... That about covers most of it.

There are times and places when I am or I have have felt bored, or more likely I feel or I have felt I am in positions of drudgery or pain that are not places where I wish to be. Some physical and some mental tasks have taken on onerous qualities that have worse than bored me, but have taken on a sense of drudgery and distaste for reasons that, which come from my own brain and personality, my own flesh and attributes of strengths and weaknesses. 

So yes, I am like so many others, this we know. But each of us possesses a voice that is unique, and that voice is the one that we only own, and we ourselves must seek after, search out, eek out, carve out, (notice how many of these action verbs use the preposition "out") we have to bring out, remove, extract, unearth, disinter, bring to light, yes, sacar a luz, bring to light,  illuminate what is known and what is known.

Knowledge, wisdom, feelings, plans, ideas. Life and death and the cosmos.

Thank you James Michener.

 All those years I knew I should have been writing. All those hours I knew I should have been studying. I wasn't bored, nosiree.

I was collecting! Information in my own lackadaisical way. My own way.

 All these years I know I should be writing. And I am writing, right now, time now, in the present. 

Today. This week, this month, this year, this decade, this century, this millennium. This eon.

Bored?  Yes, I think that the grades really did become a boredom, or a hassle. I don't mind learning, just not all the time with a letter grade or Grade Point Average affixed.

We should learn for the sake of learning and also to get things done, to in the end understand what and why and how we are. Never stop searching, never stop writing, never stop living and expanding.

Collect in every possible way whatever you can, I can, we can.

We can.

Understand.

 

The Caribbean Saved Me

The Caribbean Saved Me

Some people, including me, might think that I was spoiled by going on Caribbean cruises every winter break of my three middle school years. However, in my own defense, I must say that it was not all fun and games, it was not not all rosy and cheery, and despite all the great times, memories, even luxuries shared, there was some heavy doses of the not-so-good times.

But overall it was great, and I loved it, I learned a lot, and perhaps I can say now, some almost 30 years later, the Caribbean Islands, the peoples and the cultures and the mere knowledge of their existence and music and cultural diversity helped save me.

It has soothed me, comforted me to know there are such places outside my own. That the languages and the sounds and the vibes of these friendly people are real, that they exist. Comforting.

Do you know what I mean?

Do you hear the reggae and just feel that you might be okay, that, like the character of Will Smith in I am Legend, Bob Marley can cure the ills of your soul through his inspirational music?

Last summer during some really long hours and days of duties in Louisiana, the song "Redemption  Song", which I bothered to write down on my own little note and access it from my pocket when I had a spare moment...

There are definitely times in life when we get down, we are sad and in a funk, or frustrated and even angry with our lot, perhaps we are struggling with work and economic issues, emotional or relationship struggles and trials, mean bosses or tiresome cohorts, poor health or near tragedies and issues that are burdensome, even the feeling of being trapped or caged in a rut, entrenched or overwhelmed by events and circumstances. Not that we can really know the life of bondage or slavery, but there is a healing medicine in the words and the medicinal elixirs of the rhythms and music, the poetry and overarching message of liberation, freedom, peace, and new hope in tranquility and soothing relief.

Here are the words:

Old pirates, yes, they rob I,
Sold I to the merchant ships
Minutes after they took I
From the bottomless pit

But my 'and was made strong
By the 'and of the Almighty
We forward in this generation
Triumphantly

Won't you help to sing
These songs of freedom?
'Cause all I ever have
Redemption songs
Redemption songs

Emancipate yourself from mental slavery
None but our self can free our minds
Have no fear for atomic energy
'Cause none of them can stop the time
How long shall they kill our prophets
While we stand aside and look?
Some say it's just a part of it
We've got to fulfill de book

Won't you help to sing
These songs of freedom?
'Cause all I ever have
Redemption songs
Redemption songs
Redemption songs

Emancipate yourself from mental slavery
None but our self can free our mind
Have no fear for atomic energy
'Cause none of them can stop the time
How long shall dey kill our prophets
While we stand aside and look?
Some say it's just a part of it
We've got to fulfill de book

Won't you help to sing
These songs of freedom?
'Cause all I ever had
Redemption songs
All I ever had
Redemption songs
These songs of freedom
Songs of freedom

For non-commercial use only.

Data from: LyricFind

Thank you Sir Marley and the millions of generous, kind, and warm souls of the Caribbean.

You have been a collective balm to my tired soul, many times. Keep on keeping on!

Sports or No Sports

Sports or No Sports

There has not been many live sports since the beginning of mid-March (2020), and that has meant less time spent following those events, and spending time on other things.

Of course there has been a lot of other things that have not been going on other than sporting events, but for guys and gals like me, this has been different. I have watched most of the "Last Dance" series, like most the rest of the country. I have watched some old games on NBA TV, the Big Ten Network, MLB Network, and a few others, and I have enjoyed those.

I have enough other interests that I still find plenty of subjects to occupy my time. I have been reading some books that I have meant to read for a long time from my own collections instead of the library as I usually do, and of course there are many online articles, some sports-related, but many about geo-politics, the news, military issues, and religion.

Some sports are going now, including Taiwan baseball, (or is it South Korea?), UFC (mixed martial arts), and now German football leagues.

The NBA and Major League Baseball are gaining momentum towards continuing or starting up their seasons, which will be a sign of life for everyone.

Sports is indicative of life, and at the local little league level it has been wiped out. Our money will mostly come back to us. The boys missed out this spring.

Others have bigger issues and problems, like sick and dying relatives, little or no food, little or no Internet, little or no rent or money for regular necessities.

Sports is much bigger than me, but most importantly people competing and doing their leagues means that life is normal and the economy is strong, and we are all doing our thing.

Time Talks page 21-- June 1989

Time Talks page 21-- June 1989

The following text was written in my journal on June 7, 1989. It was printed in mostly all caps, in a light black ink. I had been in Spain about a week and it was a good chance for me to reflect on my life up to that point, about a month prior to submitting my papers to my church to serve a two year mission. There is an arrow or so drawn on this page, with notes attached to it. I will do my best to accommodate that on the blog page below. Blue is me interjecting almost 31 years later, hence the title, "Time Talks".

June 7, 1989

All those hours of these last few years I didn't do my homework in so many subjects. I must force myself to work now. It's not work, just patience trying. Ay, caramba.

I would like to think I have learned quite a bit in my lifetime, and that my values are on the up and up, overall. 

An NBA game, Bulls-Pistons game 7! [An arrow line points going down a third of the page on the right hand side to the "Game 7" and says at the top of the page, near the date and "noontime": False. #3. ] Oh wow. A video, nonetheless.

I must read what I know to be true.

Kindness is the best.

Throughout my life people tell me I think profoundly. Maybe so, maybe so.

But what next? Actions, fool, actions.

A drop in the bucket is better than nothing at all.

Babbling is easier than a disciplined composition.

I don't want a job that doesn't [sic] stimulate my brain. I want to help people lessen their troubles.

And ... ugh... write -__-__--__--__ [my attempt at a squiggle line, sort of wavy]

It's better to write something than nothing at all. Right?

Of course

That is the way it went that day, introspective and speculating on the future. (see Time Talks page 20--https://clinchitsoonerorlater.blogspot.com/2020/05/time-talks-page-20.html). The page that preceded this one.

 All those hours of these last few years I didn't do my homework in so many subjects. I must force myself to work now. It's not work, just patience trying. Ay, caramba.

I struggled to push myself through high school; the classes (not all) seemed to become more onerous year after year. I began my mathematical declines in Geometry as a sophomore. The teacher, Mrs. Kinzer, was not very inspiring; I myself became increasingly uninspired, because of her and a number of other factors occurring with me...
What were those factors? Perhaps impossible to list fully, and maybe this is just some lazy excuse of excuses that some people do not believe in or simply do not want to hear... Although some believe by analyzing breakdowns and motivations, or the lack thereof, there can still be valid use or knowledge provided for the "patient".

1. Math became a problem when asking questions in class, by the end of my high school sojourn (my last two years), for different reasons, in both my junior and senior math classes. Was this how life worked? To weed out those with less aptitude and let them struggle to get by in class, in sciences that the U.S. purported interest in helping its populace succeed in, these, the hard sciences, of which they (we) continue to fall behind the rest of the world? This was mostly my junior year, and my senior year the powers that were graciously allowed me to catch up with my retarded math studies, but by then I was jaded, bruised, distracted, and probably worst, I had let some unhealthy amount of self-loathing or low esteem creep into my life about equations and formulas. Things mathematical that would apply to so many other hard sciences, including one in particular that I enjoy more than many, economics (I did a Masters years later including Econ classes at the graduate level, at a very reputable university). As much as I cared on some levels to understand and  do well in those four years of math and get it, crunch the numbers and internalize the formulas and processes, as my father claimed to love it, the reins of my control had slipped... Mere weeks after surviving high school and receiving the battered diploma without mastering the requisite numbers and mental gymnastics of that matriculation, I was reflecting on all of it, the finality, the totality, the potentiality... Reflecting on the near and far, the past and present and the future. All the way to 2020. And beyond. 
     Coming up short in math. What did it mean? Did it matter? Was there a perfectionist part of me that could be satisfied? Many of my math grades and efforts were not satisfactory...

BREAK: Speaking of not satisfactory: Economics, the dismal science, the science of scarcity, and not enough resources. What about hunger? What about poverty where millions upon millions cannot afford vaccines or clean water or minimal amounts of nutrition and medicine?  "Education". Was life only elite snobbery? Or should access to basic human rights be available to all? Economics allows us humans to have a metric on how to begin to solve these issues. We are now safely into the 21st century. We still have a lot of work to do, and safe to say Marxism and its thousands of ugly variations are not the answer. We can do better, and general or deep understandings of Adam Smith and all the econometrics would be a good way to potentially solve things. The world has a myriad of problems, greater than Algebra II or trigonometry, and we need to piece together the solutions, so we all live with a modicum of human decency. BREAK-BACK
     
     I plowed through my freshman  year with very helpful and congenial  Mr. Blair, who always carefully and diligently answered my questions, sometimes to the groans and voiced consternation of some of my classmates; usually a few spoiled sophomores who were already destined  as losers, in my somewhat nuanced opinion, (Jeff Davis' dad owned some local grocery stories; I considered him, by my continued impression, a class "A" dork for his apathy, and his callous disregard for learning. I was not a lazy loser like him. But next year in geometry I felt that I was the loser, as the younger class (of 1990) were quicker and brighter than me, and of course that teacher mentioned. Once I went to her desk for a question and she reeked of alcohol. That was not her biggest problem, however. She was not the right fit for me, like Mr. Blair of the previous year. Speaking of wrong fits, Mr Girdley my junior year was a train wreck that played out in slow motion. I tried asking him questions to my multiple times of confusion, like graphing equations and the basics of Algebra II, but I became lost and embittered in the hours of class silence that we sat in after I would ask him a question and he would grumpily reply, "It's in the book." And not re-explain the lessons, of which is my pattern of learning concepts of mathematical or conceptual import. That was the beginning of the end for me in mathematics. I had friends like Jake and Pat, who seemed to be fine with the Algebras, and usually a year ahead of me anyway. Jason and Pete were whizzes in math, and Paul too, among others, especially the rising newer freshmen, the class of '91 beyond the ones just one year beyond me. 

The math issues lead to more issues my junior year in physics, but it was not only my retardation of the mathematical variety, but it was my apathy and lack of will to do the work, to really dedicate myself to the problems posed. It was Mr. Blair from two years before when I was freshman for physics as a junior; I am sure he was disappointed with one of his start students from two years prior. I was. Senior year brought chemistry, to my chagrin one of the results of consulting a high school counselor, which I had managed to do pretty successfully for over three years from my 8th grade year till then. Things had fallen apart to some degree, the poem of Yeats and the novel by Achebe would resonate through me for that time and perhaps the rest of my life, the years surrounding me and maybe even into the future.

2. I was determined to learn Spanish in my four straight years taking it but many times I was not motivated enough to even do the homework assignments given by Mrs. Morrow I had third and second year. What was my excuse? Mostly laziness, lack of motivation, not giving proper attention to the details of something that I cared about generally, intellectually, and that I demonstrated that in class I was on who did care, unlike fellow classmate and friend Ross Dinnsen, and others that were not dumb, but not motivated by this second language.

3. Distractions of sports, television, movies, some books, some newspapers and magazines, some, but not all, to do with sports, and the dread of the dread of the accumulation of more and more busywork, some of which I did not have a natural inclination for enough to compensate for my sometimes marginal interest, thus giving up on some assignments and tests and general and specific duties and cares...

Life and its complexities. What would happen to you, young world traipser of 1989?  Vagabundo ser, pero nunca tanto. I have wandered here and there, but mostly I go where I am directed and enticed, following the ways of what things that I know or believe in.

I would like to think I have learned quite a bit in my lifetime, and that my values are on the up and up, overall. 

An NBA game, Bulls-Pistons game 7! [An arrow line points going down a third of the page on the right hand side to the "Game 7" and says at the top of the page, near the date and "noontime": False. #3. ] Oh wow. A video, nonetheless.

    Always concerned with what is right, and what is wrong: that is me. 1989, 2020. 20_ _? I would like to live to 2076 and have that be true. Don't sell out or become corrupt, or become part of the problem[s]. That has stayed the same as my guide, my conscience, my raison d'etre. I believe so. Always hoping that what I am believing and putting my efforts behind what is worth doing, that which is right minded and right, moral and just, or at least headed toward justice and virtue.

The NBA? That might be another book or two of mine. A couple of notes about the National Basketball Association these many seasons later after the Magic Johnson '80s: I found out it, the highest form of competitive basketball broadcast from the United States, was very popular in Spain in 1989, as my host family and seemingly millions of other Spaniards would watch at least the NBA Finals in June, at least on tape delay. And, I had been paying close attention to the NBA since 1986. I watched it a little when my dad did prior to that, in the earlier 1980s. Again, see Magic Johnson

I must read what I know to be true.

Kindness is the best.

Throughout my life people tell me I think profoundly. Maybe so, maybe so.

But what next? Actions, fool, actions.

A drop in the bucket is better than nothing at all.

Babbling is easier than a disciplined composition.

      I read up on Harold Bloom this past fall and winter 2019-20, checking out five of his books available in the local library (after hearing of his death, after a pretty long, good life); above all else in his endless soliloquies of good and great and epic and ...what are his words, Bloom's descriptors? I have let them pass me recently in this pandemic, but I wrote them in more recent posts -not stoic, no, not empathic... Anyway, among all of Bloom's highest and wildest praise, his love of the classic poetry and Shakespeare, William  the Bard, was first and foremost. He had a commanding knowledge of so much poetry and art, and the reasons for his admiration. If I may be so bold or foolish to compare myself to one of his characters, Hamlet, (my favorite version portrayed by Mel Gibson), then the above passage of my page 21 journal was me thinking about my identity and purpose. Alas, Yorrick! (Yoric?) I knew him well.

I had been struggling between fiction and non-fiction and their values for at least four years, since age 14 or so. To read fiction or non-fiction, that was my question. And this debate, internal polemic as it were, would continue... How do you read only what you know to be true, when the fiction that you see is so entertaining, but ALSO contains truth? Besides, much of my life were based on holy scriptures that many people considered fantasy or worse...

Perhaps at age 49 I am closer to the answer. And that answer is: yes. 

As for babbling: there are reasons for free flowing brooks, but there are also huge purposes in manufactured and controlled waterways like canals and dammed rivers and their subsequent lakes.

Scott Russell Sanders, of my native Bloomington: thanks for being that naturalist to help me see the earth and its tributaries. Including the great state of Indiana, bordered by rivers like the mighty Ohio. Thanks to my step-mother Janice for pointing him out at her church Christmas service.

I don't want a job that dosn't [sic] stimulate my brain. I want to help people lessen their troubles.

And ... ugh... write -__-__--__--__ [my attempt at a squiggle line, sort of wavy]

Making money and the purposes of living, breathing, working, trying... The life long quest, still at play in the times of the pandemic. 31 years separated but much of the same flesh, blood, heart, and soul. The brain is a mighty computer, indeed. We are so full of potential power, as Henry Adams wrote in 1906, the Law of Acceleration. An amazingly insightful essay written well over 100 years ago.

I have wanted to write, as previously stated. Here I am. Still. Escribiendo. Ana iktib. Na'am.

And yes, can we do something about needless, avoidable, suffering. People first, then animals. Then the planet. And yet we are all connected.

It's better to write something than nothing at all. Right?

Of course

Again, yes. I agree with my former self and I think also, with the future self. Me today, me tomorrow and into the future. Write, write, write.

Eternal recurrence?

Nietsche, eat your heart out. 

 

Lawns versus Trees: Gardens, Too

Lawns versus Trees: Gardens, Too

     I have been working at home most of the last two months; even large chunks of the weekends! Some of my children might think I am a lazy bum, perhaps others too, think of me in that light, but I have been making some good money (not to brag, just saying... I am blessed, and lucky). Even though we have had some pretty cool weather after a relatively warm winter and March, there has been plenty of grass growing around my vicinity; I can tell the lawns are fecund from day to day and week to week because I hear people mowing the lawns and grass, far and wide in proximity to my residence. In the morning, in the afternoon, even pretty far into some evenings, I hear the motors of lawn cutters, some pushing, some riding, all whining high, low, near and far.

    Early this morning the city (even though, according to a long time nearby resident we are only technically a post office) had their guy out back cutting the grassy thoroughfare on his ride machine. It moves fast and he knows where avoid stumps and hazards. It was about seven in the am, before anyone else in my household was awake, and probably most of the rest of the neighborhood. He is working, getting paid, not risking his health too much, and "beautifying" our community, on tracks of land with grass where not many community members even come by. But these lawn movers provide their community labor and service, and keep moving.
   
    Then there is the local talent, paid and unpaid. Formal and informal sectors of the economy. Growing up I mowed and earned my share cutting grass, collecting and raking some of it, heaving and chucking the sticks and twigs, saving a lot of those earnings and spending other parts. I walked among many residences when delivering newspapers, most of them with lawns and grasses, but there were the ivy growers, the garden folks, the flower planters, the plant enthusiasts. And then there were my favorite: there were one or two homes that did not have a "yard", they only had trees and humus.

   How natural! No muss, no fuss! And what, at the end of the day, was best for the planet? for the time investment of labor, for consumption of fossil fuels, the burning up of the engines and the whine and buzz of the push mowers, the smells of the gas and the oil and soot? One guy on my dead end street, to his credit, would push the hand propelled mower with the blades that only ran by human muscle. And so much quieter!

Across all our states of the fifty nifty there are different land owners who deal with their properties in varying fashions. Many lawns and grass, and all the other options. Some use those cuttings as feed for their animals, that makes sense to me. But what of all the cut grass? What is it used for?

I understand that it is great to have open lawns to run with animals or as a jogger, throw and pass frisbees and footballs and baseballs, and tackle and scramble in the blades of grass on warm sunny days and cool brisk evenings... There are a lot of places for that, and we have common maintained parks. Like those who live in the city. Even the people who live in the rural country have their parks and playing fields to romp in. But many of them have forests and fields of crops, not necessarily lawns to mow...

I don't know. What is better to have more of?

Is it all up to the individual? Or does society have more of a claim and stake in how to populate their grounds and territories with foliage and plant life, the fauna of life and our healthy environment?

Other countries have their issues with budgets, economies, droughts, climates, lifestyles, and decisions to make about what to put in their earth. Or on it.

Here? I can go for more woods. Even in our front and back yards. Or, maybe at least our side yards?

Bottom line: I like the trees more than grass. But we are blessed to have both, don't get me wrong.

Noise pollution? Trees are better. Even when the winds pick up... And there is danger...

Trees. All kinds. Plant 'em.