Science fiction, fantasy, mystery and what-not
Well, hello. Here we are. At the end, the beginning, a break, a start, a finale.
This is New Year’s Eve day. Tonight we’ll count down to a new year.
I mean, most of the western world will count down. Others use different calendars and count down at another time of the year. And we’re only counting down to the end of the Julian calendar year, and not, say, the fiscal year, although some use the calendar year and the fiscal year as the same year. It’s not likely to be your natal year, though. So you won’t be celebrating that new year, nor a wedding anniversary, which is another new beginning that’s often celebrated.
But here we are, celebrating this day that doesn’t quite align with the seasons,businesses, or our lives, but here we are, the masters of our domain.
For this day, I selected a soft, questioning song. ‘The Freshman’ by the Verve Pipe from 1996. It encapsulates a lot of thinking about human nature IMO. Perhaps I’m generalizing by my circle of relationships but this is what I’ll testify that I saw. We began by thinking we knew so much. Then later, we question, what did we really know?
How did we miss the signs?
How could we end up so wrong?
We end up marveling about how we came to be the relationship that we are or were, conducting forensics on our behavior and running audit trails on what was said and who said it. We look for clarity in the murk about what was meant by tone and meaning in the context of gestures that happened before and after.
Some are content to never question. “It is what it is,” they answer with tautological finality. “Ours is not to question why; ours is but to do and die.”
“That’s just the way it goes.”
Perhaps they question but never admit that they question, or limit the circle of who knows about their questioning. Some consider that questioning is a sign of weakness.
They don’t want to be seen as weak.
I’ve always been the questioning sort. I guess that makes me weak. I’m envious of those who find a trajectory of ignorance and remain true to its path, never veering or questioning but riding that comet with the certainty that they have the golden truth, convinced that nothing else other than what they believe can be true or correct.
But I remain a freshman.
Went with the ‘I am One’ with everything meditation today.
Sometimes I feel rattled and unsettled, searching for something in myself. Personal matters gnaw me. The Orlando murders probably escalated my need. I’ve already been feeling disturbed and frustrated with the pending Trump nomination. From what I see of his supporters, (and recognizing that I’m minimizing and stereotyping them, which doesn’t help anyone), they’re shallow, hateful people, without solutions, but ready to attack anyone different from them. They see the world in black and white, and want to protect “what’s theirs”. Immature and bullying, a master of playground name-calling, Trump feeds their anger and fires up crazy dreams that he can be POTUS and change their shit. But their festering shit is inside them. No POTUS can change that.
My questioning of them makes me question myself. Some say, “Better Trump than Hillary, who is a lying capitalist thief,” and I think, What? Where do they get their information? She isn’t perfect, but I trust my information (probably as they trust their information, we’re into such a destructive, widening cycle), even if I keep challenging my information. Full disclosure, I’m a Bernie Man. I support Black Lives Matter and the Occupy movement. I support strong pubic education, a single payer universal health care system, feminism and the ERA. I support equal rights for everyone, period, and I want automatic weapons banned from civilian ownership in America. I despise the wealthy 1% and decry the trend toward consumerism, which drives misguided values into arguing things like, “Let’s not building affordable housing because it will pull down property values.” I can’t stand animal abuse. Torture sickens me, and it doesn’t worry. People who do things because they’re fearful worry me. So do people who quickly abandon their principles and critical thinking.
The ‘I am One’ helps calm, relax and restore me, returning me to my center of balance. I am One, I think, and then count the manner and items with which I’m one. I’m one with my future, present and past self, I am one with my physical, mental and emotional self. I am one.
Then I reach out to my surroundings, imagining myself one with my house — the walls, paint, wires, pipes, roof, foundation — and all its materials, and the furnishings. I extend myself out in ever growing circles, imagining myself as one with the surrounding yard, plants and grass, the trees, expanding to my town and its people, animals, and construction, reaching for the rivers and lakes, and the coastal waters, imagining myself as one with the sun and the seas, the moon and the star, eternity and infinity, and all the energies they encompass.
Many probably accuse me of being full of New Age woo-woo fuzzy gooeyness. And I laugh, and I meditate. (They stopped reading long ago, anyway.) Then, feeling restored and closer to being centered and balanced again, I go on. I don’t have answers, but I have a better sense of who I am.
Michael Seidel, writer 