So much for looking strong in front of the ladies.
“Have a lavender towel, you’ve earned it.”
“Cut me, Mick.”
She laughed, serenely. I gurgled and gasped in the dark, struggling to extract oxygen from the superheated air.
I’ll do it again, I swear. But I haven’t been right since trying hot yoga.
It’s been a few days since that ordeal of lying face down in a puddle of sweat between sets, and I’m a big baby, and again, my brain is well…let’s hope that’s the first stages of transformation.
So, who knows what will show up today.
To Earthly Matters
A friend and fellow author dropped a reply to the eclipse post on Monday. “To earthly matters…what think ye about a front-row seat to an actual war?”
I’ve been thinking about this specific question all morning, and the general one for years.
On one hand, there’s been a lifelong yearning for relevance, first expressed as activism, later as ambition, now as thinking out loud. Sometimes it’s a healthy stretching towards light. Sometimes it’s not.
On other: what do I think? (And: what should be done?)
I read another author on Twitter today, saying the bad news is affecting her writing, but asking if it’s selfish to tune out.
That’s an interesting question.
Is the world always external, a noisy, violent social club in a bad neighborhood? Or is a collection of eight billion cells, each one of us adding or subtracting to the overall health? (Or a bit of both? Or maybe something entirely different? ((likely))
Perhaps it’s my latent desire to opine, to put myself forward, to matter, that draws me toward the cellular view.
But after working the COVID lockdowns, swaths of history lost their “but how could people do this?” I know how they could become monsters, because I saw how I could–easily.
I also saw how people laced up their boots and answered the call to tyranny with lightning speed and the smallest of temptations. And they didn’t ask any questions.
I’m not talking about policy, rife with corruption as that is (probably the one point that people might agree on).
The way the nurses shouted at the old folks to get back in their rooms, and enjoyed it. The way that I could hold an old man down for his COVID test and feel the chuck taylors start to transform to other sorts of footwear on my feet…well, that’s warning enough for me.
(But these stories make for a terrible parlor trick–apologies to the book club–and even worse conversation for sweet talking the ladies. Bad puns don’t help.)
Since I don’t know when to quit:
Our love is like communism. On paper, it was perfect.
Anyway, back to war.
One cell–or person–is so small. That’s the thing that gets me down. Yet, time and again, actions of small numbers of people make an outsized splash. The bad examples are easier to see. The sloppy reporting on the “hospital” debacle in Gaza is a class A exhibit A.
People are dead because of it. The world is worse because of it. And those responsible have cushy office jobs and are…writers like me.
(Well, I don’t have a cushy office job, but I like mine better, thanks.)
So they’ll subtly change their headlines and write on while things burn. And you’ll keep reading them. (Will you?)
So…is one cell as small as I think?
I used to think any conflict, war or interpersonal, bad.
That’s different now, although the details are murky.
Now the question becomes more nuanced: what’s the best way to build peace? Those are different things, and are also way above my pay grade to opine on a global scale.
Noticing
I’ve been driving around, noticing.
Noticing how the music I like is so whiny, self-absorbed, useless. I don’t think the Black Keys struck the match. Billy Joel makes a good case for the duration of the fire and it’s responsibility. But…
Noticing how easily I hold grudges and grind axes.
Noticing how easy it is to pollute the world in the name of wit or righteousness.
Noticing little sparks of light, patterns, wisdom, and a way forward.
Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us (not a good prognosis for my day in court unless I change my ways)
and
deliver us from evil.
Concluding
Maybe this whole cellular deal is wrong, and stupid, sandcastles on the beach before the tsunami. But since I’m not a general or a president, it’s the game right before me. It gives me hope, as I wrestle with my darkness, that if I overcome it, it’ll make the world better, not worse. It gives me something to do. That’s the thing that continually stuns me about the folks in Cities on a Hill. Locked away in the quarantine, they became living ghosts. Yet their deeds reverberate to this day, far bigger than one person.
What do you think?
-Josh
Great post as always. Sorry I don’t comment more or click on the hearts… you are such a great writer, just want you to know that! Thank you for your words, keep it up.