Maybe a plumber sees broken pipes everywhere.
“Oh, Vern, you’re thinking like that because it’s your job.”
But the world is leaky.
A friend who’d kicked doors in Afghanistan told me he could never sit where I do, with my back to the window like that. I never noticed the Taliban sniper on the gas station roof until he pointed.
I couldn’t say Life wasn’t dangerous.
The fog landed on the mountain yesterday, obscuring everything like the absurdity of the times. “Is it raining?” Not enough to act against, to take cover, to break out the slicker. That’s how little lies turn into something to crash a plane into.
(If you want to rob a bank, do it by pennies.)
Something strange is happening at the talks with the “outsiders”, the older folks and younger people. We’re all sitting up and paying attention, and trying to think. (Well, sometimes one or two people fall asleep, but still…)
We talk about AI and aliens and what it means to be a human.
We all seem to be riveted to a task at hand, a call to see in the dark, the need to think. Maybe, like the plumber and the infantryman, it’s easy to see when it’s a job, but does that mean it’s not real?
I had a video call the other night with a young friend who’s in his first semester at college.
A few of his lady friends leaned in to wave at the screen.
“Dude…am…am…am I interrupting? It’s Saturday night, don’t wanna barge in.”
He laughed. “No, I called you. Check out this dialogue I wrote between Socrates, Aristotle, and Descartes.”
One of the girls wandered back, joining the conversation about philosophy, dying, God, grief, self-knowledge...
“Hey, I’ve gotta ask: what do you guys think about intelligence?” Natalie asked.
We talked for two hours like starving people stumbling into a kitchen at 3 am, and finding pizza in the fridge.
Is Truth, or even the act of aiming at the Truth, the needed light to dispel the gathering dusk? Maybe it’s not the only thing, but then again, sometimes questions like this are irrelevant when a particular task is clear.
I’m passing out matches.
Here’s a poem.
Gatherings
Oh…hello.
What are you doing in the kitchen at this hour, too?
Yes, I know.
They said there was no food.
But what if they’re wrong?
It seems worth a check in the fridge again.
Did I ever tell you how
When I was a young man
I tried to ignite
Myself
and others
To one flame
But that never works
Because the wind always talks it down or away
Especially now
When they’re so busy building paper prisons
And flooding reality with a hundred thousand bits of fog
A black sky watches me
As I duck among the invisible raindrops
Whispering
To anyone who might care to hear
That they’ve got a book of matches hidden somewhere
In a back drawer or back pocket or between a musty old Bible and the photo album of how they used to be.
Somewhere
Findable
To set the Mind
Alight
The smallest grain of sulfur
Smells like salvation
In this blind dungeon
A flare
Reflected in a thousand sleeping eyes
Snapped open
Suddenly.
-Josh
Thanks!