The End of Days
Sunday's weather: Seasonably cool and cloudy, but not in keeping with the last several days of sun and warmth. No rain in sight, making next week dry. The maple out front is about 1/2 turned; all leaves edged in orange, yellow and red, with a few leaves keep crimson in the center.
Sunday's drink: water, as per keeping with the new regimen from personal trainer Will.
Sunday's link: To a new documentary made by my friends Simone and Rich. Labored over, more like, for several years of their lives. An enviable accomplishment - everyone take a peek.
Our friend - social friend - JJG threw a masquerade party last night. He's got a wicked cute house with a double-sized backyard, and the evening was, as always at his place, well done. Everyone enjoyed themselves.
Well, except not. Again and again the economic train-wreck that is our nation at present kept coming up. Unbidden - people were just volunteering comments, policy prescriptions, blame, and worry. Double up on the worry.
Mind you, this is a fancy Arlington house, on a lovely evening, sitting among friends in the landscaped yard amid the firepots and ponds, wine glasses in hand, lights strung overhead, all of us decked out in the adult game of masks. A decidedly privileged experience in a world of so much want; but the kind of privilege people have come not even to notice. Like the sky: always there, but rarely seen.
Last night I saw a level of nervousness in people that I've not seen before. The phrase "the end of days" came up on several separate occasions. One friend (who I don't think I should even tag with initials for privacy) who I care for greatly (though have fallen somewhat apart from in years) admitted to losing 20 pounds in two months - all because of worry of how bad things will - not may - get. This has been an unusually clear-eyed person; to hear such fright knocked me for a blow.
C has taken to using the subtitle of this blog - "...the capital of a crumbling empire" in conversations and I'm quite fine with that. I chose it for a reason: I have for sometime believed ours is a largely economic empire that is unspooling and we - we have neither the will to acknowledge this and disengage from it nor the ability to control it to our favor anymore.
OK, lah-dee-dah. But what the hell do I know, right? So when friends with more experience and wisdom of the world begin agreeing with me, without qualifications...well now I'm starting to worry.
This comes at a bad time. Like there's a good one. Nationwide people are just tweaked out by the election. Washington has a ginormous case of the jitters because whatever happens, this town will be a swirl of job-changing over the next year. And me? Well, 1 1/2 years in therapy have put me on a path of openness to change and emotion...neither of which can be controlled. Opening up to some change is often an invitation for change in other areas you didn't ask for it. Opening up to emotion means that they will arise as their own force - whether you want them to or not. After several years asleep I am a jangle of movement. I just can't predict where.
So you can see: not really loving the "end of days" meme. But it's coming up again and again.
Where are we at, and where are we headed?
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The Book Shelf
- Now on the nightstand: "Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underworld" by Anthony Bourdain
- Always at hand: "Lidia's Family Table" by Lidia Matticcio Bastianich
- Back on the shelf: "A Stolen Season" by Steve Hamilton
- Back on the shelf: "All the President's Men" by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein
- Back on the shelf: "World War Z" by Max Brooks
3 comments:
Doug, you say 'the end of days' as if it is a bad thing.
I'd prefer to think that we are at the end of: spending capital (political or otherwise) like a drunken sailor; abusing each other in a futile attempt to make ourselves more important, wealthy, or noteworthy.
I'm sorry to see the truly poor hurt by the hangover from 20 or 30 years of rampant consumerism. It certainly isn't going to be fun.
Where are we headed? I don't believe the destination is certain, as it's not a journey to a place, but more of a journey towards a way of being. We should place a greater importance on becoming who we will become and not on all the shit that gets in the way.
Hola,
"Where are we at,"
The intersections of Nausea and Dizziness? Fear and Loathing? Train and Wreck? Green and Span? Nazism and Neo-liberalism (cough)? Chickens and Roost?
Doncha hate it when karma-phala comes to pay a call?
"...and where are we headed?"
This is the part that has me up nights, and has since I was a wee nipper. Like a real Halloween chiller.
Look, the easy oil is half gone (according to the IEA as told in the FT). There are 6 billion plus H. sapiens on the planet, breathin' up the oxygen, makin' the place smaller for every other living thing. And despite the Latin binomial, most of these poor folk don't think.
For almost 30 years, we have postponed acting for the good of the species and the planet in a quest for ever more inventive ways to avert the Existential Fear. Or to bring it closer. In short, like any great power, we blew it.
So, as the song says, "...where do we go from here"? I long ago gave up looking for that blue-jean baby-queen; my summers are long past. The stars are the future, but we'd need to - ahem - remove about half the world population to have the resources to begin - begin - getting there.
You know me. I've always looked at the dark side of life, and have never been surprised at the evil - the strictly secular horror and degradation - that the human animal is capable of, especially when fighting for the Spiritual Realm.
All I know is: whatever happens, it will be, in keeping with my Hobbesian view, "...poor, nasty, brutish, and..."
Long. So very, very long.
-sej
Doug,
After being unexpectedly and crudely dumped by a man I thought I could trust, my mind went awhirl for a while. Such a shock it was to my system that I was thrown by force of emotion, confusion, and general upset to take a major look at my engagement with this life and if this has been alignment with who I know myself to be.
I stopped drinking, did a 180 on housekeeping, lost 15#, burned energy off on major home improvement projects, etc. Lots of good came out of getting dumped; it turned out to be just what the universe needed to do in order to get my attention. I'm way better off for it (though still working on letting go of angry pissed off energy) in some very significant ways. I'm grateful.
Now the perhaps not true part that I've been fond of repeating: there is no character in Chineese language that is alalogous to "crisis", the character to denote this type of crux is a combination of "urgent" and "opportunity". Apply concept to personal life, to economic climate, etc.
Lisa
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