Anguish is the apprehension of nothingness.
Vertigo is the anguish not of falling over a cliff
but the thought of throwing oneself over.
What should I do?
Throw me off a bridge or jump out a window?
Decisions. Decisions.
Perhaps I’ll fly a kite instead.
I recently attended a Stop Elon Musk Rally at the IBEW Local Union Hall here in Louisville, Kentucky.
There were many speakers there including Kentucky Congressman Morgan Mc Garvey who spoke out against Musk.
The crowd was quite energized and gave me hope that we might prevail against the tyrants who would dismantle our government and destroy our democracy.
The main takeaways were the three pillars of dissent: Litigate, Legislate, and Agitate.
It is said that when Fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in a flag and carrying a bible.
All photos by the author.
William James was giving a lecture about the nature of life and the universe. Afterward, an old woman came up to him and said, Professor James, you have it all wrong.”
“How so, madam?”
“Things aren’t at all like you said.” The world is on the back of turtles.”
“Hmm,” mused the professor. “That may be so, but where does that turtle stand?”
“On the back of another turtle.”
“But, madam, where does that turtle stand?”
The old woman replied triumphantly, “It’s no use, professor, it’s turtles all the way down!”
Timequake is a novel about free will. Vonnegut freely intersperses throughout the novel his own stream of consciousness. Oh, and there is also his alter ego, Kilgore Trout, who exclaims, “Oh Lordy, I am much too old experienced to start playing Russian Roulette with free will again.”
The premise of Timequake is that a Timequake, a sudden glitch in the time-space continuum, made everybody and everything do exactly what they’d done during the past decade a second time. It was déjà vu all over again for 10 years. The timeframe Vonnegut chose was February 13, 2001 – February 17, 1991. The Timequake would zapp everyone back in an instant to 1991. They had to “live” their way forward to 2001. Or you might say, back to the future again. Only when people got back to 2001 did they stop being robots of their past. Kilgore Trout would say, “Only when free will kicked in could they stop running an obstacle course of their own construction.” Free will. That is what the novel is about. Do we have it or not? That is the question. You would think that because the author mentions “when free will kicks back in” some 20-odd times he was arguing for free will. But no! Not so fast! I’m not so sure.
Other pithy comments by Kilgore Trout would include, “If brains were dynamite, there wouldn’t be enough to blow your hat off!” and “Ting-a-ling, you son of a bitch!” which is the punch line to a variation on a joke having to do with Chinese doorbells.
So, it goes.
Vonnegut goes on to say, in his own peculiar voice, that writers of his generation had reason to be optimistic because of things like the Magna Carter, the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, The Emancipation Proclamation, and Article XIX of the Constitution giving women the right to vote. He advocated for two more amendments that he would like to add: Article XXIII: Every newborn shall be sincerely welcomed and cared for until maturity. And Article XXIX: Every adult who needs it shall be given meaningful work to do at a living wage.
Another pithy saying he was fond of throwing around was, “I never asked to be born in the first place!”
Photo by the author.
In his Critique of Dialectical Reason, (1960) Jean-Paul Sartre asks the following questions: 1) Why is violence so universal a feature of human experience, especially in politics? And 2) What becomes of man’s freedom in a world where human beings are constantly threatened by what he called the “practico-inert” (alienation)?
Example: A motorist is caught in a traffic jam created by the increased availability of cars whose original intention was to enable men to move about more freely. Human beings are increasingly and inevitably held prisoner by their own creations.
In economics, this would be an example of diminishing returns. A concept I learned in the 5th grade, which struck me like a thunderbolt and has stuck with me ever since.
Another concept I learned a couple of years later in the 7th grade, was the concept of manifest destiny. Again, this was like a thunderbolt out of the blue, but I think it might have set me on the wrong path for years to come. If you don’t think that schools were indoctrinating students in the 1950s you are sadly mistaken. But I digress….
In Sanskrit, the word Kamala means Lotus Flower. The Lotus is a symbol of purity and the simultaneity of cause and effect. Out of the mud rises the fragrant Lotus Flower. This is exactly the metaphor needed at this time in this place. Kamala, the Lotus Flower, rises from the slime and muck of Donald Trump and his ilk in triumph and exaltation. Go ahead, Kamala!
There are a lot of trees down blocking the way
I had to crawl through some of them
This tree snapped creating a perfect triangle
Otherwise it was a nice day in the forest. The temperatures were in the mid-70s and sunny.
Do you see this image? This is a picture of a student shot dead by the National Guard at Kent State University in Ohio. I remember when this happened, and I can tell you it was a dark day in America. What were the students doing? They were protesting the war in Vietnam. It was largely because of these protests that the war was brought to an end.
Fast forward to today. We have protests all over America, indeed the world, of the war Israel is waging against the Palestinians. It is not antisemitic to protest the slaughter of thousands of innocent women and children and other noncombatants. This slaughter is inhumane and tantamount to genocide, regardless of what the U.S. Government is saying. It should be protested and attention must be paid!
We see police action and the National Guard being called up in some states to quell these protests. This must stop! We do not want another Kent State. I understand that we have to support our allies, and Israel is an ally, but this needless slaughter of the innocents must stop! It goes against American values, and it goes against my values. I stand with the protesting students.
In a conversation with my granddaughter, Summer, who just turned 28, a magical number by any stretch, she was telling me about a book she found at the Fat Rabbit. Now, I am a sucker for used bookstores myself, and I was infected by her enthusiasm. The book she so proudly declaimed as she pulled it from her bookbag was Tennessee Williams’, The Glass Menagerie. Imagine my surprise and happiness. The Glass Menagerie I told her is one of my favorite plays of all time. Hers too, as it turns out. I said, “You know, I have always been in love with long distance.” “I know, Big Daddy,” she shyly answered, not realizing it was a line from the play. I was lucky enough to see a production of it on Broadway a few years ago in New York. It was a wonderful production. It hit me later that the Birthday card I had given her had an image of a unicorn on it. The central symbol of the play. One of Laura’s glass animals was a unicorn representing her fragility. That gave me a chill as another moment of synchronicity had arrived. It made me happy to see Summer so excited to embrace for the first time a piece of theatre that I loved and knew so well.
It is a privilege to grow old. Not everyone gets to do so. At 75, I know I am an outlier, and I hold every moment of my existence from this day forward to be a precious one and I try to live a life of gratitude.
I ran across an article on HuffPost, by Jillian Wilson, which gives the following advice on how to increase your longevity. I am happy to announce that I practice all these things regularly and they have made life immeasurably better.
5 Things You Can Do to Increase Your Longevity
Ghost Dog 