I don't dream of women every night. I don't remember dreaming of one last night. But I did wake up at three filled with horror and the most dire thoughts about my life, and there was nothing I could do to stop them. I have never really had anxiety or depression before, and I have always secretly thought them to be a personal weakness. "C'mon, man, just think differently. Change your routine. Get out and do something."
Things of that sort.
I'm finding, however, that when this shit gets hold of you, you can't move. You can't breathe. There is no way to just "change your mind."
But as I've said, life is personal, and you never know what you don't know until you know it.
I read an article a few minutes ago that may be speaking of me (link). The pandemic is just one small part of my stressed situation. I've been taken from a wonderful life and locked in a dungeon, and I have found I am not as strong as I thought.
Telling you about it helps, so don't make faces. I don't have anywhere else to say this shit, and right now I am incapable of turning it into art. All I have are these plain, dumb statements that land with a thud like a potato falling to the floor.
Thud.
The walking, though, has apparently have been fruitful. I downloaded pictures from about three weeks worth of walking, maybe more, and found some images that I really like. People-less pictures of my corona world. This is one that I will somehow work into a series of four. You will see the rest in the upcoming days. They look good together. I have made some progress in looking at non-human things. Shapes and forms and colors are making a little more sense. I used to be able to do it decades ago. Maybe I'll find the magic again.
There was an op-ed in today's NY Times that I really liked (link). My old saw, "Liberals lie," is what attracts me to this piece. It reminds me of the liberals at the factory that always wanted to share something they saw about the black community or black art or black theater with black colleagues. "Have you seen it? Oh my god, it was soooo moving. I'm taking all my friends to see it."
Of course, they meant their white friends. Maybe afterwards, they would all go to a soul kitchen for dinner, too. Mama Lo's serves the best pork and greens and sweet potato pie. Mm, mm.
I'm not saying you shouldn't do these things if they mean something to you. You just don't have to go and prove it to your black colleagues. Your black friends already know you are on their side or they wouldn't be your friends.
You should just do these things because you believe they are the right things to do. You don't get a Boy or Girl Scout badge for doing them.
I think I've always done the right things privately and the wrong things publicly. Some of my friends like C.C. and Q have and do as well. It is probably an affliction or a curse, or it may be genetic, but as C.C. says, we are living on the Island of Broken Toys. We can never do exactly what is expected.
Thud.
And then there are the Trumps of the world who never do the right thing in private or public. I mean, Trump's no liberal, and he lies.
In the end, I guess, there is just something horribly wrong with humans. At a certain age, you start to lose your idealistic hopefulness, and all that is left is the ideal.
I am afraid I'm losing hope.
ReplyDeleteCanto
round the coal stove
on a Saturday night
Spring a naughty child
Lisa said I shouldn't go
but I told her
it will all turn out
when everyone knows
about my report
tom said,
In every free and deliberating society, there must, from the nature of man, be opposite parties, and violent dissensions and discords; and one of these, for the most part, must prevail over the other for a longer or shorter time."
John says whoa:
We ought to consider what is the end of government, before we determine which is the best form. Upon this point all speculative politicians will agree, that the happiness of society is the end of government, as all Divines and moral Philosophers will agree that the happiness of the individual is the end of man. From this principle it will follow, that the form of government which communicates ease, comfort, security, or, in one word, happiness, to the greatest number of persons, and in the greatest degree, is the best.
Abuse of words has been the great instrument of sophistry and chicanery, of party, faction, and division of society.
Tom insists,
"Men by their constitutions are naturally divided into two parties: 1. Those who fear and distrust the people, and wish to draw all powers from them into the hands of the higher classes. 2. Those who identify themselves with the people, have confidence in them, cherish and consider them as the most honest and safe, although not the most wise depositary of the public interests. In every country these two parties exist, and in every one where they are free to think, speak, and write, they will declare themselves. Call them, therefore, Liberals and Serviles, Jacobins and Ultras, Whigs and Tories, Republicans and Federalists, Aristocrats and Democrats, or by whatever name you please, they are the same parties still and pursue the same object. The last one of Aristocrats and Democrats is the true one expressing the essence of all."
"Both of our political parties, at least the honest portion of them, agree conscientiously in the same object: the public good; but they differ essentially in what they deem the means of promoting that good. One side believes it best done by one composition of the governing powers, the other by a different one. One fears most the ignorance of the people; the other the selfishness of rulers independent of them. Which is right, time and experience will prove. We think that one side of this experiment has been long enough tried and proved not to promote the good of the many, and that the other has not been fairly and sufficiently tried. Our opponents think the reverse. With whichever opinion the body of the nation concurs, that must prevail."
Part of it in a letter to Abigail, who oft reminded him of those without rights...
Whitman, dead as the rest, just now
ReplyDeleterather ghostly they appear
round that coal stove,
Lisa says
And your very flesh shall be a great poem.
Keep your face always toward the sunshine - and shadows will fall behind you.
Re-examine all that you have been told... dismiss that which insults your soul.
the charming mr. Jefferson, never just tom
"I consider the party division of Whig and Tory the most wholesome which can exist in any government, and well worthy of being nourished, to keep out those of a more dangerous character."
(tea parties are for little girls with imaginary friends
Someone snipes)
John shouts!
A government of laws, and not of men.
The law no passion can disturb. 'Tis void of desire and fear, lust and anger. 'Tis mens sine affectu, written reason, retaining some measure of the divine perfection. It does not enjoin that which pleases a weak, frail man, but, without any regard to persons, commands that which is good and punishes evil in all, whether rich or poor, high or low.
(JOHN ADAMS, Argument in Defense of the British Soldiers in the Boston Massacre Trials, Dec. 4, 1770) He boasts
reflectively he added,
Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.
Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
As to the history of the revolution, my ideas may be peculiar, perhaps singular. What do we mean by the Revolution? The war? That was no part of the revolution; it was only an effect and consequence of it. The revolution was in the minds of the people, and this was effected... before a drop of blood was shed.
ralph concluded,
Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail. Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.
at that, Lisa claps her hand & laughs
since we was sure of it
all the while
Thomas Brady 2016
All those Men say big and important things. But I happen to like what "Lisa says..."
This is from the collection "Bumps River Girl".