Category: personal observation

Holiday 2024

Most of the time, somewhat in the spirit of wine making, I handwrite these essays months ahead, followed by a schedule on which they are dictated into digital, edited, “aged in the silicon” for a month or so, and re-edited. They finally are placed into the blog, often with photographs of nature taken weeks before.   This one is recent.

Lately I have worked hard at having a strong and focused immediate perspective _ what am I thinking of today. Larger cosmic questions are usually beyond my reach. 

At my age, the local personal issues are magnifying greatly, the longer term worldwide ones diminishing in importance. Sadly, the aches in my teeth affect me more than the fate of creatures in the Amazon. Anything beyond my immediate (and also diminishing) senses is a kind of fantasy, anything much beyond next week more or less irrelevant .

I was, fortunately, not always like this. But it has its compensations. This holiday season, for example, has been wonderful, steeped in family and nostalgic memories. The past as wonderland. The present as an endless candy store. And gratitude settling on all as a kind of golden glowing syrup .

Ozymandias

We read Shelly’s Ozymandias as a distillation of the illusions of power. A cruel despot forcing subjects to erect a massive statue to his glory, all crumbled and forgotten over the millenia. But there are other interpretations.

For one thing, that king of kings probably could care less what we see in the desert today. Assuming it was a vanity project, it was more to impress his present than anyone after he died. And for all we know it could have been a public works project to keep folks employed.

More to the point, Ozymandias was not a god, but a human. That means he had to eat, defecate, sleep. He was bored and worried at times. If he grew old there were toothaches and various pains, wounds, and diseases. He may have been good or evil to his subjects, but he was subject to all the ills that flesh is heir to, like everyone else, then and now .

Besides, he was more constrained to his locality than anyone today. He could not know science, visit other continents, talk to people a world away. His direct sphere of influence was limited to a tiny immediate environment. His powers were in some way less godlike than those of anyone with access to a cell phone or automobile .

Power, yes. Cruelty, perhaps. But not to be pitied because his colossus and kingdoms did not survive the ages. Never to be envied because most of us are more godlike than he could ever dream .

Punishment

There are three ways to deter crime. One is to remove the reason for the crime – a well-fed person need not steal food. The second is to make the consequences of being caught worse than the gain from the crime itself. And the third is to remove a person who has committed a crime from society.

Locking criminals and socially inept (ie insane) people away from everyone else has long been a workable alternative to killing them outright. But once these people are safely out of sight, what should be done with them?

Some would say they should be ” rehabilitated.” Others that they should be made to suffer. Others that they should do productive work to pay back their debt to society. But all of these courses take extensive resources in people and money .

I’ve often toyed with the idea of a “drone paradise” where convicts have access to all the drugs, alcohol, and entertainment they want, happily deteriorating to death. It would be inexpensive and relatively humane and would, after all, serve the main purpose of keeping them away from the rest of us good people .

Just another modest proposal .

Blame Game

In old romantic or adventure novels, a protagonist would be “cursed by fate” or “blessed by fortune.” That was the simplest guide to a philosophy of life based on pure luck. Others believed that their pathway was shaped by God or gods – whom they could not easily complain to because then the rulers of the universe might get really nasty .

But now we have something much better. Convinced by all the magic around them, people now know that everything – even the weather, disease, or fall of dice – is controlled by other people. Some may be invisible in vast conspiracies, some oppress us everyday, some are just evil or complacent neighbors. So it is simply a matter of selecting from among this vast array to determine whom to blame when our days turn out badly .

Lawyers are always available to help. They can not only locate the guilty (and get money from them) but even figure out crimes that we did not even suspect existed. Lawyers advertise all the time. Oh, they charge fees, but how much more satisfying than consulting ancient seers or priests with their messy entrails, boring planets, and weird visions.

I and the other boomers grew up near the end of a different era, where folks challenged the universe directly. No excuses, win or lose, pick yourself up and start over. The blame was ours if we quit and whimpered about how unfair it all was .

My, how times have changed .

Fear of Flying

I can sort of understand people’s interest  in night drones in New Jersey. Anything new and different provokes curiosity. Most people ignore the sky all the time in their hermetically sealed lives, so looking up is in itself provocative .

What I don’t get is the fear. “What are they doing?” But what do folks think they could do? These are, after all, just the tiny toy versions (for the most part) of vehicles. “But, but, but” say the frightened. Congress demands answers .

We have a hard time evaluating risk. Any bicycle, yard crew, scooter, delivery van, or neighbor’s car could easily deliver a “suitcase atomic bomb” to my neighborhood. I am very likely to be accidentally injured in thousands of ways. Any drunk driver or armed angry 15-year-old could end my life at any moment. Google has mapped every house, GPS shows every way to get there. What is a poor drone to do ?

As far as flying devices – well I may be atypical in that I’m under a flight path and huge jets fly over our house all the time. Helicopters rush to the hospital, help police, ferry the wealthy to resorts or New York City. Small aircraft buzz all over, presumably for pleasure. All of them are quite dangerous – the Avianca disaster happened a few miles away .

But as often in these manic times, novelty is far more interesting than logic. A fad driven culture, leaving little time and energy for more serious concerns .

Proactive

Broad-minded people understand that others vary considerably, and evaluate each individual on unique perceptions. Narrow-minded people trust only their own tribal kin. Paranoids think everyone is out to harm them. But the most frustrating people are those who fanatically believe everyone else is trying to do to them what they would do to the others if they could, and who believe the only safety is in “doing unto them” first, no matter how stupid, evil, or harmful the act (even to those doing it )

“Proactive” folks fall down rabbit holes easily. Assuming everyone else has weapons, they must buy their own guns. Assuming everyone else would do horrible things if they had the chance, they want to act first to control absolutely the laws and police. They talk themselves into the most illogical and self-destructive illusions.

Worst of all, they always project that “others” have only the evil traits they themselves feel. They think they know what they themselves would do if only they had the power to do so. Lie, steal, kill – whatever – “we have to stop them” and no matter how badly we act, we are only doing what they would do to us if they had the chance .

And yet – in day-to-day “real life” social context, none of this is generally true. Individuals vary a lot, but mostly get along just fine. The projection universe is an elusive virtual fiction gone bad .