Locally True

Since I was a baby, the culture has screamed I must pay attention to the larger world. My parents had fought in world war II and now isolationism did not work. That was reinforced by the fear of nuclear devastation. Science taught that there was a “real” world not at all like the one of “common sense.” The ecological cry to “think globally act locally” rang out everywhere.

Then there came a flood of “real”, global issues. Crazy society, crazy people, crazy climate, crazy catastrophe, crazy new everything. Each more frightening than the last, more to be ignored, all “real”. As antidotes we try to drown out the cacophony with work, alcohol, drugs, meditation, religion – any loud internally focused obsession. Peace for a while, but often just making things worse in the long run. Perhaps we should just slow down and accept – concentrate- on what is “locally true”.

Examples: we are informed the earth is round, bricks are made of empty space and molecules, pain is just electric impulses interpreted by brain neurons, diseases are all around floating invisibly. But: everywhere I go, the Earth is flat with hills and valleys. If I drop a brick on my toe I feel it, and the pain is real – interpreted electric signals or not. Mostly those invisible diseases do nothing. That is all locally true .

So I take a deep breath. My neighborhood is made of mostly normal people. My weather cycles more or less as usual. I age as always. And, I reflect, all this local “untruth” is where I really, truly live and the medium in which my acts actually mean something .

Once in a Lifetime

Hucksters are always promoting “once in a lifetime opportunities.” Something that will never happen again while you are around to see it. By implication, something wonderful and extraordinary, so unlike your humdrum static existence.

One perspective we gain as we age is that everything is a once-in-a-lifetime moment. Nostalgically we look back at a past never to return, filled with vanished people, scenes and events we took for granted. It can be sad, or relaxing to remember, but those times are gone; those times gone can never be recreated .

In these chaotic times, changes are an annoying and sometimes frightening constant. Often we may wish for that humdrum static existence. At least for a little while. But the flood of new and different rushes on .

A proper attitude is to accept that each day, each hour, is truly once in a lifetime. If it seems not so, we are not engaging the universe properly. Opening to the wonder of every instant is the secret of enchantment .

Oh, it’s often hard, sometimes impossible. There are lots of nasty bad things to endure. Maybe many heartbreaks, anxieties, and pains. But always – almost always – mixed with hopes and joy. Each uniquely packaged into not only once in a lifetime, but once in a lifetime for only you .

Discontinuity

A discontinuity is an unexpected, dramatic event which “changes everything.” A good example is the asteroid strike that killed the dinosaurs. Hundreds of millions of years of evolution could have been plotted and future trends established based on all the data available 65 million years ago. Suddenly – no more dinosaurs! We can imagine many others, the most important of course being our own death .

In modern civilizations, plotted trends good and bad are somewhat comforting. Prices go up by 3%. Average life is a few months longer. The summers are hotter. Trends imply a degree of base stability to be modified relatively predictably – either good or bad .

Oh, we realize that trends reach “tipping points.” Global warming can no longer be prevented. A patient getting worse past a certain point will not recover. But the time factor somehow makes tipping points an almost gentle change .

“Existential” threats often imply a tipping point. As seas rise, coastal barrier islands will disappear. Sure, it’s terrible and final – someday .

On the other hand, much of modern disconnect discontent is the realization that true discontinuities – with no trend lines before – are all around us. Nuclear war, authoritarian takeovers, computers amok. Or, for that matter, a large asteroid strike .

Like the dinosaurs would have done, were they capable, about the only thing most of us can reasonably do about such possibilities is to totally ignore them in our daily lives .