Tag: apocalypse

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what matters is now

For a long time, in my teens and early twenties, I was sure that we would see the end of the world in my lifetime. Part of me clung to science fiction in what I only now recognize as hope that I was wrong, or some unacknowledged notion that even if Armageddon was to happen, some part of who we are, the best parts of who we are if I’m using Star Trek as an example, would live on outside the scenario I was taught.

Even after I learned my way out of that fear, and out of that particular flavor of Christianity, I maintained a love of sci-fi and in particular dystopian stories. The little spark of hope, that even if the worst of humanity prevailed, something good could remain was a driving factor in what and how I changed myself.

I’ve traveled a lot of roads spiritually and academically since then, and what I believe has changed and grown as I did. In some ways, the more I learn, the more I question, and I am less sure of a good deal many things than I have ever been.

One thing I do know, however, is that what I believe about where we come from, what comes after this life, whether or not there is a god or gods, does not define how I live my life. I no longer believe that my eternity rests on a belief, or on a specific god or on a specific ritual. Or, if it does, I am not interested in it at least.

What matters to me is this life. How I live now. How I treat others now. How I grow and learn now. Love and kindness are what motivate me, both for how I approach the world and how I approach myself.

We’re here, on this earth, now. This is what matters.

Those are my thinky thoughts for this Sunday morning, Readers! I hope you are well and that your life is filled with love and kindness. I’m off into the world of The Blood Witch with my Death Wish coffee in hand.

Photo by Marek Piwnicki on Unsplash

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welcome to the future

Do you remember when 2021 seemed like the distant future, impossible to fathom as anything than other a dystopian post-apocalyptic world filled with robber barons and highwaymen?

And yet, here we are. Then again, 2020 was something of an apocalypse and the world is lilting ever more toward dystopia.

In the enduring words of the Buffy The Vampire Slayer musical episode “Where do we go from here”?

It seems to me that our choices are to continue to devolve until our society is fractured, we need heavy weaponry just to get enough food to eat and we go to war over petty differences or we find some duct tape and start patching this shit back together.

Of course, patches don’t hold forever, which might actually be part of how we got where we are. If we want to do more than hold on to the status quo, we’re going to need to build something new. What does that look like?

Well, I know what I would like to see. I want a society that takes care of its most vulnerable, where each person enters life on a level playing field, where no one dies because they can’t afford to see a doctor, where basic human rights are respected and honored, where everyone pays their fair share and the government curtails things that threaten our existence (pollution, greed, unfair business practices).

How do we get there? If I knew that, I’d run for office. Well, no, I wouldn’t because I’m an agoraphobic introvert. But, you know what I mean. I do know that we never will get there if we can’t come to a place where our political dialog is not bogged down by the fundamental issues we have right now, where one half of the country wants to destroy anyone who is different than them (whether that difference is gender, sexual orientation, race, financial status or anything else), and the other half wants to destroy the first half.

Until we realize that no one is more equal than another, until we tax corporations and billionaires, until we fund schools, until we realize that healthcare is not a privilege of the rich…until we start to actually care about the other people in this country, patches are all we’re going to get.

We’re living in the future, I just wish it was more Star Trek and less Mad Max. Happy 2021, Readers. Be kind recklessly. Give love unconditionally. Be the change.

Cover Photo by Artem Labunsky on Unsplash

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just promise me no zombies

With allergy season in full swing here in Northern California, it can be hard to convince folks that I’m not “sick” and that it is “just allergies”. My eyes are constantly itching and watering. I’m so congested and my sinuses so swollen that my face is puffy. And to make the whole trifecta, there is the asthma reaction to trying to do almost anything when my hayfever is like this. That means a dry, hacky cough.

Want to guess who gets ALL of the dirty looks when I venture beyond my driveway?

Granted, I’m not venturing much or far. I’ve done most of my grocery shopping by delivery, making the most of Safeway’s two hour windows. There are some things you can’t get delivered though…or at least, not at a price I’m willing to pay.

And I am willing to pay for the convenience of delivery most of the time. I just try to do it without it costing a fortune, and I try to avoid the apps, and rely on stores that do their own delivery.

But, when the prescriptions are ready, I need to venture out, and I try to use the occasion to pick up those things that I can’t get on order…the stuff you just “luck” across, like the yeast I found in the bakery section last week when I had to be in Safeway to pick up a prescription.

I’ve also turned to bartering. I scored some bread flour from a neighbor, and some ginger from another neighbor this week. Traded a bottle of olive oil for the flour, and some garlic for the ginger. All with proper social distancing…drop the item on the porch, retreat to road…they make the swap, and once inside, I go back up to the porch and retrieve my item.

Right now there is bread dough in my fridge getting all ready to go into the oven later today. I’m using this super simple, 4 ingredient, no kneading recipe for a rustic sort of artisan loaf. I’m going to trade it for a bottle of wine from my sister-in-law.

I’m not going to lie, I’m kind of terrified of what is to come. We’re opening ourselves back up way too quickly and if “they” think the economy was hurting due to people staying home, imagine how much more it’s going to hurt when more and more people are dead or dying?

We aren’t going to have to wait for a second wave in the fall. So, if this is the start of the apocalypse, best dust off those gardening and bartering skills now.

I only hope that we don’t see mutations in the virus, or this and that virus coming together to form an even deadlier one…or give us zombies. I can manage everything but zombies.

Happy Friday, Readers. Be kind to one another. Be kind to yourself.

Cover Photo by Dark Labs on Unsplash

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stay the hell at home

I was going to start this post with some trite comment about surviving another week in this apocalyptic hell, but realized almost immediately that not everybody has survived.  So many people I know has lost someone in the last few weeks, or has a loved one in the hospital that they can’t visit.  Nearly everyone I know has fears that a vulnerable person they love might contract this virus.

And, while we all need some light hearted humor in times like these, what we don’t need is flippant commentary that makes light of the situation.  We are standing at a precipice with our incompetent government poised behind us with a cattle prod, ready to send us hurtling to our deaths on the rocks below.

I try not to get overly political on this blog, but we can’t afford to not be political in this situation.  It is pretty clear to me that those at the top care nothing for the rest of us, and the idiots that are being goaded into protesting to end the very protections that are keeping us semi-safe, care nothing for people they do not know.  It’s going to take major losses of people who they do know and care about to reach through the cult-like group think that keeps them doing the bidding of a man who has used public office to rake in millions of dollars.

How can anybody look at the death toll numbers that climb and climb every single day and not realize that we are not doing enough to curb this thing?  How can they see stories and posts from our doctors and nurses who are fighting tooth and nail to save people without the proper PPE and with no effective treatment plan, and still demand their right to go to the movies or the beach or wherever the hell else it is they think is so damned important?

I know someone who lost her husband this weekend.  He was thirty six.  She had to drive him to the doors of the ER and leave him there because they wouldn’t let her in.  In less than twenty four hours he was in the ICU on a ventilator, unable to talk.  Her last words to his face were, “Call me when you know anything. I love you.”

He died alone, with a stranger in a mask beside him, holding his phone to his ear as his wife tried to say goodbye through choked tears.  He leaves behind a wife and three kids who are now under quarantine having to rely on the kindness of strangers to keep them fed.  Right now, they aren’t sure where he contracted the virus, as he made every attempt to be safe, but he had taken a job as a delivery driver after getting laid off from his regular job.  He had said he just wanted to help in this time of crisis.

His desire to help got him killed.

Make no mistake, Readers, this virus is a killer, and it doesn’t care how old you are or how healthy you are. It comes out of nowhere and can strike down a person in a week, maybe less.

So, stay the hell at home please!  The life you save could be your own, or your mother’s or your spouse’s, your kids, your neighbor.  Please be safe.  Love one another. Be kind.  These are weird times.

 

Cover Photo by Scott Webb on Unsplash