Just when I'm starting to think that I have something important to tell you, the feeling comes over me that reminds me that nothing is important. Maybe it's more that everything is important, just not equally so. You know, "The stove is hot and my hand is on the stove!"
Well, friends, the stove is hot.
Give us peace on earth and end this dreadful, dreadful war.
It finally dawns on me that Dr. Einstein could explain things to me all day and I would only take away a fraction of what he had in mind for me. The limiting factor is always going to be the receiver, isn't it? There's no reason to shout at the deaf man, is there?
The peace and love message from the hippies is wasted on an investor in the armaments industry. Elements of this culture have managed to make "woke" a derogatory term, an insult implying weakness, naivety. "Liberal" became a slur decades ago.
Churches are for politics now. The faithful go to have their views buttressed.
We're told now that governments and churches can't be bothered with charity.
If I tell you that I've lost faith in church and state and that the legal system that I grew up in seems to have been bought, I suppose I sound like something of a pessimist. I'm not. I believe in the decency and the goodness of the folks that I pass on the sidewalk. I believe in magic.
Give us peace on earth and end this dreadful, dreadful war.
In 1968 Paul Ehrlich dropped his Population Bomb, explaining in terrifying detail how hundreds of millions would starve on this planet if we didn't do something, and quickly, about the population explosion.
Now, Leon and his tech cronies, along with most mainstream economists, wring their hands at the prospect of depopulation. Out of the frying pan, right?
I can't help but thinking of experiments with ant farms in elementary school. Too many ants, and BOOM!
Chaos and anarchy
Then again, if we don't have enough workers funding retirement schemes and buying Inauguration Commemorative coins, who knows what might become of the Florida panther and the loveable, lowly hedgehog.
R.S.V.P. I won't be making that luncheon tomorrow, either.
Whatever force moves me around the game board of life seems to have my best interest at heart. Goodness knows I don't have the judgement or good sense to end up in the right place time after time.
Here I am, though, in the south of England, nowhere near any inauguration hustle.
My heart aches for the place where I lived for most of a lifetime.
Give us peace on earth and end this dreadful, dreadful war.
It's all just a distraction to keep us from enjoying life, isn't it? Society, politics, religion, school, ad nauseam.
Don't fall for it. Of course this message is just one more of the pesky things, isn't it? They'll tempt you with jewels and sex. The good stuff is free and right in front of you.
Maybe the saddest part of the scheme is that so many of the ones who pile up the trinkets can't be satisfied until the majority is doing without. War and famine are tools to maintain some shaky status quo.
If they ever run out of soldiers, it's all over for the bad guys.
I'll do what I can, but mostly I'm along for the ride. Nothing in this world is going in any way that I might have predicted a decade ago. My life is as close to perfect as any that I might imagine. I'm so used to whining that I have to stop and remind myself of that frequently.
Sure, I still worry about the planet, the hungry, the victims.
Maybe I'll live long enough to see peace and love come back in fashion. Meanwhile, I'll keep pinching myself to pay attention to what's in front of me.
Heaven showed up in Florida a few years back and introduced me to paradise. I thought that was all fairy tales.
Give us peace on earth and end this dreadful, dreadful war.
Why waste your time here worrying about life after death. What on earth can you do about it? Today's NY Times has an article on the professionals who study it seriously. It's a lot like worrying about dessert during the soup course, isn't it? In my case, maybe the end of the main course.
If we do come back, we're gonna have some fine tales to tell. If you wished to live in interesting times, you got your wish. It's all semantics, buddy.
Give us peace on earth and end this dreadful, dreadful war.
