Just Ducky

Yesterday I'm tooling down Sacramento (which turns into Humbolt) which cuts through Humbolt Park and see a mother duck and about eight little ducklings at the curb of the road, looking to waddle across a four lane street. I'm thinking of metal meeting flesh with blood and feathers everywhere. (Would one of my fierce tribe gladly mow down a family of ducks just for kicks? I shudder at the thought). I come to a screeching halt, (luckily no car behind me), put my hazard lights on, exit the car, and proceed to send the whole crew scurrying back into the park towards a little gurgling stream. I get back in my car and dodge back into a flurry of traffic. I'm now on the road thinking (ala Holden Caulfield), "who is going to look out for the ducks?" It seems like a silly, naive, question, and at the same time, I'm thinking it's the only question worth pondering. Of course, I don't rightly know the answer. I just hope that Mother Duck is on the ball. They all may live a long, ducky life, or come to a horribly gruesome end. And is it only hazard or chance that calls the tune? That would be my tentative surmise. It would be nice to think that someone, or something is looking out for them, that there's some balance or justice and that little family of ducks will make it to do what ducks do, but who can say that's the full story? There's a doubt that creeps into the frame. Anything can happen and probably will. That's the reality...this is the land of a million authors.

The Variability of a Life

The difference between hope and despair is a million little gradations or increments or variables...wind speed x solar radiance x coffee beans + oz. of soy milk + hours of sleep - memorable nightmares - hopeless news stories x emotional turmoil = sunny or dumps. Today I'm leaning sunny. It just works out that way. If it ain't one thing, it's another and another, and well, that's how you brew up an existence. So today the alchemy came out just right. It could change, cool off, curdle, whatever. But when you're on that sunny wave, it's best to just ride it until it stops or you fall off...

Burn

An unsettled, fitful sleep in an anonymous room in an anonymous part of town in Atlanta, Georgia. The only character is "corporate." I too feel anonymous. I'm less a person than a function on this trip. A long, marathon day today. How to make this less deadening? Fuel myself up on coffee and adrenaline. Turn on the sunniness. This probably is a zero-sum game. Even the sun up in the sky will eventually burn out. I think my time clock is ticking at a quicker tempo. There's only so much you can summon, finally you can't summon anymore. Better to "burn out than fade away?" I think it's basically the same damn thing.

The Betrayed

I'm living in Vonnegut's short story, (I think it's called) "Who Am I Today?" Lately, I seem to be clinging to my identity like a drowning man clinging to a life preserver. I wonder why I cling so hard. I'm on the road to Atlanta today. I go places I don't really want to go to, I do things I don't really want to do. Whose life exactly am I living? Oh yes, it must be mine, there's no one else I can pass this off onto. So the struggle is to be present even where and when I don't want to be present. Maybe it's the "wanting and not wanting" that I must stifle. Maybe not. If these are the things I do, this must be what I do. Do I choose what I do, or does what I do chose me? Is there anything I must do? So, I will play the role of the happy, engaged, fully-rounded, human being. I wonder if anyone will notice I'm going through the motions? So I pretend I care about things I don't really care about. Is it any different for the others? Who exactly am I betraying here?

The Whole Thing

Here's a line: "if you knew me, like I knew me, you wouldn't want to know me." I've been middling, muddling about...lately I'm suspecting that my search for "enlightenment," misses the point. What is the point? Beats me. This idea that there are burning questions, leading to burning answers, just seems so "burned out." I've always been sort of attracted to some kind of mystical state of transcendance. But really isn't that just another attractive "dead end?" What if we need to get with the concept that this is it. I mean like really get with the idea. Live it. But not in a big way, not in some grand philosophical way, just live, let it come and go, as it is, with very little needing, wanting, grasping. What if you could let all the guilt, responsibility, angst, death-wondering go, go, go! The down-side of looking for a state of grace, is to discount the wonder of the now. I've always lived with the dichotomy - "feet on the ground/head in the clouds." Maybe that is part of the "problem." To even see such a dichotomy, to think there is a problem is a problem (if you know what I mean). What's with this desire to leave the solid earth?Better to be on it, instead of under it. So maybe forget enlightenment, instead go stand in the light. No more, no less. The whole thing.

The Aliens - Yes!

I've been wrestling with the sunny/dumps dichotomy. Looking for the gold in the depths of the goo. I cheered myself up with this fantasy of having the flying saucers finally coming down on us in full force. Wouldn't it be so mind-blowingly cool if the UFO's landed and the space creatures, the alien life-forms introduced themselves to us? Like they landed on the White House lawn and held a global press conference and announced that the game was up, human beings had screwed up the planet so badly, that they were now coming down to rearrange things. They would meet with the intelligent and peaceful life forms on the planet (the Whales, Dolphins and Elephants) to decide the best way forward. There would be many humans that would need to account for their creepy and corrupt ways. It would just blow the conservative/liberal, secular/religious divide completely to smithereens! It would be confirmation that as the Firesign Theater used to say, "everything you (we) know is wrong." What a great clearing of the decks that would be! And if they decided we were expendable, beyond redemption, oh well...no, wait, in my fantasy, they'd take pity on us, and help us make something of ourselves, we'd clean up the mess we've made, we'd join hands in a gesture of brotherhood, animals to humans, humans to humans, humans to alien life-forms, sentient beings to sentient beings...some of us would join up with the space creatures and go exploring the outer edges of the universe just for kicks!