We really are all one...

I've been up since the crack of dawn. Seems I've lived a lifetime already, in just a few brief daylight hours. I broke down crying once this a.m. Listening to NPR. Friends of George Floyd in Houston Tx, remembering their friend, inspirer and mentor "Big Floyd." Heart-breaking. Another life snuffed out for no reason, except for racism, and the callous disregard for life.

You wonder if we have reached an inflection point? Protests throughout USA and the world. The murder of unarmed people of color at the hands of the Police really must stop. Maybe we will all wake up? One of my go-to sayings: "A change of consciousness can happen in an instant."

Maybe that instant has arrived? Hope so. "There but for the Grace of God, go I." We all need more empathy, more imagination. We need to be able to "put ourselves in another's shoes."

It really is possible. To think of Human Beings as Human Beings, first. The same. Different too. Different backgrounds, different histories, different shades and characters, but essentially the same. Different but the same. One. Human. Being. Life. We all should be able to live, to love, to actualize ourselves in the world. If one of us is struck down, we are all struck down. One of our lives snuffed out, we are all snuffed and diminished.

The a.m. soundtrack -- "Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (soundtrack)" (2000). Original score by Wu-Tang Clan's RZA. A hip-hop masterpiece. The soundtrack to the great Jim Jarmusch film. Seeded thru the record Forest Whitaker reads passages from "Hagakure: the Book of the Samurai." Fantastic. Groovy. Profound. Fun. As Village Voice Robert Christgau writes: "hip-hop as mystery, beauty, pleasure—as idealized aural environment." Yep. So true. One of my all-time favorite records.