THE ROAD TO WELL
Mad Mutt urinates on Fearless Girl's leg, scratch three. All mill-stone-heads, with legs in commuter chains, Norwegian wood, something didn't rhyme. Did it? Twenty seven thousand proffered flavors are certainly no balm.
In the first place, who really needs them. The entire edifice is dedicated to amnesia. Which serves who? So. Do not pledge (I do not) allegiance to logos, or the profits of corporations for which they stand. One world, inorganic, with dedicated storage of personal details meant to bury you. Is This the way you wanted it? Or the endless wars?
It doesn't have to be, friends. Or at least some friends agree, and they're watching. Enjoying water and seeds, joy would be the interpolation.. As in squirrel-speak:
“I know you, and it's OK here. But don't move too suddenly.”
A dove is sitting on the fence, waiting patiently. Presently three doves. Then squirrel scrambles up to join them.
Dove One: “What's up?”
“Watch out,” says Dove Two: “Time for the commute!”
Squirrel ziggies down the fence, running right into Dove Three, who flaps up just enough, letting the traffic pass. And then in a line are three doves, sitting in a row on the fence. None in the feeder.
“So whose turn next?” (chuckled consultations, and it's decided)
A writer of commercial persuasions would here pull the rip cord. Yeah, but this is where . . .
“It doesn't have to be . . . us doves don't know about profits.”
Regardless of the dialog or imputed explications, it profits not. Exactly.
“There you are, dove. See? We're of the same mind.”
“You talk parabolic nonsense, writer man.”
“Could it be you didn't enjoy the seeds? But I never saw you plant any!”
“Still that thought. Times are getting scarce, but you're not the sole source.”
This story is forming on its own, as though it already existed somewhere. Just waiting for some hapless author to come fill in the details. An accumulation of yo-yos -- walk the dog, cat's cradle, 'round the world, Norwegian wood. Everyone knows the game. So obvious. Nonetheless, being uncommercially persuaded, I interject: Life is a cycle that regenerates itself. And profit, the main game now, is blinded by its own bottom line. To which we shall return, all in good time and consciousness.
Like the climate we're changing. Parables? Let's jump ship because this disaster is no accident. We got here through telling tales, some would say lies, believing them, and for some unwilling to follow, by wielding clubs, laws, tanks, bureaucracies with red buttons, and thrown in for good measure some smart machines that will pester on indefinitely (and we'll hide from these, too, come the Singularity). We wanted this?
We got what we wanted. Those who chanced to the top, riding rogue waves to temporary dominion, like things the way they are. For the rest, immersed in the 26,997 flavors, say What we got, parabola man, is what could go wrong?
All it needs is for some trigger-happy cowboy to go sour grapes and push the button. It is possible to train ordinary citizens into soldiers who, on command, will destroy ordinary citizens. Humans are mortal and malleable. It is possible to train torturers.
Just saying the obvious, and nothing for sale here. No need for a catalog of woes, but maybe the weal.
It's the life we share, this earth, this planet on which profit is a piddling concern that does not nourish life. Consciousness is not a private possession. There is this earth alive, this speck of a planet. And there is good reason for appreciating each other – animals, trees, oysters, microbes and mountains. Even termites and mosquitoes. Friends and enemies.
The reason exceeds normal reason, including computer viruses, a falcon who protects her chicks, uprisings that topple dictators, tube worms in the great rift valley, mall shootings and papal bulls that deplore fossil fuel, viruses that infect people and apes, coronal mass ejections that cripple power grids, Lady Hummingbird and Mr. Finch, my unloving German parents and their parents, mall shootings and vigils for victims, terrorists who die for beliefs, stay at home moms changing diapers in front of security cameras linked to Artificial Intelligence in its swaddling days of training, and the fledgling teen age rock band behind garage doors across the street in the afternoon of a lawn I was mowing. The scope of it dwarfs profit for profit's sake.
It took a very long time to reach our present crisis, and not without trial and error, and mistakes sometimes hard to admit. Consciousness expresses itself by aiding the great cycle.
I can say it is possible. My health and vision, medically and metaphorically, have improved in spite of obstacles. And biological reports are a fraction of spiritual clarity. What is individually possible rebukes what seems socially impossible. But it won't wait. Life is fleeting.
