Words

Consider the Mount Rushmore of human inventions: fire (of course—although this may have been more of discovery than an invention); the wheel (this choice no doubt informed by images of creative cave people from endless numbers of New Yorker cartoons); music (not including, for sure, the “Cars for Kids” song); and my favorite, the written word (in general, not necessarily what you’re reading right here.)

It's the height of human ingenuity, if you ask me, to be able to convert simple shapes—on cave walls, papyrus, palm leaves, rag bond paper, a computer screen, etc.—into words, which then can convey ideas and events, which later can be read and (sometimes) understood by another person or groups of people sometime—even centuries—afterwards for their edification, enjoyment, and consternation, sometimes all at once.

How did this happen?  Which came first, reading or writing?  Did one of our proto-human ancestors scratch something out on a rock, say to him or herself, “Boy, I wish I could read this?”, and then figure out how to decipher it?  Or did they have something they wanted to communicate already in mind and scratch out the words for it afterwards?

Or maybe some of both.  (I know, by way of analogy, that I often don’t know what I want to say until I write it down; case in point, this very idea!)

What’s especially amazing about the written word is how pervasive it is.  Once you have the ability to read, you can’t avoid it.  Suppose I write these words: Don’t read this!

Oops!  Too late!

So, as soon as our prehistoric ancestor put their words down on that rock, it was all over; there was no turning back into species-wide illiteracy.  The road from scratching on the cave walls to contemporary post-modern literature was set and the inevitable result of it would inevitably include this very page of words you are reading; even if you try to stop, too late!

Future

The future is our Number One Enemy.  Obviously.

Everything bad that will happen to us will happen at some point in the future.  So, if we could just eliminate the time after this time right now, we’d be fine.

Climate change, nuclear war, economic depression, yet another tour by the Rolling Stones—it’s all stuff that hasn’t happened yet (or, at least to the most dire degree); consequently, the best way to prevent those events from coming about would be to simply cancel what’s upcoming.  Then, we wouldn’t have to worry about what might be—or probably will—since it wouldn’t.

Simple, yes?

Of course, as they say, the devil is in the details and the specifics of eradicating the future are devilish, indeed.

First among these is the difficulty of planning.  After all, the very act of doing so assumes the future, which is the very thing we’re trying to eliminate.  Clearly, no less paradoxical than being opposed to abortion but in favor of “stand your ground” laws.

But, maybe we could just wing it.  You know, excise the future without preparing for it—kind of like how you undertook a camping trip as a teenager.

But what would a today without tomorrow be like?  And how would we even experience it?

Perhaps the alternative is to go backwards, not forwards.  This isn’t to say that the past is all rosy (I’m pretty sure the Stones toured all through the 90s and “Aughts,” as well), but at least we’d know what we’re in for.  Humanity has already made it through the environmental, political, and economic crisis that we’ve already made it through and so we’d surely be successful with them again.

It's the ones we haven’t faced so far that will do us in; those are the ones to avoid.

So, starting today, let’s all have yesterday be the first day of the rest of our lives.  

The past is our only hope for the future.

 

Living

 I have a pretty great life and hardly a day goes by when I don’t thank my lucky stars and express my gratitude (usually silently) for being alive.

But I’ll be ready to go when it’s my time to go (I hope) and it’s my firm intention not to cling to this mortal coil any longer than necessary, especially if doing so is burdensome to my family, friends, and loved ones.

Life is swell, no doubt about it, but I also want to keep in mind that I was perfectly satisfied before I was born and I expect to be just as content after I’m gone.  So, no need to be miserable and/or to make others miserable just to hang around for a little longer—even if it means being alive if and when the Mariners finally win the World Series (not holding my breath for that one, to be sure.)

I say (that is, write) this now, recognizing that I might not feel the same way when death becomes more immanent, but I hope that in doing so, my future self may be more apt to take the advice of my current instantiation, but we shall see.

It’s not entirely unlikely, given my family medical history and my own current relative good health, that what will do me in—or at least, precipitate my final exit—will be some sort of stroke.  My fear about that (apart from paralysis, loss of bowel function, and drooling) is that I’ll be unable to remember or communicate my original desires and so will be kept alive by well-meaning medical professionals in spite of my wishes. (Not so worried about my family and friends; they know me better and are, I hope, less amenable to changing my diapers.)

In the meantime, then, there’s not much to do, I suspect, other than letting my perspective be known (like this) and trying to live life fully.  Also, drool as little as possible.

Ennui

I’m reading Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert and man, the lady is bored.  The way I read it, that’s her main complaint.  

Her husband bores her, her child bores her, the sleepy village she lives in bores her, even her dinner bores her: “But it was most of all at mealtimes that she could not bear it any longer, in that little room on the ground floor, with the stove that smoked, the door that squeaked, the wall that seeped, the damp flagstones; all the bitterness of life seemed to be serve up on her plate, and with the steam from the boiled meat, there rose from the depth of her soul other gusts of revulsion.” (56)

I get it; the routine of life is oppressive: eating, sleeping, waking, breathing—it’s a drag to be sure, day after day, month after month, year after year.  Filling the empty hours (or even the full ones) can seem a depressing chore, especially when you have aspirations, like Madame B., for a life of glamor, art, and culture.

But honestly, what else is there?  We’re all going to be dead soon enough, and so, in the meantime, what’s the alternative to living our lives, however boring they might seem at the time?

Besides isn’t being bored the most boring thing of all?  Mom always said that only boring people are bored and while as a bored eight year-old on a rainy afternoon, I didn’t want to believe her, now, as a potentially bored sixty-five year-old on an overcast day, I see her point.

Pretty much anything can be interesting if you decide to be interested in it.  For instance, I’m quite enjoying Madame Bovary’s boredom; I find it fascinating how contemporary are her feelings in spite of her story being set in a time almost two hundred years ago.  

I’m pretty sure things won’t end well; I’m not at all bored to see how it will turn out for her.

 

Judgment

 “Don’t be judgmental” is what popular opinion advises, but I judge that to be mistaken.  It’s good to make judgments.  (See?  I just did!)  

It’s not judgment which is the problem, but rather the actions one takes in response to those judgments.  It seems perfectly legitimate to make the reasonable determination that, say, world leaders who launch military attacks on sovereign nations are doing something awful, but that doesn’t mean you have to drop an atomic bomb on their heads.  

Similarly, I believe I’m justified in judging that a homemade beet salad with fresh feta cheese is better than a Swanson’s TV dinner; this doesn’t give me the right, however, to barge into the frozen food aisle at Safeway and destroy all the packages of Salisbury Steak I can get my hands on.

That said, I think there’s much to be said for withholding judgment to the degree that it’s possible in many, if not most, cases.  Instead of rushing immediately into one’s own personal Yelp review at every opportunity, how about simply observing without evaluating?  

When I listen to some new music or taste some new dish or read about the actions of some celebrity or politician how about not jumping immediately into “It Rocks!” or “It Sucks!” mode?  How about instead of thumbs up or thumbs down, I just go “Hmmm?”

To clarify, I’m not advocating this for everything.  The aforementioned military incursion, for instance, does merit an immediate injunction.  It’s just that the vast majority of things I could conceivably judge, from the performance of some professional athlete to the taste of the scrambled eggs at some local diner don’t necessarily call for my personal imprimatur (or lack thereof), so why offer it?

Of course, we live in a time in which everyone feels entitled to offer their perspective on everything.  (Case in point, yours truly and this.)

So maybe, to really distinguish oneself, the most unusual opinion would be no opinion at all.

Sportsball

 I wish I didn’t care about sports.  

I wish I didn’t experience a little lift when my favorite professional sports teams win.  Even more, I wish I didn’t feel a little annoyed or saddened when they lose.

As Roger Angell put it so well: “It is foolish and childish, on the face of it, to affiliate ourselves with anything so insignificant and patently contrived and commercially exploitative as a professional sports team.”

But I can’t help it.  

(Well, I guess I could, with the right amount of effort; perhaps it’s more accurate to say that I’m unable, at the present time, to bring myself to devote the energy needed to change my perspective.)

Anyway.

With the Mariners (who I’ve come to root for after more than a quarter century in Seattle) finally in contention for a playoff spot this year, I find myself being a little too emotionally invested in their success (or failure).  It’s dumb, of course, to feel this way, but there you have it: a little lift when they win, a little pinch when they lose.

What’s really weird and troubling is that I can concurrently read the news and learn about thousands of civilian deaths in war-torn countries around the world or melting glaciers in the Arctic or corruption and deceit at the highest level of government and hardly bat an eye.  Checking out the box score of a Mariners’ loss makes me feel crummier than perusing the list of dead from the Covid pandemic.

That’s fucked up.

I blame my upbringing and the cultural forces brought to bear on a boy in America during the latter part of the 20th century.  We learned to bond with our friends and fathers through sports.  (Sharing the success of the Pittsburgh Steelers in the 1970s as one of the few ways my dad and I were able to connect during my somewhat troubled adolescence.)

So, oh well, I suck, but at least the Mariners don’t!

Downhill

 I “raced” in this year’s 26th annual Dead Baby Downhill; according to my t-shirt stash, this is the 17th time I’ve done so.  (“Racing” for me entails trying to get going as quickly as possible after the Roman candle explosions mark the start of the event, so I can be near the front at first and enjoy being passed by racer after racer after rider, thereby enjoying seeing as many friends and acquaintances as possible along the way.)

As always, the event was a blast, the high point of the summer bicycle social scene (such as it is—or isn’t) and as is not unprecedented, I think I was a little too overexuberant in my celebrations, so that for a good part of the evening, I merely sat quietly by my bicycle, with eyes closed waiting until I felt confident in my ability to make it home safely—which, I’m pleased to say, I did—for the 17th time running (or, that is, riding).

Kudos to the organizers and all the volunteers, and the Chaotic Noise Brigade and other performers for pulling it off with such joy and aplomb.  The world may be going to hell in the proverbial handbasket, but it’s nice to know that, along the way, there can still be times like this when collective action by disparate individuals makes for shared delight all around.  

Perhaps it is, as they say, a case of merely rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, but you’ve got to admire how lovingly those chairs have been set up and how joyous is the musical accompaniment.  If it comes to it, I’ll go down with this ship, no problem.

The weather was ideal, the route spectacular, and the hilltop starting point under the airport flight path accessible via light rail without climbing at all.   Is there any way things could have been better?  

Maybe only if I’d have stayed awake a little longer and seen a little more.

Body

 I’m not always crazy about my body.  

I could do without the way my old man potbelly makes my favorite jeans so tight and pushes them down beneath my navel.  And those jowls that dominate the face of the guy I’m always in Zoom meetings with are a source of ongoing dismay.  And howcome with every passing year, I look more and more like one of Middle Earth’s hobbits and less like one of its elves?

But it’s sort of ridiculous, isn’t it, to feel bad about one’s physical form.  After all, if it weren’t for your body, you wouldn’t be able to feel bad—or for that matter, anything—so, really, we ought to continually celebrate our corporeal being since without it, we’d have no ability to do anything, anyway, at least not on this plane of existence.

It’s natural, I suppose, to experience some dissatisfaction sometimes about one’s physique.  It’s easy enough to compare the current form you inhabit to the one you went around in say, thirty years and twenty pounds ago, and thanks to dominant cultural norms and the power of advertising feel like your something less for being something more than you used to be.

But it’s kind of self-indulgent to do so, wouldn’t you say?

I mean, again, it’s only the existence of your body that makes not liking your body possible, so, at the very least, you—that is, I—should recognize how lucky you are to have a body—any body—and stop making a fuss.

This doesn’t mean one ought not to eat healthy and exercise; we should treat our bodies with respect and act accordingly, but part of that respect, as well, is to be satisfied with our body the way it is, since the way it is, (however that is), makes everything—including healthy eating and exercise—possible. 

My body’s not a temple; it’s an amusement park.  Everyday I buy a ticket and take the ride.

Ignorant

I’m a fully grown-ass person—officially a Senior Citizen!—with loads of life experience and an advanced degree in Philosophy, but there’s still much about the world I don’t understand.

For instance, what’s the point of a humanned mission to Mars?  Seems like an incredible amount of money and resources for not that much payoff.  I suppose it would be sort of cool to be the first human on another planet, but the scientific knowledge to be gained from such an enterprise couldn’t possibly be worth it—unless, of course, there really are little green men up there, which, guess what?  There aren’t.  And we don’t need space boots on the Martian ground to prove it.

Or why, in this day and age, do so many world leaders still feel it necessary to command their military to kill people in other countries?  I understand their rationale—national security or whatever—but I don’t understand why their rationale could be considered rational enough to justify killing people.

I’m also puzzled by the phenomenon of stuffed crust pizza.  Isn’t the point of pizza crust to be the respite from cheese?  Why not just not have a crust and go for double-cheese?

And, of course, this marks me as an old person, (but if the shoe fits, you know), but why do people have to record some much of their concert-going experiences on their phones?  Doesn’t it make more sense to be more present in the present rather than having the present experience be a way to present it to the future?

Also, I’d be lying if I said I understood why anyone needs a superyacht.  If it’s just a way for billionaires to spend money and employ people, then, okay, I guess, but why not just a regular yacht?  If it was good enough for J.P. Morgan, shouldn’t it be good enough for Sergy Brin?

Finally, why is anyone compelled to rant to strangers online?  That, I’ll never get.

War

 I sure hope we’re not headed into World War III.  Or even WWII.5, for that matter.

I get it; national sovereignty important, but honestly, when it comes right down to it, wouldn’t you rather be a living resident of a foreign country than a dead citizen of your original one?  (Especially when the boundaries of those millennia-old countries are an artifact of colonial imperialism that hardly goes back a hundred years?)

Seattle would be a likely military target and so it’s entirely plausible that the whole place would be vaporized in the first fifteen minutes of nuclear war.  I suppose that’s preferable to a protracted siege that would result in death by famine and pestilence.  On the other hand, couldn’t we just avoid the whole calamity through diplomacy and compromise?

The real problem, if you ask me, is metonymy.  

We say “the White House wants this” or “the Kremlin wants that,” when what’s really the case is that Joe Biden wants this or Vladimir Putin wants that; thus individual preferences assume the status of national priorities.  Then, all of a sudden, what a single person desires (usually a man, usually an old one) becomes tantamount to what an entire country desires and when you combine that with nuclear arsenals large enough to destroy every living thing on the planet multiple times over, you’ve got a perfect recipe for disaster.

It's terrifying to consider that the fate of humanity ultimately depends upon the degree to which one old white dude with his fingers on his country’s nuclear codes feels as if he’s been dissed by another old white dude with similar access to weapons of mass destruction.  When my grandfather was embarrassed, he’d go off and kill an entire half-gallon of Gallo Hearty Burgundy, not half of the entire population of the world!

Does my attitude here paint me yellow as a coward?  Perhaps, but if discretion is the better part of valor, then at least I’m half-brave.