Apocalyptic

Would you want me on your team for the zombie apocalypse?

I can’t fight; I won’t kill; and I don’t really like the sight of blood, especially my own.

I’m not very strong, nor particularly handy, and my farming skills are pretty limited.

I could cook, I guess, but how much of an appetite will there be for soufflés and gratins when the zombies are on the prowl? Like 90% of the population, I sort of learned to bake sourdough bread during the pandemic, but my starter is long dead, so I don’t think I’d be much help there, either.

I suppose I could assist in maintaining the fleet of bicycles, but unless my local bike shop was still open, I’d be hard up for parts and the necessary guidance on unfamiliar tasks.  Don’t expect me to be much use with automobiles, apart from adding windshield wiper fluid when that tank is empty.

Moreover, I’ve never really understood the strong desire to carry on after society completely collapses; if I have to hole up in a bunker and poop in a bucket while the world outside burns, count me out, honestly.  So, clearly, I won’t be much help in the morale department, either.

Perhaps I could teach philosophy or lead yoga classes.  (Oh, I got mixed up there; that’s not the zombie apocalypse, that’s for our Adult Summer camp.)

Maybe I could apply my experience as a Union president if it came to negotiating with the zombies; my sense, though, is that they would be resistant to the collaborative “Interest-Based Bargaining” model with which I am most familiar.

I am a fast reader and have a solid track record as someone who takes afternoon naps.  So, it will help the effort for me to sit in a chair and doze over Victorian fiction, sign me up.

And, of course, if all else fails—and it surely will—I can write 327-word essays about our inevitable collective demise.

Odd, Ya See?

After a trying day of fighting grading, I was trying to leave school and get home, where my wife was overwhelmed with providing snacks to our daughter’s soccer team, but my Dean roped me into an Accreditation meeting that just went on and on.  She promised that if I stayed later and worked on Outcomes Assessment with her that I’d never have to do another post-tenure review, but finally, I couldn’t take it anymore and appealed to the college president to convince her to let me leave.  

He did so but on the bike ride home, it started to storm so powerfully that I had to take refuge in a local bar where I ended up telling my tale of woe to the friendly bartender.  I recounted how, after class the day before, I had gotten so stoned on the ride home that I forget all about getting back quickly and at one point, I had to stop for a BLT with extra bacon at a local eatery.  Getting back on my bike, I came across an outdoor concert where the band was playing such enticing music that I needed to put in my own earbuds and listen to an audiobook to tear myself away.

After that, the bike path narrowed and I was barely able to squeeze past an SUV and a monster truck to continue on my way.

At this, the bartender took pity on me and loaded up my bicycle and me in her cargo van and drove us to my house.  I was pretty dirty and ragged upon my arrival so no one recognized me until my dog started barking and jumping with joy at my arrival.

I sent the soccer players packing and my wife emerged from the kitchen and asked if I could help her move our bed to a new spot in the bedroom.  I complained that it was too heavy; "it's you!" she cried, and she embraced me warmly. 

Home, at last!

Prospectus

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We believe that our platform operationalizes delight and makes manifest the unmanifested joy that consumers don’t even know they are seeking.  The model combines viral enthusiasm with optimized happiness that funnels a scalable ecosystem of joy into the hearts and minds of audiences far and wide (and near and slim, as well.)

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And now, back to work, and back to creating unbridled joy.

Love

We are creatures born of love (or, at least, lust), and so it is odd, isn’t it, that there is so much hate in the world.  

You’d think that the residue of what made us would hang around longer and result in lots more kindness, compassion, and caring, but I guess it evaporates quickly, leaving people with a hole in their hearts that all too often fills up with cruelty, indifference, and malice.  Nature hates a vacuum, which is why everything often sucks.

Somehow, it’s possible for teenaged boys to acquire handguns and bring them to a city-wide food festival.  Back in the day, to complain about someone cutting the line, you had to throw your falafel in their face; nowadays, you pop a cap in them and continue dining.

No nation is going to kill their way to peace; has that ever really worked?  For every head you cut off, two new ones grow; for every parent bombed to death, dozens of children rise to avenge.   The only way to stop the violence is to stop the violence; why isn’t that obvious?

Someone is profiting off the carnage, and I suppose, anyone who has mutual funds in their 401K is complicit in some way, as well.  But does being able to afford to travel during retirement justify the murder of innocent civilians with state-of-the-art AI drones?  Apparently, says the stock market, “yes.”

If only we all could remember that everyone, everywhere, is someone’s child, even that terrible, awful guy clipping his toenails in his seat on public transport.  It’s hard not to hate him, for sure, but what if that were you?  How would you feel about yourself?  Disgusted, dismayed, grossed out, (one would hope), but maybe, just maybe, if we could put ourselves in his shoes, then thankfully, we wouldn’t be able to reach our toes and would stop, just stop, even in the absence of hate.

And thus, there’d be more room for love.

Precious

 In her poem, “The Summer Day,” Mary Oliver asks, as everyone who’s ever been in the greeting card section of Wal-Mart knows, “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

As I sit here on Midsummer’s Eve (which oddly enough, occurs in spring—remember that for your trivia contests), I’m perfectly happy to answer: enjoying a Swiss cheese on rye sandwich while watching a World Cup soccer game between two teams I don’t really care about.

Granted, that’s not ALL I will do with it, but for now, it’s sufficient.  Of course, before the season is out, I hope to realize my essential nature as identical with the fundamental ground of all being and with any luck, make a major contribution to solving the homelessness crisis, but in the meantime, mustard, mayonnaise, relish, tomato, lettuce, and Swiss does the trick.

You only live once—thank goodness—so you might think that one’s plans for this wild and precious instantiation ought to be about maximizing experience and accomplishment at every moment and there’s much to be said for that, of course, especially if you’re in the business of selling vitamin supplements or even college course, but there’s also plenty to spoken about in favor of a life that isn’t treated as nearly so precious.  

Consider one, by contrast, that’s just kind of everyday, one that’s more like the flatware and less like the silverware, one that you don’t have to worry so much about breaking, one that stands up to day-to-day use and can still do its job even if cracked and dented a bit.

What this looks like in practice is open to interpretation, but perhaps it opens the proverbial door to such possibilities as afternoon naps, beach book reads, the occasional bout of day-drinking, and maybe even watching sporting events that one doesn’t care particularly much about in the basement on a sunny day just before summer begins.

Nothing

I suppose you could do something, but why?  

The sun’s going to deplete its fuel in a couple billion years, become a red giant, and burn up the entire solar system, so what’s the point of yard work, really?

Besides that, (and much sooner), global thermonuclear war is looking pretty likely, so I can’t see why one ought to reorganize their sock drawer, even though it’s kind of a mess.

Plus, I’m going to be dead in a couple of decades, so does it really make sense to spend the limited time I have left taking bags of books and clothes to Goodwill?

Plenty of great art created by human beings has already been created; I’m certainly no Shakespeare, but even I were, I’d already have more than three dozen classic plays in my oeuvre; would another couple really make a difference?  Probably not.

It might be noted that there is an endless number of social or political causes that are worth fighting for, but as a pacifist, how can I do so?  Much better to remain peaceably ensconced in this here easy chair, right?

Some say that we are put on this earth to fulfill a purpose, but that suggests that there is something or someone who’s in the business of handing out said purposes.  That’s a job I’d consider doing, but then how would I know that that was my purpose since I was the one handing them out?  Who shaves the barber, you know what I mean?

Passing on one’s wisdom to future generations might be a thing, but given how royally screwed things have gotten during this lifetime, it’s probably better for everyone if I don’t even pretend to have anything of value to impart.  Let it end here.  Or over there behind the bushes as the case may be.

None of us ever asked to be born but if we had, Dolly Parton would likely have a lot more kids. 

Thanks, Mom!

Missing

No, I’ve never heard of that guy until now.  What’s he famous for?

Sorry, I’m not familiar with that podcast.  Honestly, I’m not really a podcast person.

Yeah, I don’t know anything about that series.  I haven’t even ever seen The Wire or The Sopranos.

I don’t have Instagram; I can’t open the link to that reel you sent me.

It’s a post on Facebook?  I’m not able to access that, either; I don’t have an account.

Not even sure what Substack is; do you capitalize it or not?

I do know what TikTok is, though; I can’t say that I’ve ever watched a TikTok video, however.

That article is behind a paywall for that website; I’m not a subscriber.

I’m sure that episode you’re describing was hilarious, but I can’t really bring myself to watch reality TV.

She has tens of millions of followers?  Wow.  I’m not one of them.

I guess I’m just not influenced by that influencer.

I must be immune to that viral video.

There’s a new trend trending on the internet.  Apparently, I’m not trendy.

This next big thing isn’t big enough to include me.

You can’t have FOMO if you’re not even aware of the thing you’re missing out on.

Everybody’s doing it, except for me, I guess.

I’m late for the latest thing; too old for the newest trend; cold towards what’s hot.

I haven’t heard what everyone’s talking about; haven’t seen what all eyes are on; I’m not excited about what’s new and exciting.

I don’t have a feed or a timeline or a queue; I’m sure the algorithm knows all about my preferences, but I prefer not to know what it knows.

I’m sure I’d be more “with it” if I were more with it, but it’s all I can do to keep up with all I can do.

Maybe I could be famous if I were hungrier for fame.  

For now, I’ll just be what I am.