A Begging Society

 We have all gone through a trying time that isn't over yet. Everyone has endured a great deal of time and effort trying to get past the various problems associated during the Covid pandemic. Our government which is basically "us" in terms of elections and tax paying, deemed to provide relief in the form of funding to alleviate individuals, businesses and services during the worst of the pandemic shut down. As we emerge from this terrible disease, thanks to those who have done the right thing and taken the vaccines and whatever other practices were necessary, we hope to struggle out of the situation without too much loss. But unfortunately, there are some individuals who enjoyed the free ride and deign to give up looking for re-employment, who are willing to live on the lower standards that their funded lives were offered. At the same time, some kinds of businesses who need this worker are suffering. Now that it has been announced that much of this free money is going to end, there is the usual rant and complaining. It appears that the move isn't all hard hearted, however. What will happen is a filtering out of those who can and should go back to work, and those who are in desperate need for the money to continue. And that's a good thing. A friend of mine said that he found work, no matter what the pay, made his life worth living. It gave him a purpose for getting up each morning and doing something useful, however humble. I liked the sound of that. We are a work effort people.  Our society should watch that it doesn't turn into one that holds out a begging hand first, in hopes of money not earned but handed out. It can become dangerous to become that sort because it dulls one's sense of the basic human need to "work". Most people like their holidays and times off, but when these become an everyday pattern, it kills ambition and the human need and right to expend effort to receive reward. There is something very satisfying about getting that paycheck, and while we all complain it isn't enough because it never can be, we love to look at that figure in the bank account, one that we worked for. If that is taken away, we "flat line". We lose something of our psyche. While it may sound academic, it really isn't. Since the time we are very young, we always feel very pleased when we accomplish a task, do something for ourselves or build something for someone else and are praised for it. During some poorer or primitive societies that saw aides going to places who asked for help, it was found that providing the tools and expertise to equip those with the need was the best solution. People can then build personal and cultural pride in helping themselves and are thus inspired to create their own solutions done their own ways. That seems to be the most successful kind of society to live in. It's a slippery slope but one worth climbing. It's just too  easy begging and whining and blaming and being monetarily rewarded for it. It kills pride and teaches merely a continuance of the very problem itself.  

Book Expletivity

 When searching the net for a new book to read, I come across expletives such as "hilarious" or "fascinating" or "terrifying" or "intriguing". Far too often, I am taken in by the book blurb. Rather than reading a sample of the first couple of pages that gives me a relatively reliable overview of what is to come, I fall into the "buy blind" trap.  Everyone has a readership style. In my book club experience, for example, well, one of them, group members show how many varied tastes there are. Some are mystery fans, others like the suffering experience tales and still others enjoy a goofy romance. There are as many genres as there are readers. When you're my advanced age, however, you develop a jaded outlook when you look for a good read. You become very "fussy" about language and originality and honesty among other book needs. For example, the other day I saw an ad for a "hilarious" tale written by a librarian and since that was once my work forte, I bought it. It wasn't expensive, and when I turned on my Kindle, yes, I like that kind of reading as well as turn-the-page kind, it didn't take long to chuck the book.  It wasn't anything close to hilarious. The one example the author clung to, a rude occurrence amongst the stacks, simply wasn't funny. What intrigued me about the blurb before I bought the thing, was the word "hilarious" in reference to librarians. Now that's funny!  For some odd reason, even though the author explained why he did it, he also included articles taken from various sources into his pages. First of all, I dislike interruptive bits tossed in, when I am reading, and while this author can do as he jolly well pleases, being an author and all, it turned me off. The plugged-in articles were in a print that was so tiny, I needed a magnifying glass to read some of them. It wasn't my Kindle at fault, because on that, I can enlarge the print, it was mostly that after going along with this silly idea, the choice of articles was unconnected to the theme. What on earth is this writer doing? I asked myself. I am all for writers doing what they choose, but to a point. What I don't get, is why? If you have a good story to tell, tell it. Don't muck it up with little literary rocks and branches in the pathway to finis. The crux of the issue is that obviously no editor was involved or perhaps one that was too kind. Writers who scribble out their "books", and they are legion these instant cyber-publishing days, often do not have an editor. That's dangerous. We readers want what we pay for, and that is simply and clearly, a good yarn be it fiction or non. We want to come to the last page and think, wow, that was good. A great tale feels like a superb dinner .Satisfying the hungry reader means, it will return to you, search for you and take an interest in you. It means you are an author, not some jolly hack who pops in a manuscript that is full of errors and bad writing because of its warped ego. Anyone can be a writer, but not everyone can be an author. No wonder people depend upon the Kings and Atwoods and Grishams. 

Trekker's Short Trek

 William Shatner, a Star Trek chief, had his turn to go into space, however, brief and costly. He's ninety. Frankly, like you, I wondered if he'd come back alive. Not only did he do that, he made more sense than any of the others, much younger, when he stepped back onto this planet. When I learned that he was going to make this rather silly adventure, the ultimate circus ride, I thought "here we go again, having to abide another rich man's nonsense". But, not so, his comments were quite profound. While the other uniformed passengers, as they called them, rather than super circus fair riders, The Captain's remarks were almost ignored by the host, the provender of these delights, but Shatner kept his cool and said what he saw reminded him of  the frailty of life, its brief nature and its value being so.  He remarked on the seeming instantaneous passing from our life-giving atmosphere into that of a dead black emptiness in outer space. His impressions were profound, making a great deal of sense when one thinks of how important the relatively thin bit of oxygenated air we enjoy is taken for granted.  He stated that he saw from far above perhaps only fifty miles above our thin blue band, and what a beautiful home earth is and that he finally saw the difference between life and death. He wondered if the blackness of space could be compared to death, while the blue of the earth may represent life. He asked, "Is the blackness of space, what death is like?" I am not a Star Trek fan particularly, but I did very much enjoy the show's episodes and the imaginations of those who created them. Nothing is more entertaining than seeing presented,  a different place and different events on which to stretch our imaginations to and beyond their limits. Star Trek did this. On watching the ten or so minutes of this real voyage into space, a fully commercial flippant toy for the rich, while at the same time, a possibly lethal choice, I couldn't entirely dismiss it as shallow.  Even though it is the apogee of silly. The incredibly rich do silly things and we love to watch them because, hey, they are putting themselves into it. Not us. It's much safer and way cheaper to be ordinary and we must be kind of grateful for those who go on these flights and help stimulate our incredible and impossible ambitions. What I felt when I saw William Shatner tear up as he commented on his rapid upsy downsy flight into space, was a closeness for the man. He isn't a lot older than I am, and I congratulate him for the physical toll that it must have taken for making this adventure. The others with him, were much younger and when they touched down and got out of the tiny close cabin that brought them safely back, they jumped out and clutched their groupies with yells and whoops and champagne flying about. None of them seemed deeply affected with serious thoughts. At least not yet. That will come to them later but Mr. Shatner didn't fall into the celebrity whoohah trap. He had something serious to say about it and even his host at one point, said the camera, was distracted and turned  to the other foolishness going on while Shatner was broken off mid-sentence, still evidently more deeply affected at what had just happened while the others were jumping about in excitement.  I was most impressed by this man, not his celebrity, but his thoughtful comments that make him the truly great person he must be. Good on yuh Mr. Shatner. Welcome home!

Cloud Watch

 Most of us don't pay much attention to clouds, but to me, they are my daily breakfast. Yes, I am retired and I take full advantage of it. Being a single, offers many benefits: do what you wish when you wish how you wish the way you wish. One of my "wishes" is to do what I did as a child: to play, to listen and read and snack and watch. I am done with protesting and serving and working and worrying, obligations and friendships and relationships or any other kinds of ship. I like being alone and in that, not thinking about what loneliness means. Loneliness is very much of one's own doing. There are alone benefits such as cloud watching, that cost nothing but give a lot. Even working people can do it if they try. Every morning, I am an early riser, I take the cup of coffee with honey and cream and sit on my little deck in my swinging basket chair and look up. I am not in a marble glass concrete structure but in an old, bit tacky one I love, and I do look mostly at the back of another building, but from my deck, I have a lovely wide and long patch of sky with ten gorgeous tall cedars and firs poking above. I call them my sentinels because where I live on a hill top above the sea, they are some of the few left to protect us from Pacific winds. Today, for example, there is storm brooding. It isn't in full roar but the great trees are bending and bowing to it, the firs are dancing. And above in the sky I see flying past, gigantic dinosaurs of unknown kind, dragons and monsters and strange fish made of cloud. They come from the sea and their changing shapes and forms sail past while a few braver gulls and small flocks of crows are brave enough to try out the wind's invisible demands. Yesterday, a perfect vee of geese or swans or some other sizeable bird flew in a determined shape northward and thrilled me to know it was fall here and now. When I was a kid, right before becoming an adolescent, I used to lie on a small mountain of moss covered granite on my grampa's farm in Haney, and look up at the sky wondering what my life would be. Now four decades later, I remember that moment and those clouds, as if it were yesterday. What did that child know what was to come: the births, the places, the people, the work, the deaths and divorces and dark times and most of all the joyous, beautiful ones? And here I am now, watching clouds and wondering how many people think of looking at them for longer than "looks like rain today" or "oh boy, it's a day for golf". Taking time to watch a cloud go from your horizon, left to right and then pick up another batch heading in the same direction, giving the shapes names and fantasy destinies  is a form of meditation that fades out problems and pain. It gives you a holiday from what stress you created for yourself, and takes you to places you didn't think you owned. In our very heads we have endless entertainments ready to be picked up and explored and clouds help us do just that. If we let it. Cloud watching is a little like trying out walking in snow or standing in the rain naked, or lying on your back in a grassy field and breathing everything around you and listening to the quiet. There's far more to life when you take twenty minutes of your life and try just being. Outside the tower you work in, or at your desk or in the classroom or factory or shop or restaurant, there is another life for you. It's up there in the sky. Your clouds await.