by JR , the Billionth
Aliright. I’ve been an analog person for a long time, but this kindle reader that you can write in is changing my mind. Instead of having 5 paper journals, I now have them in one digital one, along with a library organized by themes. Usually I spent 400 bucks a year on paper and pens, but this eliminates that expense.
Love it.
A pretty perfect day. Awoke at 4:30 , as if something were pulling me out of bed. I immediately wrote, then went for a starlit walk with my wife. For some reason I had the notion that my red glasses would return to me. I scheduled time to clean the house in search of them.
After finishing my writing session at 8:30, my oldest and I went out for coffee and when we returned, the red glasses were sitting on my jeep.
I took it as a sign to get bold again.
4. Do you want to be the band-aid or do you want to part of be the cure?
On this morning’s walk, the old man with the chihuahua didn’t say good morning. Instead, he stared at the woods that were getting destroyed by heavy machinery. One of the backhoes had the size, strength and roar of a dinosaur in a Jurassic Park.
I joined him for a moment because I get it.
It’s in our dna.
The only fossil is this picture.
Rolling the half-full garbage can to the curb, I could feel it wobble as the contents moved around on the inside. The weight was shifting.
If it were empty, there would be no weight to shift around– therefore there would be fewer wobbles.
If it were full, the space inside would be minimal– therefore there would be no room for the objects to shift and cause unbalance.
It’s a message– be full of commitment to one singular purpose to stay balanced or be empty to achieve the same balance, yet be unfulfilled.
Those are the only real options because the consequence of being half-empty and half-full causes accidents. Things tip over during the wobble and everything gets messy.
For our evening walk, my wife wears her canary-yellow clogs. They guide us, brightening the walk and pavement, illuminating the dark in a manner that matches faith.
Our pace is quick so as to get home before the bats come out. I despise the winged mice filled with rabies, rumored to be blind, and dependent on echolocation to identify prey, friends, and to search the world for basic needs.
They can hear the shape of my leg , my location and even the stray hair on my beard.
Then I begin to wonder what the color “yellow” sounds like to bats, if its particular shade bounces back into the its ears, and if there’s a particular timbre to it. Yellow may sound like a church bell chime that ripples as water ripples, disturbed by a skipping stone. Or maybe yellow is the color of an angel’s song, just before the dark world ends , because the sun rises, chasing the bat away, dissolving into the dark as dark recedes from our awareness.
The smaller the leader, the bigger the bureaucracy .
The smaller the bureaucracy, the bigger the leader.
A car on a jack, revving its wheels at maximum RPM, and getting nowhere.
Sometimes that’s what a day feels like. Spinning, making noise, being loud.
The road doesn’t meet the rubber.
Instead, you have to drop the car , let the tires hit the road, and steer like you’re going some place.
Waiting or resting? The activity is the same, but the intent differs. Either can imply doing nothing, being inactive, being paused.
But with waiting, there’s the anticipation that something will happen. Depending on what that something is, waiting can be tiring and even anxiety inducing. Waiting to hear back from a job or a doctor can induce panic and create a monologue that ripples through your psyche– causing doubt.
Resting, on the other hand, is doing nothing and being paused to regenerate, to rest, to gather power and energy like a tropical storm over the ocean, in warm air, until it reaches its final form of a hurricane.
So are you waiting or are you resting?
The choice is yours, but mine is clear. I’m resting– it’s a sabbath between two roles — one in the past, and the other is simply someday, somewhere, sometime– but I’ll be ready.
Ever get the feeling that every action is just another cover up story for something more devious, something dirty, something to be kept secret until the timing’s right? I hope not, because living that way seems dark. To second guess each person’s intentions; to faithlessly utter words that shout but have no evidence; to look over your shoulder in your own home; to never understand the beauty of trust and faith in one another. All of that adds up to a kind of hell I don’t want to imagine. The sprinting from one pole of reality to the next possibility, without confidence , will do things to the human spirit that just aren’t good.
And yet, here we are. September 15th, 2024.
It’s 6:00 PM and my daughter is talking to me about Taylor Swift. She doesn’t mention anything about Russia, Ukraine and NATO. Nor does she say anything about the former president playing golf. But she does talk about church and Christ and that’s helpful.
Yet it’s the glamour of Taylor’s thigh-high boots, her fame, and her presidential endorsement and the fallout that she wants to talk about. We have five minutes, in this short time between the four mile forest hike we just took and dinner. She doesn’t mention the different shades of brown we saw amongst a herd of deer, leaping from one side of the ditch to the other, through sunlight that bleached them yellow, until landing. There’s a bourbon brown, soft bronze, copper-brown , as many shades as the world has eyes.
But she wants to talk about Taylor Swift. I think she’s just more comforting.
It makes sense. Taylor Swift is a common story– as daily as a weather report and more frequent than every rosary bead that slips through your fingers. If you share her, there’s something you have in common with the world. She’s the Type O negative blood type of casual conversations– everyone can receive her– and she’s wholesome. If you have nothing to say, just ask anyone a question– like, “Hey, have you seen Taylor’s latest post?”
“OMG! I can’t believe it.”
“Wait, wait wait, don’t tell me about it. I haven’t had my phone in 5 hours. I just wanted to get excited.”
But you can’t talk about other things.
You can’t mention God and not offend a person.
You can never really commonly say you are proud of the president.
Nor can you assume that every family is traditional, so now the default family is non-traditional.
And you can’t mention truths for fear of losing your livelihood.
But you can mention Taylor Swift. And you can create new words to explain something that isn’t real. And you can dance as a naked sex god in front of children, and you can confuse kids by sending them to ambitious counselors who tell them they are either depressed, gay, trans, or hyperactive.
But you can’t mention God, or why our country is the greatest country in the world. You can’t discuss policy. You can’t discuss truth. But Taylor Swift can be spoken of all day long. She’s a safe word.