Full disclosure: You may have done,
or are still doing, stupid stuff, but deep down, you are a smart person. Everyone has the potential to
build a super collider, but some of us choose to put a paperclip in an electrical
outlet.
***
Quite a lot has happened since my last post. The short
version is I think I had a mental break down/upgrade/low-grade epiphany/self-exorcism
kind of thing occur. While my brain reassembled, and writing struggled to come
to me, it gave me time to get a more holistic view of what is going on in the
world.
Wow. My timing is, and continues to be, impeccable.
This isn't my first trip Being Undone, so I feel a bit
seasoned when it comes to falling apart and then coming back together again.
It's just my version of picking myself up after falling. Everyone has their
version. Some of us are professionals. The point is to Come Back Together
[comments about Enlightenment redacted].
But I'm rambling.
I've noticed recently people seem to be overwhelmed (more so
than usual). We're bombarded with so much information. Unless you know what is
and isn't crap, you're getting it too fast powered by too much emotion to
process it properly. Domino Effect- 40. Mob mentality-30. Common sense-15.
Wash. Rinse. Repeat.
I've begun to actively seek information from sources that do
not rely on over stimulating the senses to get attention. I've noticed the
subtly of that tactic.
A large chunk of the beauty of what is emerging is that we
are figuring things out. We are sorting out for ourselves what we do and do not
deem okay, and we are getting there, not really on our own but On Our Own. You
see someone touch a hot skillet, you learn that touching a hot skillet may not
be a wise choice. You see another way to pick up a hot skillet. Hark! An oven
mitt!
The key is education, and it's very simple. Everything has a
history to give us context. Most of the time, the history is fascinating. For
example, rarely does a war begin out of the blue with the first shot. A series
of things led to the first blast.
If you had to place a label on my household, it is liberal
[comments on the current political system redacted]. My husband read two
biographies, one about Richard Nixon and the other on Barry Goldwater written
by Rick Perlstein. My husband read the biographies because he wanted to
understand the origins of the modern Republican Party so when he watches/reads/listens
to the news he has a better idea of what the hell is going on with a portion of
our political system. He's done this with other political, religious, social,
etc. topics. My husband is a quiet, technological, hermit genius. He's cool
like that.
One of the best things I've ever learned about not believing
in something I learned from the 1st true nonconformist I'd ever met. He said
(and I'm paraphrasing because it's been at least 15 years), 'I believe if
you're not going to believe in something, you should read and understand why
you don't believe in something before you choose not to believe in it. The same
goes for believing in something.'
Watching all the beauty and horror in the world has helped
me have an angle of perspective I didn't have a few weeks ago. Solutions show
up in my consciousness. I think the joy and challenge for me, as it has been
for other writers, is to take the clay and work it into stories for people who
want to have a conversation and let the talk go where the talk goes. Sometimes
the truth of reality is too much and to place it in a palatable medium of
fiction makes the fact of real life easier to deal with when we're bombarded
with "reality" TV [comments on Reality TV redacted].
More thoughts are sure to follow.
