A Thought While Smoking

I just had one of those random thoughts that happen to me once in a while. Must be the nicotine.

Menopause and Erectile Disfunction are two of the best things that ever happened to civilization. And Cosmetic Surgery, Botox andViagra are among of the worst.

Stay with me here.

As we age naturally, we naturally separate ourselves from our youthful passions, and obsession with vanity, popularity, sexuality.

If left to Nature, our inclinations toward them decrease, our ability to engage in them decreases and the fresh, youthful beauty that once attracted partners with which to engage in them, decreases.

While some American perpetual teenagers find this depressing—a disease that needs a cure—it is really graduation from self-focus to other-focus. When we are able to detach from the immediacy of our passions, from vanity, from self-absorption...we find understanding, of each other, of humanity, of history, of politics, of truth.

This is why the elders of so many civilizations have been venerated.

And rightly.

We celebrate the child becoming an adult. We should also celebrate the adult becoming an elder. We should do it personally, within ourselves, rather than feeling bad that we are "getting old". And we should reflect that new pride in age and wisdom in new traditions, that recognize and honor the citizen that willingly and proudly leaves middle adulthood behind to seek and share the wisdom of experience and age.

We abjure that phase of life at our peril. Both on a personal level and a societal one.

The Gunslinger

Do You Have Your Boarding Pass?

As I mentioned in the last post, I set up my old drum kit. And even though I've lost most of my chops because of a ten year hiatus, it's still fun. In fact, as I sit there and pound away...I notice the old groove coming back a little.

("Chops?" "Groove?" Who IS this person talking?)

I poured a drink - bourbon and 7-Up. Lit a cigarette, and played drums - badly. 

Then it hit me. I found myself smiling....and NOT thinking about the imminent demise of the country for an hour or two. I was refreshed, at peace, unstressed for the first time, probably since 9/11/2001.

My biggest problem was doing a tom-tom roll while keeping the beat.

It was GREAT!
 
My "road to Damascus" moment set me on a path that has mostly excluded everything but politics. Spirituality, fun, music, even family has taken a back seat to my obsession with defeating the bastards who are running our culture — into the ground....into hell.

No. Not a "back seat". They have all but disappeared from my life. And it ain't healthy.

My inner life, my imagination is suffering. I'm getting old and tired from this fight. I know it energizes some people—born politicians.  But without respite, it's killing in me what I'm fighting for: my soul.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not stopping the fight. I've just realized that I need to feed the other parts of myself that have been rendered silent and still, that have begun to atrophy.

I'm always so focused on politics, I haven't read a novel in years. I can't remember the last time I read any work of fiction. All the books in the stacks waiting for attention are non-fiction political tomes. I'm not reading those either. I look at them, sigh and turn away.

I'm stuffed, stagnant. I can't recharge. I can't take another book, another outrage, another sentence of doom and ruin. I need to fucking LAUGH.

I wake up depressed, stiff, miserable. I sleep tense.

I'm enervated, yet restless. Nervous but lethargic.

Inner life. Imagination. Fantasy. Fun. Laughter. Spirituality. Music.

Without them, life is just what the fucking Liberals are trying to make it for all of us permanently: grey rows of ugly, dilapidated material sameness forever and ever amen.

I hope you're not doing the same thing.

We are the gypsies. We are the rebels. We are the story-tellers, the magicians, the players. We are the heroes and sometimes the martyrs. We are the risk-takers, the warriors, the empire builders.

We are NOT Courtiers, Bureaucrats, Whores, or Politicians. And while we fight them, we need to retain our joy, our love of the beauty and mystery of life and its possibilities. And you just can't do that if you are forever immersed in their sordid world.

We need to make regular visits to Our World. And leave the Aliens to eat each other for a change.

You may not need this advice. But I surely did. And I'm glad those silly drums provided it.

The Gunslinger
Currently boarding a flight of Fantasy