Poised at the Edge

 It’s getting hard to write. I no longer know what to say about life in America.

On the one hand, as we are aging in place, Carol and I remain in reasonable health and are constantly surrounded by loving wishes from friends and family.

On the other hand, there exists in full charge, a world of America I know longer recognize as American.  Although I never lived there, I keep thinking of Germany during the 1930s, when ordinary Germans elected Adolph Hitler. Did they understand what they were doing? Were they really that angry?

And are Americans so angry that they will elect somehow the likes of Donald Trump? I mean he is under dozens of criminal indictments and, if we allow the courts to proceed, he will likely be convicted and then sentenced to live in prison for the rest of his natural life. But then we have his republican supporters, who have begun throwing out threats to life and limb to those participating in these various pursuits of justice. Rep Jordan threatening the Georgia prosecutors, and he is but one of many. That January 6^th violence did not spring from nowhere. Republican abound in violence.  And there are apparently no “normal” republicans any longer. And what do I mean by “normal”? Well, I mean people who understand and believe in the rule of law and the American Constitution. They used to be people who were opposed to fascism/Nazism. Remember, Dwight Eisenhower, that dude who was a general during WW II and then served honorably as US President? Yeah, him. Well, turns out, he was a republican. Yep, I know, it’s hard to believe, but it’s true.  I think, for heaven’s sake, as awful as he might have been in my eyes, even Ronald Reagan would not understand this crew of today’s republicans. Imagine Reagan trying to understand Donald Trump. Or, worse yet, imagine a dinner party with Ronald Reagan, at one end of the table, Dwight Eisenhower at the other hand, and in the middle, Lauren Boebert, Marjorie Taylor Green, Jim Jordan, Matt Gaetz, Josh Hawley, and a half dozen other GOP Federal wannabees, like DeSantis.  Imagine that. I imagine the two at the table heads baffled, stunned even to listen to the idiot-malenfants at the table.

So, yeah, me, a mere libtard, I’m baffled. I don’t understand what I am witnessing. At this magic age of 88, I am actually contemplating in my head, where I should consider migrating. America seems actually headed towards oblivion, in the Germany-1936 sense. I think we may be at a not-so-early stage of national destruction. And then I think of grandchildren and even great grandchildren. What are we leaving to them? I still remember sitting in our front room during the 1940s, listening to the radio, and even hearing FDR occasionally on that radio telling us about the war.  Things seems grim, but my faith in America stayed strong. We would defeat those Nazi’s, I knew. Today, I am no longer so certain.  I listen still, but now I hear idiots like Jim Jordan threaten people because they are trying to maintain law and order in a country wherein Donald Trump is trying just as hard to move us back to 1930s Germany. And then Marjorie Taylor Green tells us all about Jewish space lasers.

So, David Brooks, where are you when we need you?  Where are all the republican intellectuals, telling their “conservative” followers to oppose GOP fascism? Where are you guys?? We need you.  The hordes of American pseudo-fascists need you to help them recover and return to sanity and to a civilized life. America is waiting, poised at the edge of a nearby cliff.  Do we head over, or will we turn around and return to civilized life? I think it may be in your hands. So do not fail us.

Endings 101

Recently, three of my friends have departed, and by that I mean they have died. But see our language and our imagination prevent us from saying simply “they died”.  Instead, we have invented this massive tale about what happens after we die. I guess, depending on how far away from reality we live in our minds, we believe different things. Many, many folks say, after someone dies, that they are now watching us from up above, that is, the person is now sitting on a cloud somewhere up above us and observing us.  Now that is just too weird, but it remains fairly common.

I have now reached a magic age—88+. In December, I will reach 89 years.  Yes, I climbed aboard this thing we call life on December 17^th, in the year 1934. Until recently, I was just cruising along like everyone else.  Then one day I realized that I had already surpassed in life years everyone of whom I am aware in my immediate family. That is, no one known to me as family has ever made it this many years.  A few came close, i.e., 85 years, but none, to my knowledge hit the upper 80s, or even 90.

And so, I am now looking at “life” a little differently. I understand that I may make it til 90, or, hopefully, even higher in years.  But I also understand that each day is special, a gift if you will.  And when a friend passes on, ceases to exist, I am saddened and sometimes shocked.  Recently, an especially close friend, George Stiles, died—bang out of the blue. We had just been trying to call him because we had not seen him in a while and he often stayed with us a day or two enroute to one of his kids.  And we failed to make contact by phone. So we thought maybe we just had an old telephone number, so I looked him up on the Internet, and what to my wondering eyes did appear but, “An Obituary for George Stiles”.  First, I thought, “no, it’s someone else”. But then I looked at the picture and, Yep, it was our dear friend George.

It was a shock. We could no longer speak with George. And then another reality came into my brain. George no longer exists. That is, his brain has ceased functioning, and so he no longer exists. And we can’t use these terms like, “he is gone”, or “George has departed”, or “oh my George has left us”.  And why can I not think those thoughts? Well, because, the reality of death is that the person who dies actually ceases to exist, because his brain stops functioning.  He is “dead” but he does not know he is dead, because he does not any longer “know” anything.

And, although I knew that, suddenly, with George, that reality set into my brain. Yeah, when I die, I will no longer know anything, including that I am dead. I will simply go dark, but I will not even know that everything just went dark.  No, but what will that be like? Well, nothing. Yeah, when life ceases, we do not know that life has just ceased. And that isn’t like anything that we have known throughout our long lives.

So, now, daily, I am aware of life and life things differently. When I look at a lantana flower or an hibiscus flower and then observe some critter on that flower, I watch it carefully. That life form is special because I am observing it. And it isn’t that I am now depressed thinking about life terminating. Oh I know it will and I have at least a dim understanding about cessation, but one can only dimly understand this end of life thing. Mainly, because there is nothing to understand. You are aware one second and the next you are not aware. And that is it. There is nothing else to understand.  Now we could, I assume argue about whether my conclusion is accurate, but such arguments are pointless, because we can never shed any light through evidence on the subject. So, you are free to believe the cloud thing, and I am free to believe the ending thing.  Why anyone argues about such things is quite beyond my comprehension, unless one belief gives someone control over another by that belief. Oh and that would be called religion, huh? OK, believe on folks. It’s all up to you. Whatever turns you on.