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Values

It was easy to think of the ways to fight and administration wrought with corruption, defined by greed, and blinded by a twisted ideology. But read history. In its annals one will find pages of fights documented of the same people fighting the same enemy time and time again.

It becomes clear that the fight that needs to be addressed is not only a political one, but a personal one as well. It becomes obvious that the horrors of history, of human-brought destruction, evil, greed, and violence are the symptoms, and not the causes of dictators, profiteers, and authoritarians. The cause of our killing the world and ourselves is, in fact, the values that we hold.

Wendell Berry said it best when he wrote: “We are familiar enough with the nature of American salesmanship to know that it will be done in the name of the starving millions, in the name of liberty, justice, democracy, and brotherhood, and to free the world from communism.”*

If what we value is consumption and ease, and only those things, then we can wish for nothing other than the world we live in and the continued fight against rank stupidity. It is the values that we hold that have gotten us here. We have to change what we value, and why we value the things that we do to end the cycle of a history filled with horror and disillusion.

A Day in the Life: Hands

He looked at his hands. They were scarred but soft. Every wrinkle had been earned. He even say the faded white line of the pig’s last dying kick, the hoof catching him between his thumb and forefinger.

The seventeen stiches on his index finger; the soft, pink leftovers of that night, slightly discolored was a reminder of a past he wanted to forget and a future he wanted to live once more.

The incidental cuts on his knuckles that showed up, often caked with dirt, left little dots. He pulled the small flap of skin of a scrape off and let the dirt coagulate the blood. One more dot.

His fingers showed his life. The broken knuckle at the end of one of his fingers, the flattened finger nail, his obsession, his hatred and his happiness. “Shit!” he almost yelled as a piece of sharp wood wedged its way into his palm leaving a red blotch and a piece of wood sticking out. He pulled it out and continued working.

Over the years his hands slowly changed from soft and dimpled to calloused and dirty and back again. His pride altered with the time stamped on his hands.

A Day in the Life: Demons and Ghosts

Every morning was a cool, grey reprise from the dark night of ghosts and demons that would torture him. The mornings were times when he would look out over the frontier of his future and see wide open spaces. He had grown up in a world and believed in a world of plans and goals. Now he had neither.

He was older and surrounded by a dystopian world. Computers generated music and automatic “authors” pumped out whole books in minutes. The fantasy of those who couldn’t was hurriedly becoming the nightmare of those who could.

Cellphones were a sickness and e-bikes were exercise. But he wrote anyway and pedaled his bike up hills happily. Although it was inevitable that the world would change, people were…well, they were what they were and anyway, he thought, he wouldn’t let the laziness and inanity of human ‘progress’ hold him back.

He wouldn’t be subsumed into a black hole of buying rather than learning. He would not fall for cheap trinkets and sell his soul so easily. He would earn every sentence and every inch with thought and sweat. He still needed to work for what he accomplished, not because he was a good man but because he didn’t want to live in the dark world of the demons and ghosts of his nights.

A Day in the Life: Age

It is not death that brings on judgement day, it is age. Age, the years lived or not, the lies told to ourselves and others. Age sat him down in a room of excuses made while they whispered in his ears. They were ghosts from his past, most forgotten. But age had not forgotten.

Age was judge and jury and every day in that house was another day in prison, another whisper in the room, another problem to be solved. His age sat silently making notes. It didn’t matter that he screamed “I DIDN’T KNOW!” Age would look up and past him and then down at his life’s ledger.

There was nothing to do with age or with anything. Age was reality. There was only reality and there was no escape but one. He looked around at others that had outlived their age: afraid of dying, not aware that it was age that was their enemy, not death.

He was not going to let age win. He was not going to accept its forgone conclusions. Age was an option, he remembered, and it was himself that gave it the power it had.

A Day in the Life (5)…

We are monkeys at the end of the day. Oohing and aahing, competitive and looking over our shoulders, afraid of our own shadows and smiling nervously at the unknown.

He thought about this as he looked at the hair on his arms. Rubbing his fingers across his forearm back and forth he was lost in thought. He imagined the Serengeti a thousand years ago with a tuft of trees off in the distance. He imagined the silence, the danger, the excitement. But he knew it would have been exciting for his tree-bound ancestors. They probably didn’t experience excitement but only fear and anger: the same thing in difference guises.

He rubbed the hair on his forearms again and imagined himself in the Serengeti. It was different now. And although he had never been he knew it would be different now. Probably overrun with grimy-clad people and garbage. The jungles, he imagined, were gone now. Nature, he imagined, had been burned back for the sake of prostitution and progress. And still, and still were were only apes looking over our shoulders and nervously smiling, afraid of our own shadows.

He rubbed the hair on his forearms and thought about the cost of boredom.

A Day in the Life (4)…

The famous Socratic adage rang clear and true every day, every year. Deep down he had never changed. He had remained faithful to his love and devoted to his dreams and child-like joy for approaching the world with open eyes and open arms.

Unlike his child-like joy his wise adult self succumbed to the child’s surprise. It succumbed to the strangest things. Slavery instead of freedom, whispers of trapped prisoners in dark cells instead of the glorious screams fresh air, fields, and sunshine. He ran on a treadmill instead of country paths. But all the while he fed the small child in the gilded cage inside his mind.

He was older now, if not wiser he was more aware. He realized that courage did not come at a high cost. It required honestly and nothing else. Acceptance was the real expense and he had paid. Always knowing, he had paid. Even after the debt was freed from his shoulders he had paid. Even after…

But now he was loosening the chains from the gilded cage and freeing the small curious child that had waited patiently in the darkness for his freedom.

A Day in the Life (3)…

He had bought into the cheap stories and the tales of “how things are.” He had accepted the drug and watched his hand, as if he were a stranger, slide the needle into another stranger’s arm. He had bought the hype, the judgement, the promises, the normalcy, the consumer-ridden meat that he had been offered.

He had fought it in his own way throughout the years, enjoying the grimaces and frowns of disappointment from the courts of social righteousness but he had always conformed. He had twisted his dreams just enough to keep him in with the in-crowd. He had given in to the pressures of the expectations just enough to get a disapproving nod from strangers.

Looking back now he realized that he was ashamed. Had had been ashamed of who he was; of being creative, of being curious. He wanted to learn and wanted to see and understand intellectually. He wanted to know how. These were considered strengths in theory but truly he was ashamed that he pursued these things.

He had been ashamed of who he was and had instead bowed to the wants of strangers for nothing more than acceptance and even the occasional smirk. It had not been worth it but he didn’t know then what he knew now.

A Day in the Life (2)…

He really had no ideas how he had done it, how he’d pulled it off. Though the thought that all of it had been the result of hard work, persistence, talent and tenacity was inviting the truth of it was that it was circumstance, situation and luck. The experimentation of life had been a success although he didn’t understand how or why.

He was an experimenter of life, trying new things and making just enough money at them. He had fulfilled goals and even a few dreams but had had to fight the empty judging glare of society that was always out for an explanation. He owed it none and knew it but still it poked his brain, a rat in a cage.

At least until lately. The strange thing was that he looked at progress by reviewing the past. Living in the present, planning the future and measuring progress by the past was dizzying, leaving a stomach-churning felling that was a constant presence. He had always assumed that was ubiquitous, that everyone thought of life as an experiment in G-forces.

He had always believed that clarity would eek out of a crack in a slowly opening door, fighting rusty hinges. But he was wrong.

A Day in the Life…

Yet again the universe was dropping choice turds in front of him. “That’s life!” some would say, without thinking. But it wasn’t really life. It was how you led your life, and he had tried, failing many times. He had tried to lead a good life. Looking at the finish line looming nearer and nearer, the idea of good was fading in favor of some peace and quiet.

The suburbs were never a good idea. They were never a good thing but for the time being he was hidden in their mazes of bland and beige houses. He was comfortable. But now he found he wasn’t opposed to it. The city had become even more of a monstrosity of human ugliness with every sort of man-made evil laid out for consumption.

It offered a never-ending comfort if you had the cash and if you didn’t mind watching the world burn from a comfortable chair. He sipped his coffee and pondered about the cement and trees that surrounded him. Comfort came in many forms bot for now he enjoyed its soothing but stern grasp knowing all the while that the thorns would show themselves at any moment.

Guns, God and Greed: Excerpt

“Is that legal?” the Leader asked.

“Legal?!” the assistant answered, looking surprised. Surprised that the Leader was asking a question rather than bleating out his “facts”. He was also surprised at the naivete of the question.

“Law is for those who can’t afford anything else. And besides, we make law. We interpret law. Do you think that having automatic weapons available to every half-wit dumbass in this country ought to be legal?

The Leader had a grim look on his face.

“NO!” the assistant answered, “No fucking way! But they are and that’s the law.”

Now he was on a roll.

“Law is a useful weapon, though. It’s a gun that can be pointed at our enemies.

The advisor interjected, “There you go again with your useless analogies…”

“Metaphors” the assistant corrected.

The advisor shook his head in disgust and smiled at the now sulking Leader. He was confused into silence. He didn’t like feeling stupid. He would have to make someone else’s life a little worse, a little more miserable. That was his gun.