I'm Slow but I Get There

It's taken me this long to realize that some (maybe many) people who believe in karma are easily swayed from that belief when their lives and (sometimes more importantly) the lives of others don't go to their expectations. Ha. :D

How are y'all? I have been really enjoying my time away, marveling at this weather and wondering how it's going to affect various ecosystems. (What do we do about the habitat of the spotted owl when nature goes ahead and shifts it altogether in one fell swoop? Who do we protest against and how does the government stop it from happening? :D ) Lookin' forward to getting more videos made - gonna go shorter with those and more topical - and posts published. The Dudes have been working on a 'fun and family-friendly' (per the directive of Dude, Jr., who is after all the creator and director) animated series as well as some building projects. Family, work, critters, and writing have been keepin' me occupied.

I find myself reluctant to reenter the social media world at this point, as it has this tendency to creep into taking more and more time, just a little more here and there until it's more than I like. In my world here, on this little piece of land and in this little house, oh, we have our stuff. Like, we have nine cats. That's too many, but they can't make more and those that are here will be with us until they move on from this life, at which time they will not, unless we forget our current sometime frustration, be replaced. Or unless Dude, Jr. falls in love with one or wants one badly after a period of consideration, but he'd rather have a pug. And a pig, not necessarily in that order. Pigs are his favorite critter with pugs running a close second, but I digress.

In our world here, things are good. There are things to complain about (what's life without some of those), but they're beyond our current reach, out of our control, and beyond being kinda fun to bond over bitching about (sometimes, for a little while) ultimately unimportant. Really the only concerns we have are financial ones, they're more hypothetical and more focused on things we'd like to upgrade or improve than things we don't have or can't cover so we can't really complain on that front, and who doesn't have some level of financial concern right now? Well: There are these folks. Funny that, the idea of stashing and hoarding a currency entirely reliant upon social investment and trust. Those who are truly the most financially unstable are those who are the most financially dependent, which in most but not all cases is to a greater degree than anyone those who have the most money/other assets of socially-perceived, i.e., not real, value.

And there ya go. That's what I do on Facebook, go off on tangents that take an hour and a half to say, much less type and edit, and waste half a sunny day bitchin' about social issues I can't change except, to whatever degree my life touches that of others, by the way I live that life. I'd much rather be happy where I am with what I've got than be mad at people who have the means to buy certain services and creature comforts many or most of us can't. We may or may not choose to buy the same things if we were in the same position, but it'd sure be nice to have the need to make the choice, or even the choice to spend or save.

Here's another one: It makes me angry to read a passage in Popular Science (or Mechanics, our two fave mags, good for bathroom reading) saying essentially that we're not developing alternative energy sources because there's still just so much petroleum-related fuel to be drawn out of the ground. I mean, God (or whatever you choose to call that which is not you as well as yourself) forbid we should leave any oil or natural gas in the ground. Not like it serves a purpose there or anything; let's all remove the lymphatic fluid from our bodies and see how that goes. One day maybe science will catch up in understanding that the earth itself functions around a dynamic system. Like the bodies of humans and other organisms, like the solar system, like a galaxy or a cell or the universe itself, the earth contains a variety of materials and energies that interact as delicately as those of any other closed system.

Extracting materials from the ground is going to affect the workings of the system on every level, and while that's not inherently wrong, it is on us as the ones in the equation who will suffer if we go wrong to determine how much of what we can take from that system and where without throwing it into a state that kills us. The earth will go on regardless, and our apparent ideal of taking 'as much as we can get' of anything before we stop... well, that's not always self-destructive and we are very resourceful, adaptable organisms - remarkably so really - but it's more often self-destructive than ultimately productive. In this case, it remains to be seen if we've maintained a reasonable and workable balance, but things aren't looking good for continued survival of a large portion of the species without significant adaptation along the way even in the near-term at the moment.

So anyway, right now I'm in a habit of walkin' away from the news when I find myself gettin' all righteously indignant, instead of sharing, and discussing, and spendin' a bunch of energy on it, only to throw up my hands and still have to let it go when I realize it's an issue that's too big to tackle in any meaningful way except to focus on myself, my family, our friends and loved ones and communities, and 'be the change I want to see', or in other words, "Stop bitchin' about it and do what needs doing in my world right now." :D It could be that I've lost the energy for righteous anger, but I think I just prefer life without it, especially given the tendency of the universe to slap us in the face with our own manifestation of whatever it is we've decided to be 'righteously' angry about (that karma thing I mentioned in the beginning). :D So I find myself checkin' out Facebook over Dude's shoulder from time to time, wavin' at whomever he may be fillin' me in on, but without a whole lot to say as long as I know you're all well, which ya are.

Happy Hump Day tomorrow. Have an excellent rest of your week!

Love ya,

Peace