The Next Four Months Through the Palantir.

Laughing at the universe when the universe seems dedicated to sucking all the joy out of life is a form of defiance, necessary if we want to do more than survive. I submit that the months of 2020 have engaged in a year long experiement of "Hold my Corona."

The following are by no means guaranteed outcomes of the coming four months, but these are our best guesses as to what is yet to come:

10) Technology allows dogs to talk to us, and we discover they're not quite as impressed with us as we thought.

9) The internet produces a strange merger of Baby Shark, Friday and the Nyah Nyah Pop tart cat that is both catchy and unstoppable, trending to the point of melting everyone's brains.

8) Fashion declares kulottes and puffy sleeves are in again. Everyone looks like balloon animals that lost some of their air.

7) Chocolate in all its forms is found to be unhealthy and banned. Likewise for beer, wine and bacon. Riots ensue.

6) The only music allowed by the algorhythms that dominate I Heart Radio are Rick Ashley and Bonnie Tyler, and so we're in a total ecplise of the heart which we are never gonna give up.

5) Netflix runs out of shows. So does every other streaming and cable network.

4) When Disney goes bankrupt and the House that Mickey Built turns out the lights, the films go into the vault and we never get to binge watch the 22 films of the Marvel Universe again...we're just stuck with the stupid Fox X-men series.

3) Food Network, in a desperate attempt to remain relevant when all restaurants are floundering, is 24-7 Restaurant Impossible, and hires Tom Cruise as a secondary co-host. People don't mind it, but the food, like Cruise's body of work, is so forgetable, people don't remember what they ate 24 hours later.

2) Facebook, Twitter and all social media, in an attempt to curb misinformation block everybody. It doesn't help.

1) The 24-7 Christmas radio program that normally starts in mid November, starts September 5th, if only because we can't be sure we'll make it to December. Finally, cats also respond to the technology and they think about us just what we always thought.

We Don't Know and We Should Stop Pretending

If there's a theme to 2020, it's that every other year looks rosy by comparison.  It shouldn't, but it does, mostly because after six months of bad news, of frightening news, of traumatizing news, we no longer expect to hear anything else, such that a sunny day, a plane landing safely, and a week without  major unrest is now news.   We're in the years where the fat cows were eaten by the thin ones, and we're not Egypt. 

After watching a series of worskhops on helping students to handle stress, I thought to myself, we are the blind leading the blind, because we're all stressed and the handling of stress is something highly idocyncratic.   Listening to flutes and waves and breathing may be peaceful for some, and it does erode the hard points after a time, but for others, it merely reminds us that we are deliberately seeking to shave down the sharp edges of the word.  Knowing what people are stressed about is an ongoing matter of making connection, and seeking to either address the actual needs, or at the very least, provide comfort while enduring whatever it is.

There is so much that we're enduring, how do we help blunt the edges when the edges are so very visible?  It's not that the world needs to be shrink wrapped, but that we need to by our words and actions make the world actually less full of sharp points that cut the soul.

First, we should stop pretending we know because we don't.
We should also recognize, all we know, is subject to change.
The only cure in the meantime before there's a cure, is kindness.
The only cure even when there is a cure, is even more kindness.
If we want to de-stress everyone, everyone is suffering from a shortage of kindness.
It's that simple, it's that true.
The result will be, a return of the time of feasts, if not in reality, then in our hearts. 

At the Catholic Standard Today

The Eucharist Never Leaves Us.

Writing's been hard lately

I apparenly have limited capacity, it's something I've always tried to ignore.  However, I find if I exercise, it's harder to write. If I teach, it's harder to exercise. If I clean the house it's harder to teach.  So whatever I pick first, determines what becomes harder to do. 

I'm just letting you know why the blog and my house is a mess.  I've been going for a walk/jog every morning it's not raining, and I'm teaching a class.  So today is Saturday. I have no excuse not to clean the hosue or write.  So I'm doing both...or at least writing. 

The thing about writing, cleaning and exercising is the same. If you do it every day, it becomes habit. If it becomes habit, it becomes less difficult to do. If you miss a day, it becomes a Herculean task to begin again...at least for me. 

So I sat down today and said, you will write something.  If possible, later today, you will write something for publication beyond your blog.   I promise you right now, the well feels bone dry.  I'm going to go for a walk after this and hope something floats into my brain.

I'm a big believer in writers will as opposed to writer's block. Writers' will is what makes writing possible, just as my son tells me, running is mostly mental.  He's been running since sixth grade so I beg to differ, I think being under 50 has something to do with it.   Still, I'm going to try. 

Dang. He's right.  Will is what's missing, in all of those things, and I need to learn how to grow more will, rather than horde it for the portions of the day I like.  I do believe will is the necessary component for everything, and tell my students they will be writers when they write without the inspiration.  Likewise, my son tells me, those who are athletes are those who work out when it hurts, when it's boring, and when it's hard.  If everything is a case of will, I wonder, is growing will possible, or is it merely learning to stop resisting what we say we want to do.  I have a book to read and paperwork to tackle, and I need will for that too. I have a present to construct for our anniversary. I've planned it, I need to get it finished.   Will it. Will it. Will it.   Will it or it won't. 

Excuse me, I've written myself an imperative.  I Will be back...God willing and me willing too, and write some more later today.