Friday, December 13, 2024

Paying Attention

 My therapist has recommended that I take a break from the news. This is a tremendous idea. What I need, in order to make this happen, are: 

  • A few ripping yarns—books that I can’t put down, tales that consume me. Preferably ones with a great deal of wit.  Possibly a collection of Greek myths would be helpful.
  • MORE exercise. I’m currently attempting to break through to a new, higher level of endurance and strength. I can do more. Only issue? I HATE exercise.
I'm still contemplating that C.S. Lewis quote,
I sat with my anger long enough until she told me her real name was grief.

I need to grieve this lost election, this flushing of democracy down the tubes, the realization (at this late stage of my life) that more than half of my fellow Americans are willfully ignorant or inescapably dimwitted or greedy as all fuck—possibly all three. 

It’s impossible to know how bad things will get—the precise amount of suckage and pain we'll experience. I hope to fuck there are more than a few Dems who, unlike Fetterman, won’t cave. We need heroes. We could really use a Volodymyr Zelenskyy of our own.

I'd like to become a dragon. I would be bulletproof. Maybe, as I morphed from human to giant, flying reptile, I'd get my hearing and balance back. I mean, hell's bells, dragons are magic, right? Anything could happen.

To paraphrase Joseph Campbell, WE are the heroes of our own stories.

A hero is an ordinary individual who finds the strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles.
~ Christopher Reeve

I like it when a flower or a little tuft of grass grows through a crack in the concrete. It's so fuckin' heroic.
~ George Carlin
BE the flower.

4 comments:

  1. I'll probably rewatch Tinker Tailor/Smiley's People (Alec Guiness) for the umpteenth time - it never disappoints. Fringe again? Naahh - need to find something new. It's hard to distract yourself nowadays.

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    1. Fringe—yeah, I don’t need to see that again either. I’m not familiar with the other show but anything with Alec Guinness has got to be worthwhile.

      Just saw an episode of Only Murders In the Building. My only complaint is the interiors of all the apartments are so utterly posh. Looks like everyone used the same interior designer and had infinite bucks to spend. Love the show BUT c’mon!

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    2. Tinker Tailor is from Le Carre's novel. Gary Oldman also starred as George Smiley in a 2011 movie that was good. In the original, a very young Patrick Stewart plays Karla, the Soviet spymaster.

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