26 December 2013
1052 hrs
Dear and Patient Readers,
I
certainly hope that all of you folks, Christians (xians) and non-xians alike,
had a great and wonderful day, yesterday.
I myself do not celebrate xmas . . .
I am not a xian. Remember, not
everyone celebrates it, you know. When I
was little, say around 7 years old, I learned that there was no Santa Claus . .
. but I was sort of suspicious, anyway.
Years earlier, let’s say I was 3 or 4 (yes, I have memories that date
back to when I was 2- verified!) I crept downstairs one xmas eve and saw the
old man munching down the cookies we left for Santa. He drank the milk, too. I protested, but he assured me that Santa
said it was cool . . . I began to
wonder. Why would a man, whose belly
shook like a bowl full of jelly, pass up Oreos and a glass of milk? Didn’t make any sense.
Well,
after I stopped believing in a fat red dude
The
Old Boy would still put on xmas records- yeah, we had records in the olden
days, but, and please don't take this the wrong way, Patient Readers out there who are The Children of Abraham, I always thought it odd that his favorites were those recorded by
Neil Diamond and Barbra Streisand. Why
would two Jewish cats make xmas albums?
I didn’t get it.
My
best friend in the whole wide world, Rob- whom I have not seen or heard from
since 1996 (some best friend, huh?) used to call me a Grinch, which I admit,
kinda hurt.
I
don’t think he understood that there are some folks who don’t celebrate
xmas. Not just non-xians, but I think
everyone who is sick of the commercialization of the holidays are so burned out
on the idea that it seems corrupted for good.
This is part of the reason.
I
still get asked why I don’t celebrate xmas and easter (Yule and Oestre- ancient pagan rituals stolen by The Church); as if the idea never occurred
to anyone but me. I mention the, er,
aforementioned commercialization, and I always hear, Oh yeah . . . but blah blah blah . . .
I wonder why some folks choose to be
kind(er) to one another this time of year.
Why is that so? Why can’t folks
do this year-round?
Anyway,
I don’t write anything here that y’all have never heard before. Suffice it to say, that people like Rob need
to know that xians don’t corner the market on morality. Some of the rest of us have a stake in the maintenance
of society and civilization, whether we want to or not. I am pragmatic. I am somewhat anti-social (sociopathic?) and
I know y’all are saying,
No way . . .
but ‘tis true. But I still understand that we all have to
work together to make this whole thing work, even if it’s for just a little while
longer.
I
have an on-going, deep conversation with my newest friend, an English
professor, in which I stick to the point that Mankind is inherently bad. Bad is our default position. Humans are the worst thing that ever happened
to this planet, and I am certain every one of you agrees with the statement. But we are the only ones, the only species that
has the ability to change that. We and only we can make the world a better
place. Only humans can fix that which it
is we have broken.
Yet we choose not
to. Why is that? Why do we sit back and watch all of the wars,
and pollute the air and land and sea?
A xian buddy of mine
believes that we can run Earth into the, uh, ground, and it’s all
good. The reason is because no matter
what we do, we cannot destroy the planet.
The reason for that is because
God won’t let us. Only he can do that. The bible tells him so.
Well what the fuck? Does he not see that the world and all of us
are broken? But back to the conversation
with my erudite new buddy:
We almost agree, she and
I, about the state of man. She believes
that humans are nice to one another; that kindness is what most of us exude
toward others. Even a majority, she
says, do that.
I say that there are persons who do indeed do good deeds. Without a doubt there is sacrifice and
compassion and philanthropy, sometimes even on grand scales. But is that really the majority of us? Sure could be . . . but is it?
And what about the old
Push Comes To Shove business? I still
insist that selfishness and just good old fashioned Badness is our default. It
is how we are wired. A million years ago
we would scramble up a tree and watch the lame and old and slow and unaware of
our little clan or tribe or whatever become lion shit.
Help . . . help! surely they would scream in whatever proto-glot
we used way back then. I seriously doubt
the majority of us climbed off that branch to rescue our furry brother from
those fucking fangs! Holy shit have you
seen those things in the museum? Or even
the modern cats on Animal Planet and Nat Geo (back when those channels actually
showed documentaries instead of reality shows)?
Can you imagine what it
was like when we had to follow the game across the veldt so that we might eat
throughout the seasons? And we had to
cross what is now the Zambezi or some other treacherous river, just as the
wildebeest and zebra do to this very day?
Does anyone out the really think that for the majority of us it was not everyone for their own damn selves?
Every creature on the
planet, by instinct, wants to survive.
We have to, at least long enough to pass on our genes to the next generation and do our bit to propagate
the species. Sure, there were some,
maybe many even, who waded back into the waters to pull out someone. And as much as I malign the damage we as a species have done, how mean we are to one another, I
would still perform CPR on someone who was unfortunate enough to fall. I have done so many times with people having
seizures. Not the CPR part, but I did come to their aid.
By the way, if you see someone
having a seizure, don’t call an ambulance- make sure he or she can breathe and
move objects out of the way so there is no flailing into them- and maybe put something soft
between the head and the concrete. You
don’t know how many patients, some of them on a limited income, come around in
the ER, get released (because, except for the very rare instance of status epilepticus, all you see ER staff
do is watch), and then they receive a $1000 ambulance bill a few days later.
But I, as per usual,
digress . . . Shall I get back to my
boring-ass rant? Splendid!
I would, and have, jumped
into the fray when someone has gone down.
Sometimes one or two others joined me.
Many, when it happened in the hospital where I worked. But on the street . . . do you know how many just stood by and watched? Do you know how many just kept on going with
barely a glance? Do you all know the
story of Kitty Genovese, in NYC?
This, ladies and
gentlemen, Dear and Patient Readers, is not our fault; it is our default (are y’all tired of me saying
that?). We can stop it no more
than we can prevent the sun from setting.
So
I have a plan, and it’s not original- it’s a good ‘un, though: Lets’ all try to be nice to one another. I know we are all broken, and I know we all
hurt sometimes. I know some of us hurt a
little more than others, but we all feel pain.
Let’s ease another’s suffering as best as we can. Through compassion and understanding. Through the attenuation of bad desires and
through thoughts that are good and necessary.
We
will never fix the world, because we will not.
I firmly believe this. Samsara is
broken; a comminuted fracture beyond titanium screws and Harrington rods. But if some of us try to make our corner of
the world in which we’re living, then maybe we can stave off the Apocalypse a
little while longer.
Most
of you think me mad; I can live with that . . .
I already live with madness, but I am sane enough to know that we can
push down our sorrow and find the will to keep moving forward. We owe to ourselves. We owe it to the planet. I don’t believe it will get too much better,
but I dare you to make me wrong.
So
I guess that’s all I have to say for now, Patient Reader. I am expecting an envelope from a friend that
contains more of my stories, and as soon as I get them I will post them
here. I suppose I could rewrite them,
but I like them the way they are and of course, they are not saved on the old
HP here.
I
have also begun a novel, again, and I will tell you how it is progressing from
time to time. With school starting up in
2 weeks, I wonder if I’ll even have the time . . .
So
for now I bid you adieu; I wish for
all of you the very best you can squeeze out of this shithole; a shithole that
is priceless, worth fighting for, and most importantly of all, the only fucking
one we have. NOW that's all I have to say . . .
Always,
The Cunning Fennec Fox . . .
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