Sunday, February 06, 2005

Wow, going back to Oly so soon feels awkward. "What in the world am I doing with my life?" I keep asking myself. I recently learned that my Grandpa Sand's maternal grandfather may have been of Gypsy descent (this is my excuse!). He spoke Bohemian and was a prodigy violinist who performed for Germany's Kaiser Wilhelm II at age nine. Maybe I've got a little of that in me. Tumbleweeds in the blood, wind at my back. I get nervous when I'm in one place too long. I feel like this country is about to erupt, too, and want to be where the action is. I will be excited to return to North Dakota when the weather warms up in April or May.

I've been wondering lately-- is it me, or do other people my age, and younger, believe that the world is about to self-destruct? If so, how many years do you think we have left living the way we do in America? Am I crazy? I can't tell if this is some sort of repressed Catholic apocalyptic death wish paranoia, or perhaps a new-age superstitious Mayan-prophesy mental high jinx. Probably I'm just a good observer considering the state of the environment, the state of the economy, and the state of the Union. I believe in miracles, but I fear the blood. I've been having nightmares of late where I'm stranded in Iraq without uniform and can't tell which side to run to so I'm forced to hide from all. These dreams are vivid. I want to run to the US side, but they are shooting at anyone who's not in US uniform. And the Iraqis have blockaded their doors, and I'm scared to knock.

Enough about that, though-- hope is better than fear. I'll leave you with a hopeful website.

Comments welcome. ; )

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

The Mayans probably were smoking Peyote. I wouldn't put too much faith in their prophecies, it will only end in dissapointment when they don't come true.

luckydevilgirlyshow said...

We all just wish it would self-destruct. Read a few of Helen and Scott Nearing's earliest books to get a sense of how the lefties of an earlier generation felt. Or check out www.gunsanddope.com for another sort of political party supported by my favorite author. xxx, Chickadee

Anonymous said...

Jamest Howard Kunstler, http://www.kunstler.com/, is one of my favorite writers. He complains bitterly and hilariously against the suburban, car-centric society Americans have built, and the doom it spells for us. In the past few years, his predictions of imminent peak-oil apocalypse have become way over-the-top. He seems absolutely certain that, any day now, we'll open the curtains of our quiet tract home onto a blasted, Dawn of the Dead hellscape.

Metaphorically, at least, I think he's right, and in fact that day came quite awhile ago. Literally, it's a fair bet that life for us common folk will slowly get worse and worse in the USA... but I figure the truth, as usual, is somewhere in between. Read Kunstler, contrast with any right-wing gasbag, and meet 'em in the middle. The end is nigh, alright, but not in that apocalypic way... more in a gradual slide to decay sort of way. The old folks (us, by then) will remember when things used to better, and those punk kids won't listen to us anyway. I think it'll happen so slowly, no one will notice, unless you're looking with the right kind of eyes.

Goose