BURNT NORTON
By T. S. Eliot

Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future,
And time future contained in time past.
If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable.
What might have been is an abstraction
Remaining a perpetual possibility
Only in a world of speculation.
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.
Footfalls echo in the memory
Down the passage which we did not take
Towards the door we never opened
Into the rose-garden. My words echo
Thus, in your mind.

                                     But to what purpose
Disturbing the dust on a bowl of rose-leaves
I do not know.

The mind is numb when I consider the story of Texas.  Texas is that “red” state in the deep South.  A place that believes that “going it alone,” self reliance, maintaining one’s independence from the Federal Government is a virtue.  As a consequence of a severe weather event, arguably due to climate warming, the Texas power grid is severely damaged, off line for days, depriving a large segment of the population of heat, adequate food supply, and clean drinking water.  Hospitals are in crisis as you would imagine.  Texas maintains a power grid that is immune from Federal regulation, in order to boost return to shareholders, to deliver power-on-the cheap to customers.  Advisement to weatherize the grid has been ignored.  Worst of all the Governor Greg Abbott deflects responsibility for the system failure.  Senator Ted Cruz jets out of town with his family for Cancun;  Senator Ted “what-me-worry” Cruz.

The impact of abnormal frigid temperature, the icing of an unprotected power grid was predictable.  Also predictable is the response of the “go-it-alone” Governor, and the indifferent Senator.

Perhaps T. S. Eliot was absolutely right.  “All time is unredeemable.”  The present, as well as the past and the future are mirrored in the selves that we have actualized, the self understanding that has been shaped layer by layer, since learning language on my mother’s lap. The present is a concatenation of cause and effect.  And so will be the future, the inexorable outcome of cause and effect.

Is there a purpose to imagine that things might have been different today for the residents of Austin Texas, shivering and wondering what to do about thawing water pipes that have burst?  Might things be different for me,  if… What about that decision I might have made differently?  …the passage that I did not take, that door I never opened?

In The Year 2525

By Zager and Evans

In the year 2525
If man is still alive
If woman can survive
They may find

In the year 3535
Ain’t gonna need to tell the truth, tell no lies
Everything you think, do, or say
Is in the pill you took today

In the year 4545
Ain’t gonna need your teeth, won’t need your eyes
You won’t find a thing to chew
Nobody’s gonna look at you

In the year 5555
Your arms are hanging limp at your sides
Your legs got nothing to do
Some machine is doing that for you

In the year 6565
Ain’t gonna need no husband, won’t need no wife
You’ll pick your son, pick your daughter too
From the bottom of a long black tube

In the year 7510
If God’s a-comin’ he ought to make it by then
Maybe he’ll look around himself and say
Guess it’s time for the Judgement day

In the year 8510
God’s gonna shake his mighty head
He’ll either say I’m pleased where man has been
Or tear it down and start again

In the year 9595
I’m kinda wondering if man’s gonna be alive
He’s taken everything this old earth can give
And he ain’t put back nothing

Now it’s been 10,000 years
Man has cried a billion tears
For what he never knew
Now man’s reign is through
But through the eternal night
The twinkling of starlight
So very far away
Maybe it’s only yesterday

In the year 2525
If man is still alive
If woman can survive
They may find

In the year 3535
Ain’t gonna need to tell the truth, tell no lies
Everything you think, do or say
Is in the pill you took today ….(fade out)

Lyrics written by Zager and Evans

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The backstory of the song:

“In the Year 2525” is a 1968 hit song by the American pop-rock duo of Zager and Evans. It reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 for six weeks commencing July 12, 1969.

In the Year 2525 opens with an introductory verse explaining that if mankind has survived to that point, they would witness the subsequent events in the song…

The song ends after 10,000 years. By that time, humans have finally become extinct. But the narrator notes that somewhere ‘so very far away’, possibly in an alternative universe, the scenarios told in the song have still yet to play out, as the song repeats from the top (but in the same key, tone, and speed as the previous verse) and the recording fades out.

The overriding theme, of a world doomed by its passive acquiescence to and over dependence on its own overdone technologies, struck a resonant chord in millions of people around the world in the late 1960s.  The song was #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart during the Apollo 11 moon landing.  — wikipedia