Plague Journal, Life
“Life” — is an expansive topic. I’ll write about it until I die. I am an expression of life on this planet. It is not as if I am an outsider, a disinterested observer. There are times when I think that our human form of life, we are social creatures after all, — is a sad clown drama. No doubt I am playing my bit part. The show goes on, until it doesn’t. I find myself thinking from such a sardonic angle of view, whenever I consider the management of our society, in this United States. We are in a stage of failure, as a late-stage-capitalist-society. Capitalism is an ideology, a viewpoint that overlays all other values. Everything is subsumed to the scrum for profit: equal treatment by the state for every citizen, truthful speech, education for everyone, generous pay for a day’s work, etc. I could make a very long list of “common goods” which have been captured, deployed and monetized for the sole end of making the pile of profit even higher.
I have these foreboding thoughts when I contemplate the dark alliance between politics and global corporations. Corporations are reminiscent of feudal lords, in the shadows, manipulating our republic by contributions, by armies of retainers, professional lobbyists.
Then I walk by the river with my camera in hand. I note the wild flowers, and the river. Even on a sweltering midday of summer, life is like the river and the wildflowers, — a great flow, continuing majestic and magnificent.
Earlier in the day I heard the same note during a leisurely stroll through our Farmers Market. I purchased an egg burrito and a bloody Mary, a breakfast enjoyed with my wife as we sat for a while in the shade. A few minutes later by conversation with a vendor I received a quick education in goat farming. We also enjoyed instrumental music performed by several groups of musicians who shared their art and passion with market patrons.
Such joyful experiences encourage me to believe that the fabric of life will hold. The next generation, and their children will have a something to work with, — rather than desiccated ruins.
