Great. It's 9:32 and I'm just starting. Usually, first thing I do is get up, put water kettle on for coffee. (I'm a French press kind of guy, and I like the ritual) While I wait for the water, and then while coffee waits the ten minute before pressing, I write this blog. No filter. No editing. Just whatever comes to mind. But last night, at around 10:00 pm, as we were channel surfing before bed, I happened upon the Battlestar Galactica marathon, which had just started on SyFy. I mean just started. Like ten minutes into the first episode. Well, first mini-series which led to the series. To be clear, I am talking about the reboot that came out in 2004, not the cheesy original from the 1970s, which I watched as a boy and loved but doesn't fare so well with the test of time. The reboot, on the other hand, feels more pertinent than ever. End of the world as we know it. People rising to the occasion. Unlikely heroes. Equally unlikely villains. An examination of a society dealing with unexpected loss and dread. And set in a different galaxy, so there is a bit of distancing so you can concentrate and not break down in tears every moment. Although I have to admit I cried a lot more this time than when I first started watching the series. Something about it was riveting. We set record, said we'd only watch a half our or so. Cut to 1:00 am. Still up, still watching. Too good. Too relevant. But finally, sleep came, and I got about 5 hours. Which isn't bad, these days. But man, when the 6 o'clock alarm rang, I was more than a little pooped. So I set a second alarm via Alexa, and slept for an extra hour. I figure I earned it. But this meant getting up and going on our daily walk before writing. I am cool with that. Mixing up the routine is always worth doing. So here I am, late, but full of science fiction joy.
So. As I watched the show, I realized something. We aren't talking enough about what is happening. How many people are sick. How many people are dying. How long this will probably take. For some reason, when we bring up in conversation- not social media conversation, or texting, or any of those bullshit forms of pseudo-communication, but real, honest to goddess speaking with other human beings, we for the most part don't talk about how truly terrible this thing is. Over 400 people gone past forever here in Colorado, a fairly small state, population wise. Over 40,000 dean and gone in the USA. That's more than the population of Juneau, Alaska. An entire city of the dead. Worldwide, over 160,000 people dead. More than triple the population of Santa Cruz, CA. (it's the city they used in Lost Boys) And over 2.4 million confirmed cases. So far. Things are so seriously fucked I don't even worry about using the word fuck in my blog. Fuck fuck fuck. Not that everyone is being flip about this. I'm fairly certain everyone who has someone who has it, or worse, has lost someone to it, takes it pretty damn seriously. But why are we being polite, at all, in regards to this? I have friends and family who say the stupidest shit about this imaginable- the rates are inflated; it's not as bad as the flu (still!); it's all overblown by the media in a plot to get rid of Trump. WTF? I don't have time for niceties anymore. None of us do.Okay. Had to get that off my chest. Now, I also want to say, yet again, how amazing a lot of the world is. How brave people are being. How selfless. We all have a job to do, and for the most part, we are doing it. If part of our job is speaking truth to stupid, so be it. There is a bit of moral clarity going on. And that is cool. But to the entitled, the lazy, the willfully ignorant, I have this to say:
I love you all, Very much. I love this world. And I want us to be able, years from now, to all be able to look back in pride at how we handled this.
Onwards.
Here's a song. It's Shake It Out by Florence and the Machine, and I dig it. I hope you do as well.
1 comment:
The deaths are about 41,000 in America now. That's part of how we're telling time these days, by the number of casualties. If the enemy were Cylons then at least we could see them. I remember when my late brother was preaching the Gospel of Battlestar Galactica, which meant I had to watch it, too, but I did love it (except for the ending). A couple of episodes were on the level of a Shakespearean tragedy. There is science fiction joy there. Maybe I'll re-watch it later.
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