TURN AND FACE THE STRANGE

Slept in today. It's funny, there was a time I would not consider getting up at 7:30 am sleeping in, but those days are long gone, part of the many other worlds I once lived in that have vanished with time and tide. There was the me in NYC before 9/11, and the me after. The me before I met Lisa, and the me after. The me before my mom died, and the me after. And now this. I've been turning to face the stranger all my life. I think most of us have. And yet, we all seem to fight against change as if it is some evil, unexpected and new that brings bad things. Sometimes change does bring sorrow. Sometimes it brings joy. But it's just part of the deal, the eternal wind that blows us dust particles along. I vaguely remember an Aesop fable about called The Reed and The Oak that was part of one of the first kid's shows I directed out here. The moral was about being bendable our you will break in two. Which makes sense to me. I mean, don't just drift along with no purpose. Strive for things, aspire to greatness. Go for the gold. Whatever cliche you like. But don't suppose for a moment you are in charge of the universe, that things won't happen that you can't change. That way lies madness.

Which makes me think of those people in Michigan yesterday, storming the capitol with rifles, demanding their lives back. I understand activism. I think being involved in a movement to bring about change that will make life more harmonious is groovy. But there is something missing when I see the footage of these folks with their rifles. At least it seems that way. Like there is this rage at not just the lockdown, but at the idea of the virus in the first place. Indeed, it seems like some are willing to entertain the wildest conspiracies, like it was Bill Gates or the Chinese Government or George Soros, who created this virus. Because the thought of it being something that naturally occurs, that the world has agents of death and destruction the visit us all from time to time, is too awful to contemplate. Their anger seems to be at the universe itself, which doesn't favor one people or country in the long run. It's like the guy in the movie Momento, who can't bring himself to accept a world where he did something terrible, and opts to live in a nightmare world where he can't remember more than a day in the past, living a miserable existence rather than face the truth.

And there also seem to be some folks on those steps, holding those ridiculous signs, screaming and yelling, who don't seem to be agitating against change so much as they are taking advantage of this time to let their inner selves out, to voice anger at their scapegoats, who can be government, or liberals, or immigrants, or whatever. They have cultivated a system of thinking where there are people they can blame for their ills, and can finally get in their cars, drive to town from their homes, and yell and scream and threaten. It doesn't feel like revolution so much as a temper tantrum. I'm all for revolutionary thinking, for new thoughts and ideas springing up to deal with the constantly changing world. But I can't think of a single revolution in history that led with people screaming "Hey, don't change! Keep things exactly as I believe them to be! " Revolutions need to move a society forward, not drag it backwards. Doesn't it?

There is change happening. And we are all changed, already, forever. We can bend like the reed, and survive, or not budge, like the oak, and shatter.

Here's a song. It's Changes by the late, great, David Bowie, who was a master of metamorphosis.