IT'S GETTING HEAVY AND LIGHTER ALL AT ONCE

I wake up, and the world seems spiraling out of control. And I find life astonishingly beautiful and exciting. A new strain of the virus is here in Colorado and popping up all over the country and probably is everywhere already. And I am full of hope for the future. Bills pile up as I ponder the next big project to do on our house. Best of times hang with Worst of times. I alternate between episodes of The Big Bang Theory and Doom Patrol. Have I lost my mind? And if I did, is that necessarily a bad thing? Hard to say, authoritatively. I think avoiding authoriatatism is necessary is this Weimar Republic like time. Or is it this FDR/WPA time? Didn't those happen at the same interval? 

Today people are voting in Georgie, and who wins will determine who is in charge of the Senate. And this could have a lot of effect on how we as a nation deal with: The Corona Virus pandemic; Climate Change; the Ravaged Economy & ever growing Economic Divide; Systemic Racism; Immigration; and on and on and on. Also today, I am leaping into the New Year of Writing. Already got my morning pages done, read a full article in The Atlantic, and have work lined up for two projects: a musical and a screenplay. 

We live in a world where shit happens, good and bad, all the time. Maybe all those good and and bad things have accelerated a bit this past year, but it's always been like this, more or less. I mean, I don't think Dickens was making things up from some supposition about what might come to pass when he wrote the opening passage of Tale of Two Cities. Let's have that quote, shall we?

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way--in short, the period was so far like the present period that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

Yeah. That sums it up rather nicely, I think. I had to consider that last sentence a few times, but still, rather apt. I just am not one hundred percent sure I understand what being received in the superlative degree of comparison only means. If someone wants to leave a comment filling me in, groovy.

The duality of nature is something I have been hip to for a long time. Maybe growing up in an alcoholic household did that for me. I have always, to this very day, loved being alive. I do. This world is full of things that are mysterious and wondrous and numinous, and we should all dance in joy every time we awake for at least five consecutive minutes, speaking nothing but gibberish in odd tones. But I've also been keenly aware of sorrow, fear, and desperation. I awoke with that too, saw it in my mother's eyes each time my step-dad went past that invisible barrier to the world of lunacy, screaming, and smashing. It was part of the world that I danced for in my mind too. Not a nice part, but part of it nonetheless. 

Times are hard now. Times are always hard. And always miraculous. It might suck to live in this age of fear and loathing. We don't get to have family over for the holidays. I haven't seen a movie in a cinema for months and months. Theatre? Forget it. And yet, this is a time of history, or challenge, of thinking outside the box, making a name for yourself, rising to the occasion. Of taking the mantle of the Greatest Generation for ourselves, so that one day someone can write a book about us and make all our grandchildren feel vaguely inadequate. 

I am tired and energized. I am an electron, neutron, and proton. I am I, Don Quixote. 

And so are you.

Whatever happens today, in Georgie, in the over crowded hospitals, on the streets, I wish you joy and strength, knowledge and power, mischief and mayhem and law and order. 

Bring it, 2021.

Here's a song. It's Waiting for Superman by The Flaming Lips, live with the Colorado Symphony.