BY ERIC OLANDER
Crawled out of bed and god damned, for skiing was no more.
Mother Earth finally had her appointment at the free clinic and is getting treatment for the cancer that is mankind. Viruses her equivalent to our Chemo. Agency to kill off the malignancy. The circle of life a circle and not our pyramid scheme culled from misunderstanding Darwin’s survival of the fittest. This is what I image dancing shaman of dreams is saying. Hesitation reaching across the abyss. Self quarantined because roommate with immunity issues. Long socially distanced walks, to keep cabin fever from becoming terminal.
What a menace government is, when all goes viral. When it is late to the dance. When reactionaries overreact I knew that wasn’t no normal flu those Chinese, on the shuttle bus were coughing and sneezing all about. In mid January. Height of a respiratory bug going around. Taste and smell taken hostage well before patient one walked into a Seattle hospital; direct from China, skewing all metrics towards fear based speculation.
Another thing to blame that particular race of Asians for – As if the fledgling opium trade wasn’t enough. How many of the good died young because we couldn’t force them to force that market on their own peoples and so had to dump it on our own. Dark Pharma.
What am I going to do? These were all of our thoughts as the door was slammed shut on the ability to pull oneself up by their boot straps and express our freedom – Whatever our preference of agendas be; when even politics has become a consumer good. Packaged in think tanks and distributed by meme and spin. I haven’t gotten nearly enough turns to stay sane in this asylum they’d be calling the Greatest Asylum if a word of truth could part the spin doctors ever flapping lips. There are so many frayed threads in this story. A time piece eye hanging out an ode to Frances Bacon fragmenting a Georgia O’Keeffe skull.
Its therapy for me. One for this one of the few who didn’t sell their soul for the trifle of fortune and fame, while they had us high on cocaine. A great many bad decisions keeping things upright. At least I’m not the CDC, in their time of bumbled overreaction.
Conducting Armageddon from sales office it seems. Afraid they can’t take it with them is my guess. when culling the herd is how nature keeps the peace. Keeps us in balance. Where we too often choose warfare and genocide to handle the overpopulation of a superfluous species. Nolonger capable of rectifying the damage done. Consolidating class while others do the struggle.
While we remain a completely pointless species snuffing out our own biosphere. The streets already filled with the ailing and infirm and now they are afraid the prestigious over priced medical system will look the same. The dying making the hallways unsightly while we ignore the border crossings and refugee camp of the same world order. Not enough oxygen in the greenhouse gases to keep all bright eyed and bushy-tailed.
Having put the patient [society] in a coma to save their asses, this thing spread directly through the pulmonary system of the globe economy. Arteries already clotted with refugees from other regions exploit for our feel good pleasures. Everything derivative and soulless. This is the cancer we’ve become. The Consumer Age.
No stats given on those who completed the task of natural immunity – Survivors and not the syringe.
I went and hitched through Oregon once the lock down eased its misadventure. The powers that be having a hard time realizing they were killing the vital organs to treat a surface wound. A rash proportionately upon their allergy to catastrophic illness. If anyone had been taught death is part and parcel to life. Our micro-managing our world view into one season forgetting Society is the patient. I traveled through many a county where there wasn’t a single case yet all businesses had been shuttered. and they say the medico’s credo is do no harm.
Still it was bliss to find myself back in rubber tramp therapy. What I used to come to terms what eventually became to be known as high functioning autism. A life long digress from the common malady of social contact so the lock down was easier for me than most, for I was already an outlier.
May not be as good a therapy as making turns but it was wonderful to see humans remaining humans, giving a stranger a lift. Not much of a divide heading in the same direction. The media spin usually turned off for real conversation. Courtesy still powerful enough to trump conformity. Even got a rides from off duty cops, women and children – Although I did get harassed by a small town Barney Fife (cutting into none of his business) as well.
Lawmen concerned with the rioting in the streets, there in Portland. What the Circus Maximus of Diversion Culture has fostered. What truly makes our world go round. What had been penned up and pent-up by the lock down let loose. What happens when all outlets to manage frustration and a healthy psyche are canceled. What us cogs in the machinery consider a more debilitating ailment than even death, the way this human endeavor has been set up. What is denied us herd animals, us social creatures.
Where we seek sensation enough to be reacquainted ourselves with our souls. The back lash of the systemic class structure we are delinquent in replacing. This became the essence of most of our conversation. Seeing the racism as one symptom among many, in countries where there exist such a wide gap between rich and poor.
Society banned from life to save it. The arterials of the body called civilization clogged with many more urgent diseases than this one little pandemic which is the biosphere dealing with the consequences of our smoking. The addiction that fosters all others. A fire culture long past its prime.
But who can differentiate when all are taught to self-assuredly and anthropomorphically treat symptoms as Cause. As the disease. The reason we cannot see the forest through the trees and compute viruses as the menace rather than a method (for a body much larger than our own) of treating the malignancy industrialized mankind has become. An autoimmune catastrophe that believes it the apex predator. What Steadman’s Grendel should come forth and devour. An extraordinary malice threatening holistic survival. With even our piecemeal wants and so presumed needs countering our own best interest because most live lives not worth living and so are afraid to lose it. So then we identify with the least of a common denominator A myopia that will always cause a backlash in the blind spots of the status quo. Something Mother Nature does not recognize.
Hasn’t enlightenment always been to see the beauty in the menace. Thus I recommend hitchhiking through the back country as a means of bringing a stop to this process of deforestation. Of clear-cutting human potential and uniqueness. What leave us with only the shade that Charlie Brown tree that agrees with our own point of view.
In this universe diversification is only made with contact. All politics and agendas marginalize those whom shoulders were climbed upon to get your own piece of justice. It is time to let go. Get lost in the wholeness of life. May our unique experiences let us contemplate our feeble place in the world. Beyond the inadequate shelter of the fear mongers, positioning their ad dollars. A world no amount of money can buy a way out of although it did create a Frozen Dead Guy parade.
Now in another spring, and having had a few more turns toward sanity, let us count the blessings of lessons learned. Struggle and conquest. collect on the fortunes loss and renewal. Understand we live in a world counter balanced on the physical property of every action having an equal and opposite reaction. Rise above blame and shame and understand knowledge does fall far short of wisdom. Admit our intelligentsia is incapable of either because of how they’ve allowed their minds to be hardwired. L
Like with the wolf in Yellowstone balance is brought about against the fears of the loss of our own self-interest. For betterment of the whole. Or like the over-managed forest has its fire to create the ashes from which Phoenix rises, the herd will be culled one way or another for Mother Nature to save the rest. Method much more equitable than the means mankind resorts to when we bankrupt our standing. Love your enemy, it is the only way to find them out, says Mary Caroline Richards. May we conclude this viral menace to be fair warning as we take the malignancy of the industrial age back towards the stewardship lost with the Garden and recon the disease is still us. Despite centuries of circumvention.
