Living potently

 I was thinking of myself and my middle school students, and the time we waste on screens. I don't like it for me or for them. Since this life is finite, it keeps us from those things that make life feel really good.

Sure, some time to relax, decompress, shut-down after a tiring day is also healthy, within limits. And it's the limit. It begs the question: then what SHOULD we be doing when we're done relaxing and with our day job, which for me is teaching and for the students is learning.

If you've ever done something important, you can feel it. When you work hard to help someone who needs it, there's a feeling -- have you felt it? When you're trying to pay the bills and feed the family, and you're working for that, you feel it. When you're cultivating your garden knowing you're going to eat the fruit of your labors, you feel it. It's affirming. When you're building relationships with your colleagues at work by collaborating on something and heading out to a happy hour on the way home, it feels like you earned it.

Filling up the days with things like that, along with R&R when you need it sets up a healthy mental place to be. The soul-nurturing activities of being part of your world, working to be an important part of it, and taking your own time continuing to do things that honestly cultivate your soul -- it builds up your sense of ownership of your life and connection with the world, you can feel that you belong.

When you don't do those things, but spend your time not doing those things, the opposite is true. The sense of potency and meaning are far away and there's a drifty feeling, unmoored to anything that really matters to you, and that doesn't feel good. It's not bad every once in awhile, but if that's one's main thing, it sets you up to be tossed about by the vicissitudes of life, instead of anchored to the key elements of your purposeful existence. 

Incels and femcels

 More of a symptom of the unexamined appropriation of the typical societal norm. Why would anyone in their right mind just adopt beliefs without challenging them for their utility, health, effectiveness. 

When you're sitting there deciding on your purpose in life, are you adopting one that is full of shit? As if your purpose was to mate with a handsome man, have a beautiful, normal kid, make a million dollars a year, own lots of things and die? Of course not, shut the fuck up. Who wants to live in that world where that's some kind of goal? Those things happen to people, but what to what end?

Get out of your head, sit your ass down and start from the basics. Your purpose in life is to discover your talents and joys (both), go ahead and develop and engage in them in a way that offers the people of the world, or the world itself, your service.

There is nothing more beautiful and attractive than someone immersed in their natural abilities, doing their best to help out the world. People want to be around that and work with that and celebrate that. Along the way, you'll be running into like-minded people, get to know and love them, and get to bask in the coolness that those relationships bring. You can hang, do some things you all like to do, and then if something romantic happens, great! And if it doesn't, you're having an amazing time with awesome people living the dream. SHUT UP about not having the thing that everybody ELSE wants or says you should want. Fuck that noise. You define your own life and world on your terms and stop victimizing yourselves in lives of stressful depression.

Little Seed

 Little seed, sown under some loamy soil, let the water soak through your porous skin and start your starchy core. Let the suns warm shine wake your sleeping germ. Push out your first shoots and roots, and drink the moisture quick, and with oxygen mix and stir the stem, send up your tender leaves to seek the light of life. Breath in the carbon gas and work your magic chemistry to power the green machine that transforms the dead to live, and grow and finally to bloom, to dry and drop another little seed.

The Bigger Picture

 I'm seeing it too -- the predictions about how our changing climate is going to cause a lot of change to everything. I believe it will. And that doesn't scare me even a little. I still think we should go all out with our efforts to do what's possible to slow down the inevitable in homage to the principle of causing the least harm to the greatest number of people (sort of the contrapositive to doing the most good to the most amount of people). Slower change means more time to adjust and adapt, and less strain on every system.

But here's why I'm not scared. Already in the world there are millions living through the hell we envision, any hell we are capable of envisioning. Millions. There's a real, non-zero possibility of me (or you) running into some situation that would rival sort of existence we imagine when our minds conger the scary scenarios of our climate future. 

But why I'm not scared? Because we have this life, as has everyone else, to face whatever challenges and struggles life throws at us the best we can. Whether it's personal or the whole community or the whole world, we will live through heartbreak, we will watch loved ones die, we can suffer our own disease and injury, our parents, and sometimes our children, will suffer. And like the billions before us, we'll do what we can to live, love and cope with our lot. This is OUR life, this is our world. It's no worse for any given individual than war is. It's no worse than a painful, slow death by cancer or COVID. In whatever future collective and personal battles we'll face, we'll find ways to keep ourselves entertained, to make the most of what we're confronted with, and carry on trying to survive, just like now. 

I'm motivated to somehow be part of the solution and always have been. The only difference might be which problem is facing me now. It's not the Soviets, which seemed the biggest problem when I was a kid. It's not the 1970s energy crisis any more, with our national malaise (thank you, Jimmy Carter -- you were right). And it's not so much COVID anymore -- the only thing standing in the way of us having beaten that down already is our political choices (who'd'a thought?). So, our situation may seem more dire or widespread or high-stakes than it has been in the past, but that's just our lack of perspective and limited vision making us think that. I'm pretty sure some Civil War era folk may have thought the same thing, along with the Michican Indians when Cortez and smallpox brought them down. What civilization and colonization did to Native Americans is no greater than what we've done to the world with our fossil fuel and polluting society. 

We'll be OK, like we always have, like we always will, because we're alive and kicking and we make of our lives what we know how to. Which is exactly what we've been doing this whole time so far. And, in the unlikely event that we extinct ourselves (whether it's global habitability or human fear causing the breakdown of the current order), then it's a shame and still OK, just like our own death.

WWTA* Say? Jesus' take on vaccine scoffers.

[I'm imagining a Christian on their judgment day, meeting their maker (or duly appointed representative). I'm assuming you can't, like, talk shit to Jesus (or God, or St. Peter, or whoever is the acting bouncer to the afterlife) and they'd just be like, "Yeah, I guess that makes sense." No, I'm assuming he can see inside your heart, all the way through to your most authentic soul. I hope so, because if They're judging you for an eternity of heaven or hell, it better be legit.

And He's paging through his little record, and he pauses, looks up and says, "Oh, you decided not to be vaccinated?"

And you say, "Yeah, I didn't think it was really that effective."]

Jesus: But, I know you heard the testimony of the doctors and the nurses who said they were burning out in the COVID care clinics and hospitals. And you saw that news report where the ICUs were getting full and some people where actually being turned away because they were full, and so some of them died. It says here you heard that on the radio. And that 90%+ of the patients were unvaccinated -- you knew that, too.

You: But, I didn't believe it.

Jesus: Um, I can see through to the bottom of your soul, and you clearly thought that there was a possibility it could be true. After all, why would all the doctors and nurses caring for people through outrageous hardship be lying? I'm looking at your soul again, and you actually DIDN'T think they were a bunch of whiny babies. You thought there might be some truth to it. But you wanted to ignore it. Can you explain?

You: Forgive me, Father for I have sinned.

Jesus: You know that I told you love your neighbor, take care of the sick, all that? You had ONE JOB! Well, two, but that was the main one.

You: But they tried to make me do it and take away my freedom...

Jesus: Yeah. No. There were months where it was just encouraged. You didn't take advantage.

You: But there were serious side effects. I read it on the internet. It was rushed through.

Jesus: Did you forget who you're talking to? You maybe could convince your friends you believed that, but I TOLD you -- don't BS me.  You know damn well that the rare side effect was utterly trivial compared to the ravages of COVID. You saw the intubated patients. I warned you to have no other Gods before me...or did you forget that? You put your fear of needles and the inconvenience of getting two tiny arm pricks ahead of the lives of your neighbors. What do you think I should do with you? Just say, "Great, ignore my main rule, go on into heaven, enjoy," when you thumbed your nose at my "Love your neighbor" thing? 

You: Well, what can I do to make it better?

Jesus: Not much there on Earth. You're dead now. Maybe you can explain this: You didn't pray to me for guidance on this issue. I mean, dude! I was rejected, tortured, and crucified by my people for YOU. And you can't face a tiny needle? Or the exceedingly rare potential side effect? If you HAD prayed to me, what do you think I would have said? 

You: To get the shots.

Jesus: Mm. Do you want to know how many people you were responsible for killing?

You: Not really.

Jesus: Right. You don't. But does that really matter? You could have been one of the unvaccinated people that contributed to the 100,000 extra deaths, easily preventable. I'll just tell you: some. You killed some. Oh, and you killed some doctors and nurses, too. The work got them, some of them to COVID, some to suicide. Can you imagine if everybody was like you? It would have been millions.  Go sit over there. I'm going to let you sit with your decisions for awhile before I tell you what I'm going to do.

[1000 years later...] 

Jesus: OK, I made up my mind. You're going to have a discussion with each of the people who were killed by people like you, who decided not to get vaccinated knowing deep in their heart that they should. It could take awhile. And when you're done, we'll have another chat and go from there. This is your chance to make up for being a CINO (Christian in name only). You want to continue or just head on down to hell?

* What Would Thomas Aquinas Say? TA would sometimes entertain hypothetical religious ideas.

Syllabus

Did YOU ever read the goddamn syllabus? Fuck that, just pay attention in class, do your fucking work, and get help when you need it. Listen, write that shit down in your planner. Take care of your damn business and try to LEARN as much as you can. Shit. Oh, and don't forget to have fun.

Worries

Worry, like anger, is harmful and not productive. Don't do it to yourself. It's a mental kick in the balls. It's the emotional equivalent of poking yourself with a pin. Most of us wouldn't take an lemon peel and squeeze it into our open eye. Don't do the same thing with your scary thoughts.

If you're religious, for God's sake, follow your faith's teachings. They all preach surrendering your worries to God. But that's easy to say and hard to do (for a lot of us). If you're not religious, consider getting one, or fall back on your reasoning mind and preferred wisdom philosophy. They can often fill that hole in your sole. 

Replace your hand wringing with useful actions that address in real life whatever (the hell) you're worrying about.

Worried about your kids getting COVID at school? Educate them about all the things they need to do to prevent the spread of COVID for themselves (and others). Or, home school. Or take advantage of your school's (district's) distance learning option. 

Worried about climate change? Prepare yourself for the possible results: simplify your life, minimize your physical assets for easy mobility if you have to move. Train yourself for survival in the world you imagine might encounter. 

Worried about something else? Think of a solution that will prepare you for possible eventualities, write them down, start taking action and put the pieces in place to deal with it. Whatever your worry, there are knowledge resources to help you get a handle on the solutions.

Upset over some great wrongness in the world? Get involved in the solution in a real way (outside your online world). You can still use your social media to be active, spread awareness and find organizations to work with. But if you don't actually GO THERE and work with people in real life, and spend the time and effort, and/or money, you're not likely to allay much of your worry.

For all these human challenges, remember that at all times in human history, people have faced problems just as bad. Imagine being a Jew in WWII Germany. An American living in the Civil War South. A slave in any of the slave countries. A current Uyghur in present-day China or Rohingya in Myanmar. How about a Black Plague peasant? Most of us live in amazing security and luxury, and many of us in tolerable comfort. When it's our time to struggle, then struggle we will to the best of our abilities. Here are some general tips that best prepare you for ANY potential future:

• Make friends. Be part of a community that you contribute to and rely on in times of trouble. 
• Develop your faith or philosophy that helps you focus on the important tasks and find peace when times are tough. The daily/periodic practice of religion can really help with this if you don't have your own practice that keeps you centered and at peace.
• Plan and prepare, work and build for anything that troubles your thoughts.
• Make friends with death, your own and the death of your loved ones. Spoiler alert: they all die in the end. In American culture, this is not a normal practice, but it should be. Find resources (books, people, etc.) that can help you if this is not something you're comfortable with.
• Be smart. Stay educated. Read and listen broadly and deeply in many topics that give you general understanding of how everything in the world works. Talk about them with other smart people to help process and own your knowledge. Practice doing new things (crafts, building, fixing things, different sports/ activities, hobbies, technologies, interactions with different systems).

Those things help you with general well being and keep you young. The collateral benefits of facing your worries with action is you can often eliminate the cause of the worries. Acting is learning, too. 

In any case, shut-up your ridiculous worries by getting your pusillanimous ass in gear to vanquish them to your personal historical dustbin.