Twos or Tens

A good number of folks I know are having a horrible year, so far.  This is happening just when some of us thought that after last year, things were bound to improve.  Not so.  So far some of the things people are dealing with run the gamut from small, bothersome, irritations, to the biggest stressors of all.  In the space of a couple of weeks, I've heard stories about jobs suddenly ending, cars being hit while parked, and then fixed, and then hit again, to the big illnesses like inoperable tumors and recurring cancer diagnoses.
All this and the planet is imploding.  Don't forget that.  As a friend of mine likes to say, "Is it a two or a ten?"
A little of both, I'd say.  I think the thing to be careful of, is don't let a two become a ten.  Easier said, sometimes.
We're having a week of uncharacteristically hot weather here in the Pacific Northwest and that seems to aggravate everything.  Decision-making comes slowly. Motivation even slower.  Dog days, to be sure, but nothing we haven't seen before.
It got me thinking, though, about what are all the twos and tens in my own reality right now.  My challenge, of course, is to stay grounded in each day.  Enjoy the mystery and allow it to happen.  Now before this scrambles off into a series of Zen affirmations, let's get down to specifics.
How do we make meaning out of all these little irritations that constantly find their way into our busy lives?  Isn't that what we do, or are supposed to do?   Take the mundane and extract all the mythology that helps to explain our plight.

I've been reading a remarkable book, lately.  It's called Sapiens and was written by Yuval Noah Harari.  Subtitled, a Brief History of Humankind, it's a masterful look at our time on Earth.  Sort of biology meets philosophy meets science meets evolution...Mr. Harari offers a comprehensive overview of our history and thinking and accomplishments on this planet.  One of the most fascinating things he does is to offer a biological interpretation of the Declaration of Independence.  Since nobody has a "creator,' he suggests, then we can't have all been "created equal."  The real insight comes when we realize that we have collectively chosen to buy into a belief system that offers hope, contentment, and a plan for co-existence. Just look at the faith we place in the concept of money.  It really only is paper, but our faith that it will be backed with goods and services keeps us all afloat. That really is quite an accomplishment. Set this against a background of various eras, empires, and ages and you have the idea.  This is the one book I'd recommend for everyone at a particular time in their lives.  How's that for wishful thinking? Could all people be expected to read a book that offers viable explanations for some of life's mysteries?  But it seems to me that we all deserve at least a chance to bring some meaning to these massive questions that everyone seems to have asked at one time or another. Imagine, if we all had Harari's basic understanding of how we think and what we've become, so many tens might end up twos.

Perfect Drift

Seems like I've moved...again.  Not physically, but in my mind.  I now reside at the intersection of Today and Someday.  When those two streets intersect, it's a collision, of sorts.  It's the realization that most, if not all, your Somedays now reside under the heading of Today.  That is, you have to make them happen today because Someday just got smaller in a big way.
I was always in my head a lot as a child.  Whether raking leaves, mowing a lawn or walking home from school, I thought mostly of things that might come to be, someday.  The wonderful meditation of expectation was usually what preoccupied me.  It's not a bad thing.  In fact, I recently read where people who have something to look forward to are usually more content than those who don't.  I find real wisdom in that.
But there is another kind of expectation that isn't so useful.  As a child, my elementary school teachers often told my parents (it was usually my mother) that I seemed to always be "ahead of myself."  The implication was if I could just slow down a little, I'd make fewer mistakes and that my efforts would be even more rewarding.

As I think back on this, I realize that my old friend anxiety probably played a significant role in my consciousness.  Impulsive...yes, that's me, certainly, but I have no recollection of rushing through things for any reason.  Perhaps I operate on a higher cruising speed than many?  Perhaps I'm comfortable moving quickly through reading material.  No, that can't be it, because I pride myself in reading slower than many folks.  I like to take my time and savor sentences and words and language.
There is no doubt about the wisdom of slowing down.  As I age, I'm constantly aware of slowing myself down.  I think, perhaps, learning to fly fish has helped in that department.  Making a choice to take one's time is sometimes part of the beauty of that passion of mine.  I recall one time on a beautiful creek in Northern California I was trying to cast a fly in a difficult spot.  I wanted it to drift slowly at just the right angle near a rock wall on the other side of the stream.  In order to make the cast, I had to avoid some overhanging branches.  After a few tries, the inevitable happened and I was rewarded with the fly snagged on the upper leaves of the overhanging tree.  On closer inspection, there was a nice snarl of tippet to untangle as well.  (Tippet is the fine line at the end of the leader)  I wanted to land that fly on just the right path more than I wanted to cut that line so I painstakingly unwound that snag, retrieved that fly, re-rigged my line and remained in position until I was rewarded with a beautiful rainbow trout who just happened to be hanging out in the pool below that rock wall.  The real victory for me that day was not the fish, who, I might add, was released unharmed.  The win was over the old me who wouldn't have taken the time to show it all down and re-set.
I've been mindful of that experience and I know we don't always get rewarded on the spot when we take the time to re-focus.
Now that Somedays are turning into Todays I try to enjoy the moment and let whatever I'm doing or experiencing unfurl before me as it will.

Timing

I've been spending some time with my 93-year-old mother-in-law.  As you might imagine, that, in itself, has its challenges.  But apart from the physical limitations of sight and hearing, the mental ones of technology and age, she does remarkably well at navigating the massive social change that surrounds us all.
Betsy is a liberal.  A classic liberal.  She lives in Berkeley, California, and in many ways epitomizes the world-view of what that is supposed to mean.  She's lived through world war, and at least 15 Presidential terms, notwithstanding the fact that FDR was elected 4 times.
This past weekend, as luck would have it,  most of the family went in different directions and the two of us remained to spend some time together.
We watched some films, we took a hike around a local lake at one of the regional parks that dot the East Bay hills, and then settled in one evening to watch a political commentator on cable news.  Not surprising, the program soon turned to the recent news that the Supreme Court was about to receive a new member since Justice Kennedy announced his impending retirement.

It was not long afterward that the conversation before us turned to the possibility of Roe v. Wade being overturned, given the present political climate.  Many such discussions seem to be covering the talk show landscape these dates.  Now my mother-in-law was married to a man who could best be described as a real pioneer in women's reproductive rights.  A former OB-GYN, he devoted the second half of his life to public health and worked in various places on various continents.  I know her mind on this issue, but the renewed fervor of the issue lately has left us all thinking.  In one of those rare moments when a complex issue becomes strikingly clear the following conversation took place:

Me: Abortion and a woman's right to choose has become the great moral issue of our time.  It's not unlike slavery was 150 years ago.
She: Yes it has.  But I have a question for you.
Me: What's your question?
She:  Why do these men think it's their decision to make?
Me:  Well,  it's a political decision, and it's about power, political power, isn't it?
Suddenly a thought occurred to me.
Cue celestial music...
This entire issue became reduced to an absurdity; the complexity of the arguments seemed to vanish under the realization that any institution that has men making decisions for and about women and their bodies is ludicrous and an anachronism.
Now maybe it just seemed that way to me because I am a man.  But I can only speak from my own experience and report what I perceived at that moment.  So what? So what now?
I'm ready to put my body on the line.  Time's Up.