She’s my trouble… What to do

 Is what I’d like my epitaph to read.

So, when the children were young, they’d listen to music not conducive to the prescribed norm and when Rod Stewart belted out Van Morrison’s ,"Have I told you lately that I Love You"… a 3 year old Alder would chime along and end with “She’s my trouble… what to do” in parody of “Ease my troubles… that’s what you do” and glance at me meaningfully.

Was for me an avowal. Trouble is everlasting. Good times are fleeting. Now call me out on this. Please. I dare you.

Like the year this is. Jeez, we’ve been lamenting about the misery and the misfortune and doomsday blah blah. Call me out on this. I dare you.

Cut the crap. Really. We’re alive, every breath we take is a testament to the fact that we’re still kicking. Our ability to ‘function’ as ‘normal’ is impaired. Our grand plans are stalled. We’ve lost loved ones. Lost vocations, vacations and ill-advised fornications. Lost our means for living. Lost avenues for loving. Our ship seems rudderless. Our flights (more of grandiose and fancy) are grounded.

Yet I’m here penning this and you’re here reading this.

More than a little tired of the lamentations, doomsday conspiracy theorists, religious nuts, conformists, rebels, fatalists, and pessimists. A lot more than a little actually.

Yes the year has been a challenge but excuse me, who exactly declared that one is ‘entitled’ to a life that’s sans strife and curve balls?

The measure of a fulfilled life is how one battles on despite the bellows of the Taurus or the gauge of a cannon or even the lure of a mermaid.

We’re dished out infested broth, worse than served at Guantanamo Bay. From hangovers of a miserable childhood to relationships that crippled us to circumstances that stunt us to careers that impaled us. Yeah, it happened. Unfortunate, unwarranted, unforgivable. Like this year, 2020.

Choices… choices on how to process them.

If one believes that we’re here for the long haul and that it’s peachy cream all the way, time to swallow the BS?

Stock check time, Christmas is… for me.

Despite all the vagaries of the current environment and its uncertainties I’d like to believe this has been a year that was bloody brutal yet hauntingly authentic. Of acceptance, elevation and zen. To that which is stronger than self. To the fears that surfaced and made us question our mortality, self-importance, impotence and incompetence.

End this soppy outpouring on a positive, placating note?  Nopes.

 In 1949, J. E. Lawrence in the Nebraska State Journal said:

"New land is harsh, and vigorous, and sturdy. It scorns evidence of weakness. There is nothing of sham or hypocrisy in it. It is what it is, without an apology."

Suck it up and swallow.

Sniff while you’re at it.

Smile too.

Pleasurable really.

This life… she’s my trouble… What to do!

Doobious thoughts...

 ‘The Social Dilemma’ movie on Netlfix though has many takeaways, the one that stayed with me was the conclusion that the intent of social media sites was never the current status quo where our thought process and choices are manipulated via AI systems.

Add to that was the centenary celebration video released by St. Agnes College Mangalore, the educational institute I spent 14 years in. Watching the video did cause my C cups to distend. The pictures circa 100 years ago as well as the motive behind women’s education in an age where the primary goal of a woman was servitude is awe inspiring.

Momentarily however.

The commentary that “The shaping of a woman though rooted in values yet soars on the wings of autonomy of thought and action sums up perfectly the role of the Agnesian Alma mater” caused the sinsemilla calmed nerves to leap into a frenzy of WTF.

A tirade is marching on furiously in my head and I’m knuckling down to keep it at bay lest this seems a vitriolic expose’. I’m sure there are many women who found wings to soar and it must have enhanced the quality of their lives.

My experience was different as I rebelled against the conditioning. Well it’s no secret that I was a terrible student and failed almost every exam, add to the fact that I had no fear of authority, academics bored me and I couldn’t shut up. Terrific recipe for disaster in any school really.

Leads me to think that almost all grand plans begin with the right intent, whether educational institutions, social media, ideologies, social and charitable organizations and the like. The intent being the augmentation of the human spirit.

Somewhere along the line we lose the plot. To me that is the direct result of ‘absolute power corrupts absolutely’. Not dwelling on this as I use the wax for another purpose this time.

Secessionist me balks at the fallacies we employ to justify our actions and thinking, to ourselves and others. To a degree that the sanctification which began as a simple lie becomes the truth even in our own minds.

“Repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth”, is a law of propaganda often attributed to the Nazi Joseph Goebbels. There must a Nazi in most of us, yours truly included as we have this insatiable need for the sanctions of others, to this end we fabricate what seems like harmless confabulations which culminate in altering the truth until it is replaced by our version of it especially in ethical actions.

I listen to reminisces of the elderly and I question my sanity as I do not remember the incidents they narrate in quite the same fashion, my dad talks about things that I’m pretty certain are a figment of his imagination but then I brush it off as senility.

When my friends and acquaintances however resort to distortion I struggle with calling them out on the BS. Oh and this is singular to myself too. The whoppers I’ve indulged in over time are enough to make my face transmogrify into a congress of female baboon butts. Yeah, that crimson!

Now that we’re talking bottoms, the line I’d like to end with is… the truth however ugly, is empowering. It’s fine to be a shithead as long as you recognize you are one and try to better it. It’s fine if you fail, you’re learning. The journey begins with being true, to yourself.

And with that it’s to doobie or not doobie…