Time Passages

I was a basket case for several years after 9/11, I mean totally floored and sick to my stomach at how this country reacted and by the ugliness that has emerged.

About a year ago, though, I snapped out of it and started taking a little time out to live; I donate money to the causes I agree with, I barbecue, I go to clubs sometimes after work, and I buy fair trade coffee. It certainly hasn't turned out to be the world I envisioned as a youth...and that's a real bummer, but I do my best to nudge the world in the direction I think it should be going and I'm happy about it.

One thing that really helped me put things in perspective, other than canceling my subscription to piped-in television, was Jarred Diamond's “Guns, Germs, and Steel.” Dr. Diamond's insight into human development cleared up so many things I have wondered about most of my life. It was about fuel. Not gasoline, but calories and proteins. Good stuff, man. I think that book would do a lot of people on this site some good.

I don't worry too much about the future anymore; I still think about it all the time but I've overcome my shock and revulsion of the present and I find comfort knowing that people will change. It's really interesting to examine forty thousand years' worth of human history and then consider today. HA, I say. THIS IS A JOKE.

Consider this though: Our lives are little windows through which we peer at what will soon become history. Moreover, from our perspective, time goes SLOWLY. Whatever happens in our lifetimes we'll be able to adapt to...either that or we'll die, but we're all going to do that someday anyway.

This planet will continue to revolve around the sun and rotate on its axis long after all of us are dead, and people will be around for a long, long time. So yeah, fight for your causes, but remember that things change slowly. Keep the fervor, but don't panic. Progressive thinking is difficult because you're always going to be held back by conservatives, but if you look at it historically, we always win out in the end. WE know we're right and THEY know we're right...they just don't want to change. Piss on them. Fools. They're changing RIGHT NOW.

If it helped you put things in perspective, then please allow me to also recommend Michael Pollan's "The Omnivore's Dillemma."

In a way, it takes the calories/protein/fuel aspects from Diamond's treatise and brings it home to the American table of 2006.