Brief Rocking Chair Reflection

A pause from political soapboxing

Though I know I should be, I'm generally not as desperately concerned as I used to be about world events, catastrophes, wars, outrages, etc, etc.; or, for that matter other, people's problems, or even MY problems (always my main source of worry)...

I still feel heart-sick watching or reading about what humans can do/are doing to other humans. It makes me crazy but not quite as crazy as it once did--or at least the fit doesn't last that long.

Whatever else this attitude may be (the usual suspects--old age, default depression, inherently sour world view, etc.) it's also very definitely the approach of mortality that is informing my current Alfred E. Neuman-like state of being.

Growing up with a box seat view on the inevitability of death (living right next to a large cemetery, and, occasionally even playing in it) —this got into my bone marrow at an early age; and, as far as I know, there's never been a medicine or procedure invented that can remove it... You know the old folk saying (which I just made up) “You can take the boy out of the cemetery, but you can't take the cemetery out of the boy.”

I still have intermittent spasms of rage over the general diminution of the quality of life, the artificialization/superficialization of culture and the collapse of democracy --and as long as I'm conscious I will probably erupt in some spoken or written form--usually with a strong undertow of mordant humor... BUT I have to say, brothers and sisters, the imminent approach of The Big Adios seems—on balance—to have a calming effect on me.

I hate knowing that my children will have to deal with this growing garbage dump of a world that is getting more poisonous every day, but I have to confess that all the earthly comings and goings I observe every day have a limited ability to torture me.
And why?—because I know it soon won't be my problem.

Having gotten all that off my chest, I just have one last worldly wish: Release the Epstein Files (every last word and photo, with the names and photos of innocents redacted)—then impeach this crazy criminal in the White House. This, aside from the increasing happiness of my children, is what I''d like to see before I shuffle off to Buffalo...