SLIPPING AWAY

air bellows outdoor art museum

The nights in the 50s now. Late August, the first signs of cooler air moving in, Autumn on its way. August is an interesting month in a lot of ways. In the old days was a saying about the fogs in August. It goes that you mark on the calendar the days of fog as they occur in August. Then extend the length of August to all winter long and the fogs in August will correspond to snows in the winter. It used to be a reliable guide for when to expect snows. The weather patterns have changed so much that the old sayings about weather forecast don't apply any more. I've given to understand that the global warming trend is due to the sun itself heating up. Mars's polar ice caps are receding. One of Jupiter's moons that was all ice is now liquid. I don't know any of this for a fact. And I can't say I believe something just because somebody said it or I read it someplace or heard it on the news. I tend to put everything like that on a shelf I call, Maybe So / Maybe Not. When I get some confirmation, I change it to the shelf, Probably So. I get a convincing refutation and it goes to, Probably Not.

I do tend to draw conclusions, but I don't hold them as law, same as my opinions I regard of no more substance than the air we breathe. The air has far greater substance. I understand that the workings of the mind create reality, that once I get convinced enough to come to a conclusion, I'm still not certain. A conclusion, like an opinion, is neither here nor there. I come to a conclusion by seeing convincing evidence. From there, I'm willing to find convincing evidence that what I'd concluded before was misguided. I've learned so many times that if I've not got it by now I'll never get it, just because my mind sees something one way does not mean it's reality. I suppose my trend is to build my reality out of my conclusions. The reality can change drastically when another point of view enters the equation. An English movie, ESSEX BOYS, tells the story with conclusions drawn one way, and by the end a different way to see the process of the story comes forward changing everything that went before.

Opinions bother me a great deal. I have them, adhere to them, while at the same time seeing them as nothing at all. I have 2 friends who hold opinion high as fact itself. That might be something of an exaggeration, but not by a lot. We exchange opinions and I'm held to mine like I believe them to be fact, when I do not. Somebody says, Well you said such and such before. That doesn't mean I necessarily hold to it. See it one way one day, another way another day, according to how the mind is functioning each day. Or I may have found refuting evidence in my mind or elsewhere. Opinions are of the mind and I tend to see the mind as fluid as the air. Just because my mind sees something doesn't mean it's anywhere but in my mind. I've seen mind slip away from too many people to be convinced it has anything like permanence about it.

I see the way I see something at different phases of my life change. I used to be worried about how our corporate government is stamping out democracy fast as it can go until, by now, it's gone. We go about acting like we have a democracy, but we don't cross the boundaries we're not allowed to cross. In this time of my life I figure I don't have a great deal of time left on the earth, so it's of little consequence anymore. I don't worry over it. I know the forces against democracy are greater than I can challenge by protest or other means. Now, I care most about living my life as peaceably as can be done interpersonally. This is why I love living on a rural road in a rural region. That's not hiding from anything, just staying out of the fray. I thank God for Michael Moore and Alex Jones, documentary film makers addressing the issue of seeing our American rights taken away as fast as can be done. They don't change anything, but they give us a good heads up to what's going on behind the news. I find it interesting that the Patriot Act passed under fraudulent urgency, no one voting for it having any idea of its contents. I've been most interested to note that the Obama administration is leaving it in place. Tells me he knows about a lot we have no idea of and he is more guided by the role of the office than for our good once he's learned certain truths about where the real power resides. He throws us crumbs and we beg beside his chair at the table for more.

If I still believed we the people had a voice, I'd take it very differently from how I do. I've been watching our government turn on us since the time of the Kennedy assassination coup. I see that as the day we lost our democracy, what there was of it. From then to now it's been a steady making of laws to benefit corporations at our expense thanks to the millions and billions of bucks changing hands under the table called lobbying. Lobbyists have bought our government away from us and now it is a government of corporations, by corporations and for corporations. The corporate hierarchy is not democratic in any way of looking at it. The supreme court gave corporations absolute power. Obama sounds good talking about reducing the power of corporations, but isn't getting anything done in that direction I've heard of. Maybe he is and it doesn't show. And like I said, at this time of the life I can't concern myself with it. Lies in the form of propaganda has become our American reality. Half the American people don't vote, a good statistic telling the confidence the American people have in our democracy.