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THE MORNING AFTER THE MORNING BEFORE
Solstice celebrations are packing December, and O what fun they are.
But the day after the joy, the day after the close of this wacky year, what will the world be like?
After overstaying my mortal welcome and journeying forth into the netherlands of geezerhood, l can speculate all I want. Because who’s to stop me?
My hunch is that Earth will continue spinning a few billion times, Old Sol will fume and glisten for a trillion or so, humanoids will come and go and come again and go again, mice and mosquitoes will prevail to the inconsequential end, and the darkness of space will keep on sparkling with stars and other glowy objects, and large rocks will orbit and collide right on random schedule.
Now that the science lesson is concluded, what is left upon which to focus our attentions?
It’s always the same. As long as we are bumbling about, birthing and suspiring, we might as well do something worthwhile…something bigger and better than acquiring wealth and power and status and property. We might as well take care of each other.
Each other is all we’ve got.
In my case, I can only do what I can only do. Hug my family. Hug a friend. Hug someone in need. Hug someone who simply could use a hug.
What else could I do? Listen instead of blabbering and bragging. Look someone in the eye instead of avoiding them altogether. Imagine what it would be like to be that other person. Slap myself each time I throw out an entertaining but hurtful remark. Remember what it is like to be on the other end of that remark.
If I behave according to these precepts, will I become inert, wimpy, useless…or will I morph into someone better, someone wiser, someone worth respecting, someone to be trusted?
It would be a brave new world, the world that would allow all of us to behave, to embrace, to acknowledge, to share, to support, to assist.
Sometimes I want to grab a large canvas bag and stuff it with all the useless ideas that rattle around me. This bag would be filled with negativity, pessimism, criticism, violence, careless remarks, snobbishness, condescension, smirking, and all I’m-better-than-you-isms. Perhaps NASA could gather all these bags and launch them toward the Sun, where they would evaporate and for a moment illuminate our better selves.
Just another idea. What you do with it is all on you, my fellow traveller
© 2016 A.D. by Jim Reed