My dad once said that when you get into your mid/late 50s your friends start to drop around you, unless you’re one of the ones that drops.
It seems to me that cancer has been inordinately lethal among my group, but perhaps that’s just how it is. For many people around the world, and in the past, it’s not cancer – it’s purges, disease, war. I know that the world has been like this, for most people, forever; I just got lucky to be born where and when and what I was. As climate change begins to bite worse, I don’t think that the US will be as safe as it expects. Walls are pretty easy to get around. When the wheels come off, things get bumpy. Right now, I feel as though the US has actually lost one of its wheels, but the car is careening along just fine until someone turns the steering or stomps on the brake. That feeling of careening about in delicate balance surrounds me these days. My friends that have died – they were cruising along just as pretty as can be, then suddenly they were in the ditch, their lives changed irrevocably. From one day to the next, things were going fine and then they were in a struggle for their lives.
So, that’s my thought for the year: I’m incredibly lucky, but I’m not special. Nobody is special.
Thinking you’re special is a mistake that leads to other mistakes. The other stuff is all random.
Happy New Year.
As the falling person said, passing the 5th floor: “So far, so good”.
Well, no single observation from a probability distribution curve is special either, but then there are peaks and throughs.
(Nobody is special, but everyone is unique. Heh)
Happy New Year!
“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.”
– President Eisenhower, Chance for Peace speech
The capture of the government by the military-industrial complex is complete. It is best referred to these days as the military-industrial-congressional complex. They have managed to redefine patriotism and citizenship as servile worship of military empire. Any dissent regarding an open purse for the DoD (which really boils down to guaranteed profits for a range of manufacturer’s with “special” relationships) is denounced as being anti-American, not supporting the troops, or worse. The average American likes to see themselves as part of a caring nation. Unfortunately, the average American is also clueless about decades of CIA involvement in coups, assassinations, and the like.
The M-I-C complex: the reason why we can’t have nice things.
Oops, sorry. The item above got plunked into the wrong comment stream.