I woke earlier than I had hoped. It is a colder morning than forecast. My Traveling Partner is awake, coughing in the living room. I blow him a kiss as I leave the house, realizing moments later I could have actually kissed him. He sends me his love in the form of cute “stickers” in a message as I pull out of the coffee stand with a hot cup of coffee, ready to head up the highway. I reply with a couple cute stickers back, and find myself hopeful that he may be able to get a little more sleep.
Daybreak on the horizon.
It’s 22°F (-5.5°C) as daybreak touches the horizon. Cold. Properly wintry. I sit in the warm car, with my coffee and my thoughts, waiting for the sun. I feel fairly certain the sunrise will bring the temperature up. It’ll still be a cold walk, and I’m already looking forward to a warming luxurious hot shower after I return home, but it’ll be better than walking in the dark on such an icy morning.
I saw a shooting star as I drove up the highway this morning. Yes, I made a wish on it. No, I don’t think making wishes on stars is actually something that works. lol What did I wish for? You’d laugh if I told you.
…What a weird scary world we’ve created…
I sigh to myself and turn my gaze back to the western horizon, now a streak of dirty orange with some blue-ish sky above it. The outline of Mt Hood becomes visible. The oaks that dot the meadow begin to take shape. There is comfort in real things in this real lived moment. I take refuge from my anxiety in this gentle “now”. Nothing much going on right here; a woman in a car at a trailhead, watching the sun rise. Pretty peaceful calm stuff. I have high hopes for a pleasant day ahead.
My head aches ferociously this morning. I take some medication and hope for relief. The cold hasn’t yet had its opportunity to seep into my bones, and my arthritis is not yet vexing me. That’s something, anyway. It’s enough and I’m grateful. My pain may be less manageable by the end of the day, but for now, I’m feeling pretty fortunate. Other than the cold, it’s a lovely morning to walk the trail here.
…I think about maybe getting my nails done before I head to San Francisco this week for work. It’s a definite maybe. 😂 I mean, I’d like to, but I’m reluctant to spend the money. It seems pretty frivolous… Choices.
Dawn comes.
The gate into the main parking area opens with a screech. I move the car closer to the access point for the year-round trail. I add my scarf, hat, and oversized fleece to my layers and put my gloves and cane handily within reach. I won’t want to stop long this morning, so I finish this now, before I set off down the trail. The colorful sunrise is a beautiful backdrop to the oaks.
I take my time enjoying the sunrise.
As the first light of day begins to touch the treetops, the frosted meadow grass sparkles. The hint of white suggests snow from a distance, but there’s been none of that. I’m selfishly grateful, but dismayed when I also think about summer ahead, crops, and the possibility of wild fires. Being good stewards of this one planet that is our home has not been easy for human primates; we tend towards self-serving greed and shortsightedness. We could do better.
Daylight. Across the highway I can see the lowland farm fields that in previous years have reliably become a shallow seasonal lake favored by migrating birds each winter. This morning it is a grassy field, mown short, covered in frost. G’damn I hope the planet recovers from the damage we have done (with or without us). I’d like to be around to see that.
I can remember my father mocking people who lacked “real skills” but who were also educated people with college degrees. He had no fondness for abstract intellectualism that could not get anything done in the world in a practical sense. It’s a fairly commonplace perspective, frequently held by practical minded working people, perhaps to secure a sense of achievement in spite of the lack of a degree. Memorized facts without comprehension aren’t particularly useful, generally. Applying knowledge in the real world can create change.
Books make great gifts!
Why do I mention it? I mean, it’s probably pretty obvious that “book learning” alone doesn’t amount to understanding a topic deeply or being able to make suitable use of the knowledge. I watched a video yesterday talking about the increasing lack of ability to read that seems to be developing in young cohorts of students (in the US). Book learning isn’t all there is to education, but g’damn reading is a pretty critical life skill, and if our youngsters receiving their education aren’t learning to read, we’ve got a real problem ahead. Traffic signs, price tags, menus, clocks, rental agreements, job offers…we need to read a lot of things, and recognizing shapes and colors is not an adequate substitute for reading comprehension.
Books can be filled with practical information.
Why learn to read when an LLM can read a summary aloud and save us the bother? (Why learn math when there’s a calculator always at hand?) I struggle with why these would be questions, but I remember teachers answering my own youthful “why learn math?” question by trying to give examples of the raw power and utility of having a basic understanding of math. One truth that is more important than any one example and might have been more persuasive; we need to learn math (and reading) to develop problem solving skills, and for depth and nuance in our understanding of the world. We need these skills to support our ability to think critically and recognize misinformation. If we lose our ability to read we become dependent on spoken opinion, and susceptible to marketing hype and outrageous lies by politicians and pundits.
Other books take us on an adventure.
I am fortunate to enjoy reading, myself. (It took me awhile to come around to the legitimate value in math, but eventually I got there, too.) I am happily reading The Stand, a gift from my Traveling Partner. I prefer to read the news rather than watch it. I can’t actually imagine not being able to read. If nothing else, the amount of paperwork required in life would be far less manageable if I couldn’t read the forms!
Thanks for being here, by the way. If you’re reading these words, now, I’m grateful that you are literate. (Not only because you’re reading what I wrote, but also because you can.) One day you may be considered to be among the elite intellectuals of the world, simply because you can read, at all.
Books are the software upgrades for our minds.
I sit at my halfway point on this trail, watching Venus setting slowly on the western horizon. I spotted it one morning some time ago and looked up what this very bright “star” might be. I read about it. Now I gaze upon Venus with even greater wonder and appreciation. I smile to myself, eagerly considering spending the day reading. Maybe I’ll pull a cookbook from my shelf and peruse the recipes and bake something? Seems a good day for it. I could spend more time writing, later – I hear snail mail is making a comeback as a hobby or lifestyle choice. Promising.
… I’m not pointing fingers or being critical of the shortcomings of other people. I’m quite human myself, and some of life’s critical skills fade with disuse. My handwriting (pen and ink on paper) has gotten pretty dreadful because I don’t often pick up a pen these days. Practice would be helpful. Letter writing has potential, with that in mind. I think fondly back to my great-grandmother, who lived well past 100 years. She wrote letters to friends every day. I used to write a lot of letters… until email and the Internet and the convenience of a keyboard intervened. Creeping incompetence – and I don’t have to succumb to it. I have choices and the freedom to choose change.
Anyway. Read a book. Don’t let that skill erode away completely! You definitely really need to be able to read. Reality can be unforgiving, and doesn’t accommodate ignorance in any gentle way.
Some books we fill with our own story.
I sigh to myself as Venus dips below the treetops. I breathe, exhale, and relax. I contemplate all the many books I’ve read, and the many more I have yet to read. The books on my reading list have guided me along my path. I doubt I could have come so far so quickly without them, and AI summaries would not have been enough to teach me what I needed to learn.
The first hint of daybreak touches the sky. Is it already time to begin again?
People can be so matter-of-fact about their opinions. We treat them as facts. We get so spun up over differences between our own opinion and the opinion of others, we forget that relationships and people matter more. Many of us express opinions – strongly – for which we have limited actual knowledge or data with which to support some opinion that is often little better than a sound-bite we snatched from a social media feed, and become pushy when people we value disagree, in spite of our lack of any actual knowledge. It’s messy. Humans are complicated, and we regularly over-simplify what is happening around us, seeking to reduce every discussion to a very basic either/or dilemma, instead of embracing uncertainty and nuance and approaching the world with curiosity – and compassion.
Why am I on about this, this morning? Because the media and big corporate advertisers and our own elected officials are constantly trying to manipulate our opinions, not to get at “the truth”, but primarily for profit. Are you being bamboozled by bullshit? I saw a headline in my feed this morning that read “we asked 5 chefs what their favorite vanilla ice cream is, and they all said this” and laughed out loud. In what way is a sample size of 5at all significant? It isn’t. That wasn’t news – it was barely sponsored content (and almost certainly AI generated) – it’s just an unoriginal narrative intended to sell a particular brand of ice cream, nothing more. Five people think it’s the best vanilla ice cream? Out of how many people who eat ice cream? Insignificant. This isn’t even the most ridiculous example of the mockery of truth on display for everyone to see (and potentially be mislead by).
If you want to see an example of massive manipulation of public opinion, I suggest the ongoing saga of the crimes of Jeffrey Epstein, which more and more looks (to me) like a very direct actual no-foolin’ cover-up of possible past crimes of our current president. No kidding – why else would he fight so very hard to redirect our attention? Ghislaine Maxwell went to prison for 20 years for “enticement of minors and sex trafficking of underage girls” – for Jeffrey Epstein and his friends. Doesn’t look like anyone but Ghislaine is going to see a conviction for their part in the crimes against Epstein’s victims. I promise you, he wasn’t the only person abusing those girls – there are too many photos of too many parties, and too many people, and too many stories. Trump himself is in too many pictures with Epstein, friendly, partying, laughing together, for him to be immune from scrutiny. They had history together socially. So. Here we all are, being lied to and mislead. (My opinion.)What are you going to do about it? Anything at all? Or is it just easier to allow the rapist-in-chief to redirect your attention?
Hollyhocks blooming. This is not an opinion.
I sip my coffee and let it go. People are what they are. We excuse and justify the bad acts of people we favor, but seek to harshly penalize anyone we “other” and look on with disdain. I don’t get how rapists get a pass, but immigrants willing to work hard seeking a better life for their families are criminalized. It’s a very peculiar thing, in my opinion. Our justice system and our government are broken and we don’t seem competent to fix them. Hell, we can’t even take care of the planet we live on, or our own sick or poor or elderly. We’re too busy chasing some illusion of happiness and scapegoating anyone we think may be in our way, while we disagree over who deserves what amount of pay for what sorts of labor and pretending that billionaires “earned” what they have.
I breath, exhale, and relax, and let it go – again. I’ve got my opinions. Clearly. You’ve got yours. That’s a certainty. Maybe humanity will eventually figure this shit out – or go extinct, another failed species, too stupid to survive. Wow. That sounds grim. I look out the window at the clear blue summer sky and sigh. I’m human, too. I’ve got my opinions, some of them suck and are wildly ill-informed, others demonstrate my potential as a human being in a more positive way. Sharing them is mostly pretty fucking pointless; most of humanity is standing around waiting to talk – or to be told what their opinion is by someone they assume knows more than they do, themselves. I’m not even in a bad mood this morning… I’m just annoyed by a headline that suggests a sample size of 5 matters at all, and I’m disappointed by the painful awareness that many people won’t even give that a second thought; they’ll just go buy the ice cream.
Potted geranium blooming. Also not an opinion.
My coffee is pleasant, well-made, icy. I slept well and deeply and woke feeling rested. Hell, I’m not in any pain right at the moment, none at all – not even my almost-ever-present headache! I take a moment to be present in this moment, aware of my lack of pain, savoring this experience long enough to really enjoy it. I don’t doubt it will pass, at some point, that’s the way moments work – but here, now, in this moment? I feel pretty good. It’s a lovely day. There are no bombs dropping here. No annoying voices in the background. The workday ahead looks routine and the work in front of me manageable. The bills are paid. The pantry is stocked. I’ve got a full tank of gas. I’ve got a Traveling Partner who loves me dearly and does a lot to make feel feel appreciated and wrapped in this enduring love we share. He makes all sorts of little things to delight me and make life better. I’ve got a nice little house. My stepson does everything he knows how to do, most days, to be helpful, to deepen his emotional intelligence, and to improve his “life skills” such that he’s a valued family member in our household – no small thing. My commute was pleasant and easy, in spite of there being much more traffic (due to timing). The office AC is working efficiently.
It is a better experience to appreciate the view than to be angry about the traffic.
There’s much to be grateful for, and I sit with those thoughts awhile. It’s unhealthy to stew in aggravation, bitterness, disappointment, and vexation with “humanity” – and it is a corrosive practice, generally, that never got me anywhere good. We become what we practice. Practice bitterness and cynicism, and life becomes characterized by the terrible things going on in the world, chronically disappointing, and we lose hope. Practice gratitude – authentically – and we become appreciative of the good things in our lives, and more easily able to be resilient in the face of terrible times, and potentially more able to find solutions, because we are clear-headed, and grounded in the things we know work. Or something. It works for me. I share these thoughts with you, because maybe you’ll find value here (for some values of “value”)… or be inspired to do more/better, or simply to begin again and make some small change for the better in your life. I smile to myself at the thought; these are my experiences, and also my opinions. Maybe they’re worth something, maybe they aren’t. I don’t even know that it matters to anyone but me…but I can hope.
I glance at the time. The clock is ticking. Are you ready to begin again? I am.
I missed a day of writing, yesterday. I think. Did I? I did.
Yesterday’s sunrise
I went walking on a familiar local path, yesterday, enjoying the mild summer air, thoughts on other things, and returned home to work. The work day was busy, routine, and relaxed. When I finished with work, I played a video game for a little while, enjoying that with undivided attention; the Anxious Adventurer would make dinner, as is the practice on Tuesdays. A pleasant day that passed quickly without much to say. It was a good day.
This morning I slept a little later, and hit the trail at a similar time, noticing that already the sunrise comes a little later and the days are a little shorter, as is the way with changing seasons.
A new day
As I walk, I realize I don’t recall the details of the sunrise, this morning, though I am certain I saw it. I chuckle to myself. It’s not as if my mind is on weighty matters this morning, I’m just walking and thinking, and listening to birdcalls. The weeds along the edge of the meadow are quite tall in spots left unmown. They are peculiarly dry and brown in places where herbicides have been applied, near the edge of the vineyard.
I get to a convenient picnic table, not quite halfway, and I sit down to write, which is when I notice that I didn’t write yesterday. It’s fine. It’s not like I write because I am required to do so. It’s reasonable to skip it when I’ve nothing to say, or, as was the case yesterday, I’m simply too caught up in living life, present in the moment.
I’m trying to avoid looking at the news. It’s a shit show of human cruelty, these days, and I just don’t need the stress and anxiety that comes with being immersed in endless repetitions of the same reports of people being horrible to each other, and the wealthy and powerful continuing to profit from the misery created by the current administration. It’s all pretty grotesque and I just don’t need to fill my awareness with that crap in every moment. So… I don’t.
A small squirrel approaches me hesitantly as I sit, still and quiet, meditating. It approaches close enough to place a tiny unfelt hand on my pant leg, looking into my face as I look back, before darting away. I laugh out loud with real delight. My morning is made in this one brief moment.
I hear voices, loud but distant. Farm workers in the vineyard, calling conversation or instructions to each other in Spanish. I am unavoidably reminded of the current trauma and day-to-day anxiety being experienced by America’s immigrants and migrant workforce due to constant threats of raids and fears of deportation. Sometimes I think the wealthy really deserve to experience the sudden loss of available day laborers and domestic staff that would certainly be one direct outcome of these horrible attacks on humanity, but realistically I know the amount of suffering that would be inflicted would devastate those of lesser means, who would also be affected. I smile grimly to myself, although it isn’t funny, as I wonder just who exactly these rich fuckwits think is going to take these jobs (that often pay very poorly for hard work in poor conditions) if we cut ourselves off from the immigrants and migrant workers who fill them now? Are folks ready to pay citizen workers what Americans demand (and require for a living wage) for their labor? I sure don’t think so.
… One might almost think the very wealthy want slave labor, and might not even pay minimum wage if there were no legal requirement to do so. Human greed is some ugly shit…
I sigh and watch the morning sunlight through the leaves of the oaks along the path. Human beings can be pretty terrible, and it’s quite disappointing that we haven’t yet risen above our worst characteristics as beings, though we’ve had hundreds of years to do so. Very disappointing. I frown as an off-leash dog runs past, in this “dogs must be on a leash” area. I’m sure the owner has found some crappy excuse for this, a way to justify exempting themself from the rules. This. This is why we can’t have nice things. It’s a small thing, but the small things add up until we become terrible people.
I sit thinking about that. It’s not an “other people” thing… I think about my driving. I could do better. Every day, there’s something I could be doing to be more the person I most want to be. To be a better person today than I was yesterday. The clock is always ticking on this journey of discovery, healing, and growth.
Our choices have consequences. The journey is the destination.
… It’s already time to begin again. I can do better – can’t you? Small changes over time can make big differences. Maybe we can change the world?
What we choose to consume matters. Fact is, all our choices matter to one degree or another. The results we get from any one choice over any other are reliably different. This is true of the food we eat, the books and periodicals we read, the services we use, the consumer goods we purchase, the platforms we subscribe to, the movies and videos we watch, and the politicians we elect. The tl;dr is that our choices matter, in our own life and in the world.
Businesses succeed or fail on their choices – and on ours as customers and consumers.
Societies rise, develop and fall based on the choices of chosen leaders enacting chosen policies.
We thrive or struggle based on our individual choices, and the choices of those around us.
It’s everything. From the choice of the food we put into our mouths (which could nurture or poison us), to the choice of who is best to lead us, every choice matters, every day, all the time. Are you up to the challenge? Are you ready to make willful, informed, eyes-open choices and also to accept responsibility for the choices you have made?
Are you even making actual choices or are you tumbling randomly through life with your choices being dictated by the opinions of others, or based on the constant media bombardment of advertising and “infotainment”? Are you even thinking your own thoughts, or has your mind been taken over by ideological bullet points, loyalty to party platforms, and AI slop?
…Who even are you?
Dawn of a new day.
As I left town heading for a favorite trail, I saw the beginnings of a beautiful colorful sunrise. I knew I had “missed my moment”. My timing would give me brief views of spectacular color, but no opportunity to do more than watch it as I drove. I faced a lived moment of natural splendor that could be appreciated and enjoyed, but not preserved. That’s okay. Hell, that is the truth of most moments. I don’t fight it. I drive on drinking in the scenery and watching the sunrise evolve from the magenta and luminous pinks to bold bright orange, then fading to hues of peach, salmon, and mauve. Gorgeous. Words don’t capture the moment.
I’m driving. Progress. The finger I had surgery on is still bandaged, but I’m back to my usual pain management, and driving, which feels good. My Traveling Partner suggests I take it easy today. I embrace that suggestion enthusiastically; I’m not quite ready to do housework, with one hand still impaired. He suggested maybe I entertain myself with a drive to the coast after my walk, and I agree that sounds like a great idea. Choices, eh? Today, and every day.
Our perspective on the world is informed through our choices regarding where to turn our attention.
I breathe, exhale, and relax – and set off down the trail after watching the last splashes of the colorful sunrise fade to a new day. Reaching my halfway point, I sit awhile on a handy fence rail at the edge of a meadow. I watch the sunshine light up the oak trees in an adjacent grove. Beautiful. Also choices. I don’t think about every choice I make, in every moment. Some things seem to flow one moment to the next in some determinate “natural” way, but these too are choices, and they are the sort of choices that can easily become problematic; they are not carefully considered and thoughtful. Even some brief pause between actions to consider the options is probably better than being on “autopilot” or following some path as though I were on rails (like a train more than a hike). I think about that as I watch little birds living their moments. “How much do they choose?”, I wonder.
Thinking things over is healthy. Critical thinking skills are worth developing, practicing, and using. It’s quite freeing to make a willful well-considered choice. Having real agency is powerful. These are all practices, and they are choices.
Choices upon choices requiring choices about choices – so many choices! I brush off my jeans as I get to my feet, still thinking about choices and the power we have to choose our path, and even the sort of world we want to live in. Every choice matters, and it’s already time to make the next choice and begin again.
Evening Light 