Good Moonday lunatics. Welcome to a brand new week on Planet Abundance. How are we going to filter the foul fluctuations of frightening frequencies, this week? It’s one more day above ground and we’re here to get down. We have not written one of these post meridian reports in a few days, and that’s all right. We are working on another curmudgeonly chronicle for your discerning delight. Here’s a preview. (Always complaining about something!) That’s right. It’s good for the soul.
Analysis 1.
When Mind loves something, like a style of writing for example, We copy it, and through that love and admiration, the style improves. When we simply like it, we may adopt elements into an evolving fashion. However, when we loathe it, find it trite, formulaic and vulgar, (meaning common), it is mocked, mercilessly. Sometimes, as with language, the joke is on us. We start off mocking a phrase, and putting “air quotes” around it, and then somehow, the phrase becomes part of the lexicon. Then it’s our turn to be mocked, or at least questioned.
“You say that a lot,” says the type of friend who’s friendship is so deep and valued that they can getaway with calling us out, the same way we call others out.
Maybe twenty years ago, the response would be denial. “I do not!”
Fifteen years ago, it would be surprise. “I do? Really? I hadn’t noticed.”
Ten years ago. “Oh shit, not again.”
Today, your smart-ass linguistic cynic would sooner tell someone to “sit on it,” than “sit with it.”
We don’t dislike the phrase, but maybe we do dislike it. What really ruffles our feathers, is that it’s used so much. So much so that we actually notice when it’s not used. Whenever we get through one of these wisdom blogs, or red pill propaganda lectures, and we’re not advised to sit with the writer’s filtered wisdom, or “let that sink in,” we are apt to respond. Positively.
We have noticed there are fewer such lines. Perhaps the trend is waning. Perhaps writers have heard my incessant whining, which is not bloody likely. What is more feasible is that they… other scribblers of bloggish wisdom, have noticed the same trend.
“We can no longer let sinks in. Do you hear me? No more sinks!!!” Let that sink out! Get it out of here!
Perhaps they are waiting for the arbiters of the lexicon to authorize a “new” yet similar phrase. Something neurosciencey. You know I like to pick on the neuroscience cult.
“Let that frequency coalesce.”
“Ponder the possibilities of putting your predicament on pause.”
“Allow your being to absorb the harmony of the apocalypse.” Or some such phrase that justifies the six-figure tuition, plus interest, they paid for the letters behind their names.
Analysis 2. At A Safe Distance.
Life figured this vessel out decades ago. Long before we started using our different kinda lingo to express the thoughts that Universe drops into our gut.
Let’s return to The X-Files, still my all time favorite TV series and one of the last ones I watched before cutting the addiction.
It’s this weird story about a serial killer, a TV-psychic who’s been engaged to assist in the investigation, an insurance salesman past retirement age, who actually has some sort of psychic gift, but doesn’t fully realize it, and the FBI agents.
There’s a scene where the killer meets the salesman, and it’s like Highlander, when two immortals are in proximity of each other. They can feel their vibes at a distance.
In the X-Files scene the killer asks the salesman, “why do I kill people?”
The salesman, an elder guy who’s been carrying the burden of his psychic energy for too long, says, “Don’t you get it son? You’re a psychopath.” (No spoilers, if you haven’t seen it.)
Similarly, Life told Ego what it already knew. What our horoscopes, believe it or not, had been telling us for decades. We eventually put words to the frequency and stopped pretending to be a “social butterfly.” “The party favor,” as a close friend put it.
Your humble vagabond is simply an anti-social loner. We revel in our solitude and prefer to observe the herd from a distance. We avoid crowds and festivities. Even random Tuesday nights at the tavern, despite drink specials and other like-minded loners guzzling suds and playing darts by themselves, are too much for this specimen. The one place we do shine, is in the fitness arena. For example, the small community gym where we trained as the covid was curtain lifting, and on the monkey bars. And even then, there’s nothing like, “let’s meet up for drinks.” It’s more like… “I dig this version of you right here in this environment . I don’t want to meet Mr Hyde.”
Heart has had its fill of soul-mates, or whatever fancy label we put on them at the time, when they lured us into romantic trysts, only to get dangerously close. Familiarity truly does breed contempt, especially when you’re dealing with someone whose fantasy world can never be achieved on this realm.
“Sorry, it will never be as good as I imagined.”
It’s like a curse. The curse on Cassandra. It’s a typically mythic story. Cassie caught the eye of a God, who gave her a gift, in an attempt to, “buy her love.” But Cassie rebuffed the God. It might have been Jupiter, the cosmic player. Since he couldn’t take the gift back, that would be ungodly, he gave it a twist. Cassandra could see the future, like disasters and stuff, but couldn’t do anything to stop them. Because nobody would believe her. Or something like that. Depends on who’s telling the story.
In the 1980s, after postponing and dodging a dangerous dance with Death, one of those Celestial Goddesses humbled herself before this mortal man. Promising all types of paradise and gifts if I would love her the way “only a mortal who’d defeated Death could. Your randy soldier at the time, was like, “Okay.”
Here’s what nobody tells you about Goddesses. They are not all they’re cracked up to be. The weekend we spent together started out with great expectations. By Sunday brunch I was ready to send her back to Mount Olympus. Boy! Was that ever a mistake.
Because she couldn’t take back the gifts she had showered upon this horny goat, she turned them into what the Chinese call, “foo hwaw tsahn bahn.” Half blessing and half curse. The double-edged sword. The double bind. She gave me the lust, the magnetism and the imagination to picture “the perfect lover,” but also bestowed upon your humble ingrate, critical sensitivities and meticulous requirements, that would make, and has made satisfaction impossible.
We finally figured this out, ironically, about the time we’d completed the twenty year renovation project on the vessel. And it was arguably more attractive to interested parties, than it had been in a long time. The consequences of this bless-cursing played out in a series of heart crushing lessons, epic battles, international affairs, second-guessing and what-ifs.
Best solution. Withdrawal. At least for now. Because it’s working out. And if safer for everyone.
Analysis 3. Legacy of Life.
A single generational cohort covers about twenty years. Your humble vagabond is speaking to two generations. Forty years of life & legacy who are probably not talking to each other. Although I hope I’m wrong.
As soon as “generations” started being a thing, they were set against each other, just like every group that emerges and is named under the White Supremacy system.
You might not know this, but the post-war kids, (meaning World War 2), didn’t get tagged with the “Baby Boomer” label until 1975. The oldest cohort was already in their 30s. They’d already altered teenage life and expectations in America and they were about to screw up the future as well.
Moving through the 1980s everything was Boomer-centric. They were the largest generation in American history. Their parents had money. And a large, visible element of that generation grew up with a sense of entitlement, which was enabled by a “youth culture industry,” that craved their disposable income.
By 1990, Time Magazine was announcing “Twentysomething ,” (after the TV Show, Thirty Something), as if the yet-to-be-crowned cohort group, was being celebrated at a fancy debutantes ball.
In the early 1990s, writers were vying to name this emerging cohort group of rebels, nomads, and latch-key kids who were growing up in the shadow of the Baby Boom, navigating through the beginnings of America’s decline.
“Twenty something” (Time Magazine), was doomed as a generational moniker, as was “Twenty Nothing,” (The Baffler), because these kids weren’t going to stay 20-something, although some of us think we can get away with staying in our thirties. Strauss & Howe dubbed us, “The 13th Generation.” But that didn’t stick either. 13 of course, is bad luck.
Canadian scribe Douglas Copeland, used “Generation X,” to describe the cohort group for a 1987 article in “Vancouver Magazine,” and later for the novel of the same name, that “unofficially-officially” christened the generation. Copeland likely borrowed the title from Billy Idol’s London punk band, (1976), of the same name. Or maybe not.
Your humble book critic did not care for Copeland’s novel, (oh well), but the name stuck, and that says more about this post-boomer generation, the era in which our attitudes were formed, and our “golden years”, than any novel could.
From “The Breakfast Club” to “Fight Club,” and a bunch of Slacker-type flicks in between, (think Ferris Bueller’s Day Off), you will get an idea of where We, (the Trinity & Gen X) came from, and through. And how we are going to deal with our “retirement era.”
And now, with all this generational baggage, we want to talk to Millennials and Gen-Zee about your future? That’s right. And you’d better listen.
This is going to have to be continued. More fragments. However, if you have questions. We’re open. D M’s are okay too. If ya wanna. We don’t get many so bear with us on the return.
We’re Grateful Every Day!
Stay safe, stay strong, stay sane, stay savvy, stay serene, stay sovereign, stay subscribed.
PEACE.