Cool and clear? Yesterday was, with a gusting blustery wind. In the afternoon it was 81F in the sun, with only 19%RH. Gorgeous. I’d like some more of that please.
I did my one pickup, missed the others. I’ll be getting those today.
I heard back from the septic engineer finally, and he can’t meet this weekend, so I will not have to dash up to the BOL. It’s my non-prepping hobby meeting weekend so I’m really glad not to miss getting together with the guys.
It occurred to me that we move through time like a drunk lurching down a hallway. The hallway is the constraints of what is possible. Sometimes the hallway is wide and we don’t find the walls. Sometimes the hallway is narrow and the drunk walks straight down the center. Sometimes he slides down one wall or the other. Sometimes, he bounces off the edge of what’s possible and moves backward for a short period before moving on down the hall. Occasionally there is a doorway or an alcove and since the drunk is leaning on the wall as he moves, he gets stuck in the slight widening of the hall. Often as not, he’ll spin around eventually and lurch down the main part of the hallway again.
Our hallway is very narrow at this moment. We’re rushing down the hall, bouncing rapidly from wall to wall. Some of us are spinning around with every bounce, trying to reorient on moving forward. Some are holding a hand against one side to steady us as we go, but we are all becoming more and more constrained as we go along.
As a nation, a culture, a people, and as individuals, we are coming to a place where the hallway ends. Is it a door that we can pass through and then continue down the same hallway? Or is it a wall, and the door opens to our left or right and takes us in a different direction? Do the walls just squeeze us down, like a cattle chute, until we can only go forward, in single file, pushed by the mass behind us?
I think I know where we are headed. I don’t know how long the remaining hallway is, nor how we continue. History says that “we” as a whole WILL continue, but not necessarily any specific one of the “we”. The mass of people behind us in the hallway pushes us forward, even if we’d prefer to stop. You can shelter in an alcove for a short while, but eventually the mass carries you on. Just as I don’t know how long the hallway is, I don’t know how wide it still might be.
It feels pretty narrow, with very little room to lurch around. It feels like we’re pretty close to the door, or the jog in the hall, or even the complete change of turning right or left.
My plan is to get me and mine through to what comes next. I’ll move with the crowd down the hall, lurching a bit less, and focused on moving at my own pace, and not just getting carried by the force of the pushing masses, until we pass through and the door opens on a new hall, or the constraint of what is possible widens out again.
Stack the things you need, so that the crowd has fewer handles to grab as they pull you along.
nick