Almost Learned Something

Hope is as close as the nearest fence

Hello friends!

Finally finished up my latest screwy song – once again the product of trying to learn a few new features of my recording software, and then getting carried away big-time.

As I mentioned recently, for the last few years I have not been making planned and deliberate songs, just messing around with my imaginary studio (still makes me giggle, how much it can do) and following whatever seems pleasureful.

And then something else happens and says – put this against this, and then say that. And then I spend a few weeks (or sometimes more) chopping things up and using the wanderings as construction materials, and then I find nice animal videos shared by awesome videographers from around the world, and then at last I end up with something like this, which makes my wife Catherine smile, which is still, after all these years, the biggest creative reward I get in the world.

Go big screen and turn it up – SWEETNESS! (if I do say so myself)
Click the “Watch on Youtube link” for best resolution.

Huge helpings of full-force love today – but also, a very rude (but purposeful) question – would we rather survive and even thrive or just bitch and complain?

I know, I know, we all have a million reasons to be upset afraid and angry right now – and I am not in any way suggesting these feelings aren’t justified. What I’m saying is that these strong emotions are very well understood levers, by which powerful others who enjoy things like war and foreclosures can reliably manipulate us. If we are content to feel without thinking, we might very easily spend the rest of our lives complaining, without any of that wasting of potential pleasure in our moments, making any positive difference in the world whatsoever. Yuck!

On the other hand – if we can both feel and acknowledge our feelings, but also work hard and consistently on keeping one foot outside of them – in the land of consensus reality, rather than merely personal and subjective meanings – then other people take on their full importance, and hope suddenly becomes realistic, practical load bearing stuff – instead of a guilty escapist utopian fantasy (the imagination equivalent of empty calories).

It is work, and I have no right to demand anyone do extra homework – but I do talk to an awful lot of hopeless people nowadays, so it is my duty to point out that some results cannot be won without the specific effort they demand. (Even back in ancient Greece they were looking for shortcuts – which is where we got the multi-thousand year unforgettably wise put-down. “No your highness, I’m sorry, but there is no royal road to geometry.”) ROTFL, toga-style.

You want to add some serious hope to the world? Make a friend who you are pretty sure you don’t agree with and then actually listen to them until you both end up laughing (won’t take as long as you might think). You would be astonished at how much more nifty and relatable people are, than we are so often and loudly told. Way too much promotion of contempt – another escapism.

The (increasingly desperate and imploding) dollar-driven news has finally taken infotainment to the point where it is neither informative or entertaining – just scary. By turning everything in the world into horror and conflict, and studiously ignoring every quieter hope and compromise (uninteresting, by comparison) they are now in the business of making casual bigots of every one of us – all tribes up in arms! No longer can we just disagree, we must be at war, even with all of our most natural allies – for any reason we can think of! Meanwhile, there is a whole planet full of nature fighting for resurgence, while we pretend to care, and the manipulators slip our wealth into their back pocket.

I don’t know where this song, or the insanely robust hope which powers it, came from, I’m just grateful that it came – not only does it say more than my ten best essays, it is also a kind of hope I can far more easily believe in, than any product of mere reason.

Mind you, I can tell you exactly who first gave me the tantalizingly useful idea that “We almost learned something” about the natural world, from our massive worldwide shared sacrifice.

That was my dear friend Chad – and so this song is for him, his awesome daughter Ash and his extraordinary wife Lori – all of whom reside in my heart in a warm snug place!

Thank you so much my friends – sincerely hope you dig it!
¯\_(ツ)_/¯