Walking in Memphis by Marc Cohn is to my mind among the finest pieces of music and evocative songs ever created. It's playing on the stereo as I begin typing. A mellow start to a day that began way too abrupt and early. You can't startle awake at 4 am on Valentines Day, crank the stereo and start banging pans in the kitchen. Thus I grabbed the dogs and went for a good long walk in the light mist and predawn street lights. Peaceful!
Less peaceful has been the world in which we live. You can make up a litany, as good as I can, of world events that by themselves would be the talk of the proverbial water cooler. Lately a scan of my various electronic water cooler stories have been something of a tsunami. I think it's a time to step back.
As a person who has long expected a zombie apocalypse I have to say I think we are in the storm now, at least the financial and political pieces of that expectation. I don't think the nature of this time in the storm makes it possible to do much more than hunker down. Thus I hope you made yourself, if not anti-fragile, at least resilient and safe. When I wrote last year that I thought August or October might get our attention I was thinking of the monetary ship. Gold and silver are money and have a long history of showing that against currencies. With silver seeing it's price in dollars go from the $30s around that time to a parabolic $130 and back to $70ish. With gold, good old does nothing, pet rock - gold, regularly sloshing up or down a $100 on any given day - the ballast of that financial ship is now its peril. If the credit and derivative cargo of the ship breaks loose it will be time to run for a lifeboat and pray.
There is a fascinating tale of the sinking of the Titanic. It suggests that the sinking was actually an insurance scam and perhaps a bit more in which the Titanic's damaged sister ship was swapped out and intentionally brought out to deep water to be sunk to protect a banker against losses. The horrific loss of life being simply a miscalculation by an accomplice, the Captain. The Epstein affair shows us how rare it is we get to look behind history and people's facades. But, perhaps, we have a good and honest Captain and crew who are fighting a storm. Certainly the storm is not of their making?! It is a storm none the less.
When you're not steering the boat it makes no sense to get too worried about the storm. The storm is here, hunker down and try not to puke in the waste basket or go sit in a lifeboat. Either way a little prayer wouldn't hurt. You're not in charge!
That goes against every fiber of my being. I'm a Libertarian thus I want to explain, in great detail, the logical solution the captain and crew should follow. I want to explain with even greater detail as to exactly the why and how we got to this point. There certainly are a few looong boring books you should read just to give you a sense of the brilliance of my plan. I will of course argue vehemently with those who agree with me because, well, I am a Libertarian - we can't both be right! BUT I'M NOT IN CHARGE!!
And that my dear friends is why I didn't simply roll over and go back to sleep at 4am this morning. To roll over would have been to continue a half sleep and flesh out those details. Details that had awoken me with the belief that I could and needed to provide. - No I'm not even on the crew. I'm certainly not in charge of anything beyond a prayer.
That prayer is one I'll be saying while watching February showers water my onions and spinach. Saying while the broccoli and lettuce sprout grow tall under the grow light next to my desk. April showers might bring some Alyssum flowers and surely April will bring me my persimmon and paw paw trees to plant. There is plenty to do that I am in charge of. Thus busy with spring as it comes to the garden I will be going digitally dark for Lent.
I don't know how far down the road of music and prayer affecting the growth of plants I would go. I do know that an unpeaceful gardener will be distracted and the garden will suffer. So for a man who after 50 odd years has returned to practicing Catholicism, Lent has to be time of focus. My greatest distractions are crap food and garbage internet. I can't give up food but I can drop the crap and do a little fasting. The phone and just about everything on it - yeah, I can put that down for awhile. No, not forever just for Lent. Help keep me honest, thanks!
Doug A.
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