meh. I have much to say but my meatworld self and my family have other ideas and demands on my time today. I pretty much said it, most of it, yesterday with my ironically titled essay No Strings Attached. So I’ll just take a little time to embellish this one little thing from there. A postscript, if you will.
This is all such soul sapping stuff. It can drown you but there are ways… in the ocean, you dive under the wave…. under, then wait, swim out some, then surface. Breathe.
So a summer project I’m trying out with my family, my now 13 year old daughter… let me try to simplify for my purposes here. We went to the Baha’i Center just to check it out. I plan to take her somewhere different each Sunday. Since it was a holiday weekend, I expected it to be kind of an off day and I was correct. There were maybe 20 people there and so there was a small discussion led by … some guy (he explained to us visitors that they do not have “clergy”). So his topic was “consumerism”, and it was pretty good. The one little awkward moment that jumped out at me had nothing to do with that guy or the overall tone or content there, it was just an aside really, a comment by this one audience member guy … in context of the topic bla bla bla, irrelevant, but he used the phrase “a necessary evil”.
A necessary evil.
It erked me. I almost got into with him, but I backed off. Not the time or place, and he was kind of a jerk, I think, anyway. But it continues to haunt me so now you get to hear it. Heh. Won’t be that long, I promise.
“A necessary evil”. What an oxymoron. I know I know, in certain contexts it’s harmless enough. For me, it may be … Using the right pesticide to kill off a flea or lice invasion could be “a necessary evil”. But in general, if we’re speaking in terms of Big Stuff, I cringe when I hear someone say that phrase. If you can say it, then you can think it. And if you can think it, conceive of it in your mind, it becomes… well, thinkable. And there are so many things that should be unthinkable, unspeakable, that are … not. Things, actions, crimes, that to you or me are unthinkable are being committed every day. As we speak. I wont try to list them.
We discuss all kinds of issues and events in DD and one thing that many here seem to be in tune with is this idea that we see/sense an evolutionary shift, a leap, in our actions but more importantly, our thinking, our ways of thinking. And our ways of communicating, building, organizing, mobilizing. Community.
Here’s the thing. In the ocean, and for me, its my memories / experience as a child, a petite (skinny!) kid, without a great deal of body strength, playing, swimming, diving, water dancing in the ocean. It’s fun, and sometimes it’s scary-fun, and then sometimes it can be just plain scary. Those are some powerful waves and, wow, it’s really hard trying to describe the sensation if you’ve not experienced it for yourself.
Let me say this: Resistance is futile.
One view… the strength and momentum of these is amazing.
Another view… look how calm it is under there.
ha, these are pretty cool vids. sorry! ;-/ I’ve never done scuba diving or surfing or any of that, I’m just talking about plain ol’ swimming playing in an ocean, the Atlantic, Florida, not the huge surf waves of the Pacific. You Pacific Coast folks get this times 10.
Anyway, if you get caught off guard and get bowled over, you just dive down under the moving wave, down to that calm underneath and wait it out. If you resist or fight or try to re-surface into the wave motion power, you won’t fare too well, I promise you.
So thats my metaphor for the day. Take it where you will.
Lunchtime.
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kinda funny.
up in ball and let the white water take me in. It was like being in a giant gritty washing machine. You had to close your eyes and mouth and when you were dumped on the beach you were skinned up from the churning grit and bouncing. It was scary fun and was often painful.. The part I liked was you had to let go of fear totally relax and become part of the wave. It is sometimes impossible to avoid the white churney parts especially if your choice is choaking on oil, getting shot at, or letting the churning edge fling you back to the beach, maybe.
……a sun umbrella, a little food, six pack beer, book, snorkeling gear and girlfriend made for one my best memories ever.
Ocean can be comforting, have to take it on its own terms.
In the North Sea? Yes, on the West Frisian island of Vieland, under the right conditions! Spent some of the happiest days of my life, at the Stortemelk campground a few years ago.