A couple days of quiet has been good for me. I haven't had this kind of quiet since my chemo, I don't think. But it's time to jump back into life and get some important things done tomorrow.
Feels weird to think it will soon be 2009. I sort of was just getting used to 2008 in a way. In other ways, not so much. I still want to write 199_, and it just blows my mind that it's a whole milenia that's useless and in the past now -- several years past.
I've watched too much TV over the holiday and it's been interesting. Just like the lead into Y2K where everyone was encouraged to buy extra food and stock up on firearms, I'm hearing those recommendations again. The financial situation of the country is really scaring people (and me) into some very sobering reflections. Put the India / Pakistan issue on the front burner and I'm beginning to feel shades of the late 50's and early 60's when we'd be doing "Duck and Cover" drills at school, and the A-bomb issue was so dramatically shown to us by Barry Goldwater during his run against JFK. (This commercial was actually a Johnson/Goldwater ad.) We felt an anxiety as kids that we'd never get to grow up; that we'd be vaporized. They say that fatalism is what fueled the Flower Children of the 60's -- that sense that we're all going to die soon anyway, so might as well get all the pleasure out of life that we can in the here-and-now. I don't know, I'm just aware of the fact that there's this dread I feel and remember from those days. Do any of you feel it? I'm curious. I have this mad desire to go start digging a bomb shelter a-la-1960's and I haven't felt that in a long time. Perhaps my Rx is to turn the TV off and stop watching the news! I was at the hospital on Friday and they had all these brochures out from Homeland Security about preparing for emergencies. Now if that brochure was put out by FEMA I wouldn't have thought twice about it. Yeah, we need to have a kit in case of a tornado or hurricane, etc. But it was put out by Homeland Security and it was clear that it was about "How to prepare in case you lose power for several days or more due to some catastrophe (like terrorism)." At least that is how I interpreted it. I also believe that in another 20+ days when GWB leaves, we're going to see a more free press (I believe it's been restrained forcibly during this administration.) and learn a lot of information we've been prevented from hearing up until now. I think we're going to be amazed at what we haven't heard coming out of Afghanistan and Iraq and other places. But that's me and my thoughts. Probably not what was on your mind when you started reading this blog is my guess. Dunno what to tell you except that I have a weird "take" of the world.
So I guess I'm thinking pretty pessimistically as we approach 2009!
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1 comment:
I feel it too. I am from Miami where we had bomb and air raid practices. We would get under the tables or desks in the classrooms. We talked about air raid shelters. I wrote lots of soldiers overseas. We had food stored for a couple of weeks, never could afford the month to six weeks that was encouraged. It is an odd time.... Hold on to those you love. Tell them you love them and wish strangers a blessed day.
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