Wanting it Bad Enough in Everyday Ramblings

If you look closely here you can see the beautiful shapes of the lantern flowers just beginning to turn that brilliant orange that they get as we head towards fall.

I don’t know how it is in the rest of the world but here in America I feel overwhelmed with difficult news to process. Underneath it all is this sense of anxiety and that dark forces beyond our control are at work.

Malevolent forces full of greed and self-interest and the flip side of that… self-destructive rage and despair. It is almost like we are living in a split reality, where we focus on our personal concerns while chaos and violent outbursts of anger and irrationality reign.

One image that haunts me, one I heard last night, about a hospital in a town in Venezuela where the surgeons are washing their hands with seltzer water they buy themselves, one out of five patients gets an infection from surgery and all the antibiotics have been stolen and are being sold on the black market. Patients are on the floor in their own blood because there are no beds or supplies.

This is a country that is not at war, though they do have guerilla fighters that are brainwashed by an ideology that makes stealing children okay somehow. And our consumption of fossil fuels here in the U.S. contributed to all of this.

I heard this fascinating podcast the other day about Chaos Theory that was actually understandable. They talked about the history of the science behind this whole idea of “The Butterfly Effect”, how one thing in one place can set in motion all sorts of unintended consequences.

The scientist in question originally used a seagull metaphor but wisely changed it to a butterfly. :)

We forget in all this swirl of news that most people are kind, most people are welcoming; most people love their children and want a better world for them.

In all this political news lately I have been having conversations with my younger self. A self that was very radical and not fully aware of the far-reaching effects of violence and trauma. A self that understood there was a right and a wrong and an either or. A self that believed she could make a difference.

There are a few things I agree with my former self on still. Those financial reforms that Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren talk about?

We need those.

At the risk of sounding like an old fogy this is something I am certain about, and having worked the financial industry in some form or another for 40 years I feel I earned that certainty.

The dialogue continues as I see my younger self reflected in the passion and disruptive actions of the young disenfranchised folks out there now.

I have no words to reassure them but I am holding onto hope anyway. Hope that we can see our way to making choices for the good of all and in the meantime to the best of our ability we can help each other out.

And on a personal note, yesterday, after 18 months, the cats figured out how to get into the cupboard I keep their food in. Sigh. They are wily and determined and work as a team. Right now I have the cabinets barricaded with boxes and the dehumidifier but I need an easier way to access them solution. The boys have proven that they can get any kind of lid off a container and Carlo in particular doesn’t like his food cold so…

Maybe a big toolbox? Or childproof locks? All these options are being explored…

Clever as these guys are, I am kind of astonished it took them so long to figure this out.

I hope we can be as clever as them in terms of solving some big difficult problems in the years to come. I guess, like food for the hungry (or at least those who fear hunger), we just need to want it bad enough.

Last updated July 26, 2016