Sunday, February 19, 2017

Sea Legs -- Who Has Them?


Sometimes one wishes one could look into another person's brain. Well, not "brain" exactly. More their thought processes. Or, even, said more frankly, what in hell they are thinking.
Here in America -- and apparently also in Western Europe -- there is a growing divide. Some -- and yes, this includes me and, according to a few recent polls, a growing plurality (if not yet an actual majority) -- see a righting of the long listing ship that is the social structure. People -- normal, everyday, thinking feeling, living souls -- are beginning to be able to walk upright again. The deck of our shared ship is for the first time in years approaching at least some measure of level. No, not there yet, but seen as coming. Others are feeling the need to hold onto something -- anything! -- for dear life. They feel as if they are about to slip off the deck into a cold and inhospitably sea. What's with that? The answer is, yes, in the mind. In our our thought processes. In, as above, 'what the hell we, and they, are thinking.' It was the mainstream media the coined the phrase "fake news." Bet they now wish they hadn't! -That because once one realizes that news can indeed be "fake" (who knew?) one opens one's eyes and starts looking. And that we have. And, yes, we are seeing. Our new president has many gifts. Reading the moment being one of them. When others, as I do here, ask "what are people thinking?" he intuitively just knows. And then, knowing, he can frame his words and actions to that minute's need. Some -- including theoretical thinkers and doers on both the left and the right -- saw, and even now see, this rare gift as a fault. But it is hardly that. No more than it is a "fault" when a skilled seaman can intuitively compensate for the next motion of the ship's deck -- keeping his footing and continuing normal forward motion using what to someone looking on appears to be an unnatural gate. Such a gate on a ship in port might indeed be just that -- unnatural. But on a ship in a roiling sea being able to do that is a total advantage. And we -- our societies and people -- are today on such a sea. Pity those who don't know it. Who believe that our ship is in fact in a safe and still harbor. Who think that the motion they sense is simply other people moving, when they themselves are stable and still. And so they stand there, not "seeing," In denial. And think that the skilled seaman with his odd step is... what? Drunk? Crazy? I think that is exactly the error that is effecting some people's thought processes. It is a view into their brains. Those, especially, whose hair has been blown dry -- and then lacquered there -- the so-called "talking heads" on TV -- those who look -- and indeed are -- totally out of place on today's storm tossed seas. -They, sitting in front of a blue screen, with an artificial view of the world inserted behind them. Oh, how glad we should be that we have a captain who can read the waves. And steer us on our course. He who to them -- holding on to whatever they can grab, in fear -- or staying in their bunks -- is seen as the one who is unstable. And that is what is happening today. -Going on in people's minds. May they, too, some time find peace and rest. But now now. Not until a true safe harbor can be reached. Meanwhile lets be thankful for our captain as we struggle to get sea legs ourselves and follow him.
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