Constant Havoc

I once heard that “may you live in interesting times” is a very old Chinese curse. We live in interesting times.

Our militarized police state sickens me. Young people of color are gunned down at random by police officers who seem eager to use their lethal weapons.

Access to clean water is a human right.

I am rereading Gravity’s Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon. In the last thirty years, I have lost count how many times I’ve read it. The words seem preternaturally clear this time. The book is so simple really. It’s just words.

Reading is the most important skill I possess. I learned to read critically at Oklahoma Baptist University and St. John’s College Graduate Institute.

I cannot read pulp.

I will buy the work of two living authors without knowing anything about the book in advance. The first author is Thomas Pynchon who has already been mentioned. The second is Anne Carson, a classicist. Her book Eros, the Bittersweet should be required reading for every breathing human.

I lived without a television for a very long time. I have one now, and it’s rarely on. I went through a period of years when my mental illness would not allow me to sit and enjoy television. Now, I can watch comfortably, but most of what’s on bores me.

Girls mature. Boys age.

Climate change is going to be worse for us than we currently realize.

I am optimistic about humanity in the long run.

No one knows how the spiritual realm really works. No one.

Contemporary cynicism is the easy way out.

A great many people fear careful thought.

I have not read all of William Shakespeare’s work. Some of it is rotten. I couldn’t stand Troilus and Cressida. His sonnets were divinely inspired.

I love being a peer specialist in mental health and working with other people who live with mental illness. We are passionate folk.

There are only two emotions: love and fear. Everything flows from those two.

Fear is the greatest threat to life. Fear eats passion, and passion is life. Embracing love eradicates fear. Maybe we are all here to learn to release fear and accept love.

Every person must have passion. It can come in a billion different forms, large or small. Nurturing passion is the most precious gift we can give another person.