Sorry for the delay, but a few horseman of the apocalypse decided to make a food run along the East coast.
I haven't posted in bit because we had a tropical storm run up the coast and it did disproportionate damage. I remember the epic Hurricane Sandy and that trashed the state and we lost power for what seemed like an eternity. This storm was not all that bad, but apparently the winds came in and just tore up the place and caused the horribly neglected power grid to take a severe fall. The outage here was because of an overgrown brand flapping in the wind and whacking two power lines together. This sort of thing is not uncommon here, as squirrels tend to make tragic mistakes and cause a transformer to blow. But that fix is no more than an hour or two and all is right with world. No food is lost, no work missed. Basically the same thing happened this time,....but the state was flooding with problems and it took over two days to get power back and another day to get internet.
That meant I had two days of no real virus news. It would have been much better if I had power and could work, but you find the good in the miserable. As it stands, things have kept rising and there seems to be no end in sight. My home team of New Jersey is doing its best to throw itself under the bus via the feelings of frustration of confinement that has fed into an illusion that we are all fine. You have no doubt seen the news reports of the SECOND massive, multi-hundred house party thrown here. We are all starving to get out of this. All of us. But that is the same reason you do not allow a starving man into a fully stocked kitchen. This goes very bad really fast and this state, amongst many others, is showing that. We all want out old way of life but do not have courage to embrace that harsh reality.
Let me be clear about this. In Camus' "The Plague", the authorities placed the entire town in lock-down and everyone was in the same condition. The leaders dealt with it as best they could, M. Othon is the only steady character of the government is an example of this. He states that the rules are good and must be applied to all. This statement comes down falling at its molecular center via the falling ill and horrible death of his son from the plague in front of most of the main characters. This is a point in the novel where Camus does a major tone shift for the novel.
In this world and in real time, the people do not have a central leader who is making an example of what should be done for the good of the country. Let this post show that we are literally a country without a central leader in the fight against this. I am saying this as a statement regardless of what side you are on politically. There literally has been no ABSOLUTE statement as to how to treat this plague from the central leader, nor from the part that he states he represents. Check the news. Check the facts. All of us are literally upon the desires of our own selves and what the governors of our individual states are telling us. That, and the allowance of our own desires to be either taken into account or ignored by the police. That is the way it is and may no one ever be allowed to say otherwise.
The country is literally adrift and its survival is now being placed upon its own collective conscience. It is not all bad, as there are many who are good and kind people who care and are choosing to do the right thing in the face of deep suffering to themselves. let us not at any point in time ever EVER deny the presence of those good people. The Titanic may have sunk, but there were good people who helped those into the life boats. Tragedy does not negate the ones that did good but merely spills ink across their numbers in the column of those who did the right thing within the overwhelming presence of those who chose to not act upon their better angels.
After having literally starved from lack of electricity, communication, and work for several days, I believe I have gone below the waterline and arisen into a place of gratitude. My life as a Musician and teacher has been ruined via all previous metrics and history. Gone. No students. No gigs. No in-person recording. Gone. While I see others doing such things now, I have chosen to not place myself within those realms for the betterment of others. The suicidal creative person looses its slimmest narrative validity when others can go down with you. The entire purpose of being a creative person is to speak the Truth and make this world a better place by it. Period. Some jackass wanting applause or self-fulfillment by putting others in danger negates and and all romantic notions of the creative act. This new place of existence within plague is a fire that burns away the truly selfless creators who are in touch with their deepest and best selves and those whose have sold out and have blackened their souls, even without knowing or best intentions, to serve themselves, not the Truth of what they were given.
In the past few days, I went below the waterline and had my mouth filled with the brine of everything past out of reach...and I never was to forget the taste of it.
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