Catch a Falling Star

Self examination is a critical feature of living a stoic life. And I find Stoicism to be a workable philosophy. I do believe that I have no power to alter the world around me, only the power to control and change myself. I find it works fine as a teacher. A teacher with self control can lead most of the students in the classroom down the happy path. That leaves only a few weirdos that you have to knock on the brain with a rubber hammer (figuratively, of course.)

But tonight my blood pressure is 176 over 90 (go-to-the-ER level numbers.) My blood sugar is 153. I made the fatal mistake of eating spaghetti and meatballs from the microwave. I get tired of a strict diabetic diet. But I can’t afford insulin either. Sometimes I feel more like not examining myself in that particularly painful way and just risking eating what I like without worrying about sudden death that I can’t avoid anyway.

There are some things I feel like I have to write yet. But I find it is harder and harder to do it with glaucoma eyes and arthritically-challenged fingers to use for battling an overly sensitive and somewhat vengeful keyboard and word processor. I have a story in my head about an autistic boy who wants to live alone in the forest and hears music in his head that no one else can hear. I have a story about teenagers battling suicidal depression by sitting in a circle naked down by the river, eating marijuana brownies and talking to ghosts. I have another story about teenagers learning about love during a journey to the center of the Earth where a monster has imprisoned one of their girlfriends. I have a really weird Aeroquest Sci-Fi story with flower people as bad guys and space goons eating a space station out from under the heroes. It’s already done. I just need to proofread and publish.

And I probably won’t get any of it done. Writing The Haunted Toy Store is going molasses-in-January slowly.

But we have to have hope to continue. And I do have hope. She lives inside my head and thinks she’s the Leopard Goddess of the Wastelands most of the time. But she’s still there. Still real.

Yeah, still good.

The most important part of a novel is how it ends. It is the ending of the story that does the most to establish the theme, make the points the author wants to make, or gives you the all-important feeling that the story is complete.

I have written nine good novels and ended the story nine times. I have reason to believe they are good books. Two of them were contest finalists. I have gotten no bad reviews (of the minimal number of times someone besides me has actually read one of these books). And even experienced editors have told me that my books are competent and good enough to be potential best sellers. But, of course, they have little chance of ever reaching a wider audience. I am an Indie author and have either published through pay-to-publish publishing companies or the free Amazon/Kindle publishing services. The way the story of me being a published author will end, though, is not a story of success and wealth and critical acclaim. I am dissolving into abject poverty and fatal ill health. I will not last to see my books hit the big time. And when I croak and become worm food, my books will be forgotten and mostly ignored, even by my family who look at it as a pie-in-the-sky dream rather than reality. Reality, unfortunately, really sucks.

The fact is, all the greatest and most worthwhile people that ever lived have suffered terribly and they were forced to endure much. Greed, villainy, injustice, inequality, bullying, rape, murder, and income taxes prevail in an unbalanced and unjust world. If Guy McPherson in the opening video is to be believed (if you haven’t already watched it, I suggest you don’t. Hearing that message from a credible climate scientist like him is very depressing.) then greedy, rich, and powerful people made the decision to murder us all decades ago, and there is nothing we can do about it.

So, here is how my story ends; I will continue to tell stories and write essays like this one until the very end. And, for me, that will come any day now. It is the only thing worth doing for me at this point in my life. I also hope that you will take heed of my example and endeavor to be the author of your own story’s end. And I am not suggesting you commit suicide or hole up in a bunker somewhere. I suggest you spend every day as if it is your last one on Earth. Cherish your loved ones. Do what pleases you to do. And, most of all, be the author of how your own story ends… plotted out with grace, theme, and meaning. A tribute to how you lived. And maybe you will be able to tell me sometime in the next life about what a colossal fool I was when I wrote this essay.

Pumpkinhead Hitler seems to be on the verge of multiple indictments from multiple investigations. But those of you who wear the red hats, don’t despair. It will probably only help him get elected as Fuhrer in 2024. The world is run by the wealthiest among us. And only criminals become billionaires. You have to be weirdly evil to make money in our crony-capitalism economy. You only have multiple billions if you have enough money to solve homelessness and hunger worldwide, but are only willing to spend it on rockets shaped like penises and owning Twitter. I am a pessimist. But pessimists are too often right.

The world is drowning in carbon dioxide. We are going to face the possible extinction of life on Earth because Republican industrialists would rather kill us all than forego all those fabulous short-term profits from burning all those fossil fuels that they extracted from the lands owned by other people down to six feet below the surface. Your life and mine are expendable to the Koch Brothers, Bill Gates, Elon Musk, and Jeff Bezos. I don’t hate rich people, but if they are begging me to save them from an approaching killer storm, and I could actually do it… well, I would at least have to consider my options.

And all our schools will soon be privatized and limited in their ability to learn anything about anything that isn’t approved personally by Reichmarschall Ron DeSantis (who is not a saint, even in Italian.) No black poets like Langston Hughes will be in the libraries of any school. Nor any black novelists like James Baldwin. Nor black essayists like W. E. B. Du Bois. Any black literature of note is dangerous because it might make Florida’s white-skinned, wealthy elite children feel ashamed of being racist. And any gay children will be locked in closets. Trans individuals will officially no longer exist. And the letters C, R, and T will be removed from the alphabet.

But even Saint Ron DeSantis can’t cancel out the fact that Mickey Mouse and Disney World once existed. And Charlie Chaplin once made us laugh. And Groucho Marx once made fun of stuffy penguins who were engorged with dollars just like Bezos, Musk, and Trump. Good things came out of our brief stint as the dominant species on this planet. And even if it ends in infamy, at least it was worth doing.

Sometimes I simply have to stop and think hard about what I am thinking about. You can probably tell by today’s first Paffooney that I am thinking in Biblical proportions today. The picture is called “David Plays for Saul”. In the Bible story, the survival of Israel is definitely in question. King Saul, the anointed ruler, is under intense pressure from governing a kingdom that chose him rather than giving him a chance to choose for himself. He is surrounded by enemies with significant military power. He goes a bit loony over the matter, consulting astrologers and witches, even though God has told him through prophets, “Saulie, don’t do that, boy!” The prophet Samuel even goes so far as to find a new candidate for an anointed king, David the Shepherd, Son of Jesse. Saul uses his irrational mind to come up with a solution to the problem. “I know!” he says to himself. “I’ll murder the boy in front of God and everybody.” (Sort of a Trumpian solution, right?)

And then David plays his harp and sings. That decides the matter. Saul is calmed in his murderous mind and abandons murder plans just long enough to eventually lose his crown along with his head in battle against the Philistines. (No danger of Trump copying Saul there.)

So, as I sit and chew my cud and ruminate like a mooncalf, I am thinking we need a King David to replace the King Pumpkinhead we have now. And then he or she must fight harder than the Biblical David to overcome what has happened to us. If Israel represents the world, then Israel may soon be destroyed without a wise king. Climate change, dictators with nukes, and Republican kowtowing to billionaires are real problems not solvable through astrology.

Too often, it seems, I am the mooncalf, the monstrously malformed creature created by a lifetime of hard experience, loss, and fear of the future. But in many ways I am a self-made man. I know this because I sewed on my new right hand, implanted new eyeballs, and did numerous brain-enhancement surgeries on myself. (I do hope you realize I mean that figuratively, not literally. No, really! You can put away the torches and pitchforks!) I feel like a monster when I look at myself critically and end up not liking what I see.

Still, the world is full of beauty and wonder, for now, at least. And we must enjoy it while we have it, living the best life we can before it all too soon comes to its end.