I’ve grown less and less sure of what to put in the Wandering and Wondering part of the upDates. Hell, because of character limitations, I rarely even call them upDates!
I think it’s because the “Wandering” has simply not gotten to be part of my Life for much of the past 2 and a half years. It is the Wandering that keeps my spirits up. Meeting people in person, being reminded that most people are kind of amazing.
But without the Wandering I just sit her Wondering – and that’s not the good part. The uncertainty, the ingestion of social media, the news, mass media – this is where the pessimism comes in. This is where I get told people are hideous and self-centered. This is where I get told there’s a shooter around every corner, anyone not part of my tribe is waiting to take advantage of me, everyone who doesn’t look like me hates me.
I think our full band gigs have become more and more precious to me because, though our band is my FAMILY, we all Live very, very different Lives. We are all facing different, unique challenges. We come together and create this amazing thing, and then we go our separate ways… and Joey’s got Life, and Rowan’s got LIIIFE, and Sharif’s got LIIIIIIIIFE, Heather’s got LIIIIIIIIIIIIFE.
Yes. The amount of challenges in Life can be reflected by the number of “I”s you have. There’s no doubt a pretty deep metaphor there.
And Kristen and I are facing pretty daunting challenges too. Everyone is. Is it any wonder we can’t see past the day-to-day to face down the bigger challenges, the truly existential threats we all face together?
It was as I was thinking this on Tuesday morning that I remembered it was the Maryland Primary (a date that has little import for me since we always vote early) and got to writing about how…
There are people who’d have you believe that governments serve no purpose. That they’re just there to get in the way and to impose unneeded rules. They’d have you believe that the best government is one that just stays out of the way.
Well, as I think about paying the rent, and restringing my guitar, and whether my cameras are working for tomorrow night, and whether ANYONE is going to come to Blues Alley a week from today – I don’t have a lot of room in my head for worrying about the fact that the world is literally on fire. I don’t have the mental wherewithal to solve fiscal crises beyond whether I have money left over at the end of the month to put into savings. I don’t have the savvy to finesse global markets back into shape. And I sure don’t have the sheer smarts required to solve ALL those problems as they’re compounded by an isolated madman who has single-handedly made all the world’s problems worse by deciding to storm over to his neighbour’s yard and kick over the furniture.