As humanly as possible

Out of the ashes we crawl, rise and run toward daylight til we lay down and take stock.

We don’t kick the can down the road. The best we could salvage what remains after the fire.

If possible and as humanly as possible, we repurpose even make art out of it. In chaos there is creativity.

That’s how things should be. As it turns out, we find overproduction and overconsumption, overzealotry and overspending ethos. Welcome to Universal borrowing.

We no longer see values in things, much less broken things. With oversupply we no longer see the value in conservation, in restoration, of stuff-turn-sourvenir or for keepsakes.

Before long, we discard people as well. Voila. Disposable society. All the three-prong plugs, the analog screens, the typerwriters and oops, the vinyl.

Old ideas, old folks and old things. Passe. As if everything is just a fad, to be changed out every Vogue season. Even Elton John grows old, despite once, had been ahead of his time. When you’re inducted into the Hall of Fame, watch out. Mon Cher (ie). Madonna in Brazil.

Out of the ashes, we reinvent ourselves. Humanity 2.0. Leadership 2.0. Revival 2.0 (a redundancy).

If one doesn’t get this shorter cycle, with accompanied sense of irony, one has been asleep. Wake me up when September comes.

Our multigenerational family has tried to juggle multiple variables i.e. the old watch over the young, the young tend to the old, the living commemorate the dead, the dead bless the living etc.. as should be; to stitch and to mend e.g. a leaking roof, a hole in the shirt, “a little something” for the road. We all need our security blanket and a place to put/find things (OCD to ADD).

We move forward, as humanly as possible. “Giay rach phai giu lay le” (when broke, stay calm and collected).

Broken we were. At many times and in many places. Somehow, a line in Hemmingway seems to provide needed “justification” ” light can come in through those same broken places” (I paraphase). As if ashes we were supposed to be, rock bottom to be expected. Born to be broken by trickle-down warring and by warlords. As if our collective life has no shape except for this side of a V without the other half (future forwarding).

As if unbroken folks can’t get enough light hence, breaking more windows. (self-victimization)

Milk-In-First we have been. Downstairs we lived. Out of the Ashes we rise.

The poor need respect. The rich need relevance (from Peace Corps to Climate Corps). Both are lonely and in need of “ lift”. We all live in a Yellow Submarine….

Hence, we invented more “humanized” machine, more stuff as in “the Cat on the hot Tinroof” (buy more stuff in the hope that one of those things will give us eternal life).

We are self-contradicting : on the one hand we live as if there were no tomorrow (Stoic), on the other, we promise others around the bend, or beyond the grave, they will live forever (or be raised on the Last Day, or by just buying this Oil Olay , one will be forever young).

We live without being aware of our own shifting shadows. Meanwhile, moss gather, from day to day. Memories fade, minute to minute.

Slowly and suddenly (again, Hemmingway), we arrive not at our desired destination, then we need to rest . While resting, we ponder whether we should have begun with “Why”, or should we never ask “Why”.

In truth, it’s those biological and environmental elements that dictate. One tsunami away, an upcoming earthquake will settle everything (unsettling, I should say). A time to sleep and a time to wake up.

If one doesn’t sense that sense of irony, one hasn’t been awake lately.

I notice a world full of it, if you asked me. Post-modernity, post-truth, mistrust….

Folks at the Dictionary department have been busy e.g. “post-trust” i.e. can’t trust a Priest, can’t trust a politician, can’t trust a Communist, can’t trust a Capitalist, can’t trust a coach (Nassir) can’t trust an in-languare free papers (propaganda) like the Epoch Times (Falun Gong) or TikTok, can’t trust Twitter, can’t trust your neighbor, (Robert Frost’s about the fence) , can’t trust the shopper (security camera) (then why didn’t they hire enough cashiers).

Voila. Living in paranoid. In mistrust and suspicion. Is this what we asked for when rising from the ashses. Should we have stayed and burned down ( At least, we know what’s underneath and how it smells).

Like in Covid times, when Indian mourners couldn’t find enough wood to burn their deaths. Burnt flesh!

May they rest in peace.

For once, I am mindful, knowing I will not get to live to see the end of things, the conclusion to a story which has so far, been full of deception, twists and lies ( even Hollywood can’t handle it since it’s not their places and out of their budget).

Perhaps life, human and humane life, should include and involve a “Third Alternative”, neither Black nor White, Rich or Poor, Upstairs and Downstairs, Milk-in-First and Last, One and Zero (non-zero sum). Again, those who remain optimistic, would always nudge “just a little more ahead”…

For instance, Kickstarter, Kitchen Central, “love your digital neighbor ” and be a virtual Good Samaritan ” to the least of these” (those without the Internet connection) to evolve from competition to collaboration, disposable society to humane society (ironically with the helpf of not human, but machine) in upcoming Techtopia.

As humanly as possible, until Biology and Environment do us in. It’s that simple, whether you decide to kick the can down the road or repurpose it.

Biologically and socially I am from an extended family. We try our best to shield and to mend our broken places. Occasionally, light sneaks in through those places, exposing our strengths and weaknesses, like an uncalled-for SWOT analysis of our opportunity-costly life, which BTW has been lived out as humanly as possible, with whatever salvaged out of the ashes. Nobody gets to say the final word in our little human drama. Hollywood ending tilts toward hopefulnee, but not human ending in real life. The best we could do is to live our lives as humanly as possible until “death due us part”.