It’s almost as if our brains have been Swiss-cheesed because there’s so much information leaking in and out.
We got an email last week from a guy over there somewhere who said he likes the paper except he never reads the horoscopes because he’s an atheist.
Can’t stop thinking about that. Isn’t astrology the mother of physics and mathematics? Isn’t atheism a belief that there is no God or gods or deities?
What, pray tell, do those have to do with each other? Couldn’t we just refer to everything we question as improbable divine advancement instead of “I don’t believe that!” Yep, “divine” is the inappropriate word.
It feels obvious that we are flummoxed these days because – wildfires. Overpopulation. Virus. Neon water. Confusion. Poverty. Inequality. Processed food. Long lines. Extreme weather. Conflict. Human nature. Rooms with migraine carpeting accenting French whore-dog red walls.
And anyone who’s looked at the sky the past few weeks could easily have thought, “I’ve never, ever seen the sun hang in the sky that far north. Even in June.”
But it’s all just stuff, isn’t it? Sure. If we were perfect, we wouldn’t even consider improving.
No one has to read or believe in astrology or God, either one. But figuring something out because we thought it through is electric. Calculating mental adjustment like a machinist is divine advancement.
The sun sure looks farther north than I remember, and I’ve seen the sun lots of times in every season for a comfortable number of years and it’s never been where it is now. That’s not scary.
The sun sends us vitamin D, which we really, really need this year, and it’s free for the absorbing. D helps swat that “atypical” virus everyone’s talking about, the one that no one knows where it came from or where it’s going, but knows it’s dead set on seeing to it that we change.
Good news is a treat, whether it’s a miracle or you’re a Leo, so here goes:
There’s a bookstore in Ann Arbor where the owner put a typewriter on a table. Just sat it there, no signs, no instructions. He rolled a blank sheet of paper onto the platen.
Someone typed something and left it there. Then another someone typed. And another. Pretty soon the bookstore guy had five or eight typewriters and was ordering reams of paper. He also had a collection of people’s thoughts, secrets, ideas and wishes because he provided public typewriters.
Then the typewriter company had a mural of typewriters painted on his building. Then he started publishing these anonymous odes to humans, and his small business with no money made customers proud of their achievement.
That’s as good an idea as making foot traffic on Spring St. one-way on each side of the street so we’ll stop uniting and coughing on each other until we harness enough sunlight to make us willing to clobber this razor mite that’s colonizing in many peoples’ lungs. Simply by using what we already have. We don’t have to believe it’s God, but we have to know it’s good.
It’s kind of like saving a no-good person’s life, even if it’s just by putting on a mask when you’re sure to be around other no-good people. It’s divine advancement.