It's a Shrimp's World
Hello, friends, I don’t really have much to say this week. One of us has been under the weather and when one doesn't click, it seems, neither of us clicks—okay, that's just me, I'm a sucker for a good excuse to do less—and while doing less is good for the body, heart and soul, it doesn't exactly help when what you fill that immensity of unfettered downtime is full of grievances that either make you want to scream at the news with rage or send you crawling under the covers out of fear. Whatever happened to just doing nothing?
I have read that the world is more peaceful now than at any point in human history and while that may be true on a grand scale, it doesn’t alleviate the injustice and inhumanity playing out in the countries, communities and in the private living spaces of so many of our fellow people. And I’m speaking only of those stories that have passed through the narrow porthole from which I look upon what is shaping our world. There are a bunch of other horrible happenings I’m not even paying attention to, all of which together have pretty much sapped my will to sit down and consider thoughtfully the longing, purpose and place from which this newsletter sprang forth.
Doing otherwise seems an infringement on reality, and also possibility. Life is hard and made harder, it seems, by society in general, and so who am I to think and do, much less, expect others to think and do, any differently. Here, I think of my children and wonder what I would say to make life better for them, make their journey more pleasant, their time more peaceful, their experience kinder, gentler and more fulfilling. The truth is, I don’t know. I sometimes think I know and then share what I think with them, but I know, deep down, everything depends. E.V.E.R.Y.T.H.I.N.G. depends.
On where, why, with who and when, and, again, in more ways that I have even considered.
So is professional existentialism something else I can add to my list of grievances, fears and worries? I don’t know. Sometimes it feels that way. I’m 59 years old, not really retired, at least not in the full sense of retirement, but for all practical purposes I'm enjoying life on an island in the Mediterranean. It is a small world in which I inhabit, who am I to say it’s the right one or not. Certainly, there is not only one way in which to discover and create the life you desire.
I do wonder though, if, in moving to Sicily, I have removed myself from being a force for good (or good trouble) as I felt I was when working in America, especially with the bakery, where the fight for what we felt was best for our community was personal. At that same time, it was being cornered, hammered, crushed and sent through the polarizing funnel of what the writer, Steve Fraser, calls is either the decay of “antiquated industrial capitalism” (the political right) or the resuscitation of a revolutionary corpse (the left’s old New Deal). Both of which, more importantly, are backward facing, not forward.
