The doomsday sayers, of all varieties, have been having their mutters turn to shouts, as of late. As has happened so many times before in this story of the human species. Though, I suppose it’s been a little more actual in planetary scale this past century. Still stinks of ancient holy war, though. As it almost always does.

Perhaps war is the most holy thing the species ever seems to muster. Ideas so good, or addictive, that someone else, our ourselves, must die in defense of them.

I wonder, did Leonardo imagine only of a passing glance at the heavens when thinking up his flying machines? Or even then, had the thought of reigning fire down on those below begin to occur?

Still, if I managed to squeeze out some truth, which I always end up doing sooner or later, the existential doom of global martial engagement can often do little more than scrap the peripheries of my sentience. Today, in particular. Yesterday, too. As well as the day before that.

Instead, I think of my own brief and miniscule life and the way it has weaved in and out of those of other souls I have found myself knowing. These ideas bounce around that are so often the opposite of mortal conflict. Instead of the end of the world, I’ve been working my way towards ideas, feelings, that make the days yet to come seem ripe with prospect. These thoughts, despite the tragedies. And perhaps, despite the more concrete realities that would confine and crush them over time.

And the moments, even the most fleeting, that spur on such sensations. The sound of my own progeny singing a favorite song of a dear, yet departed friend, while the young one still remains unaware of how heartbreakingly beautiful that sound actually is. Or the glimmer of metropolitan skylines, windows down in the post-solstice urban heat, while the radio echoes something reminiscent inspiring the idea of being younger than maybe you ever actually got the chance to be. And the ease of existence that comes with time so effortlessly passing, in the company of so esteemed and dear other entities, on sidewalks, in living rooms, across tables, as the hours melt away at breakneck speed.

I know, I know- that is all very privileged and personal. But it is human, universally, even if I am afforded more luxury to ponder in such ways than many another across the vast global population cannot. Awful occurrences happening across the planet as I click away at leisure, at a rate of loss that may even exceed the time it takes for each letter to land upon page.

Still, I think it is such moments that the key is found to persevere through the times that are far less sublime.

Briefly, though profoundly, I caught up with someone who has held a place in my heart, in constant and varying forms, for my entire adult life. We spoke of grief, knowing each other’s both through history and present, sharing some and always comforting when experienced individually. I asked her if she was thriving or just surviving. We both agreed that it is always a bit of both. The former not possible without the other. Surviving being the bare minimum, the basis for anything resembling thriving to even consider being, both in permanence in the more ephemeral.

We spoke of the growth required and as a byproduct of, if not full-blown tragedies, even in the difficulties more minute. That ebb and flow of emotion within life’s losses and gains. That equilibrium for us living can never be the same, how it changes from day to year. And how we are changed by it, and the things that stand resolute despite all the change occurring outside what I referred to as our electrified meat spaceship. Meaning our physical beings. The self.

A wonderful person that I count my fortunes great to have remain through all these years. And, she makes otherworldly pies. Always a plus.

But it is always passing us by, this life. This thing we call time pulling us from birth to grave, one step or stampede at a time. And so simple is it to reflect on opportunities not taken, or fumbled, or lost out upon by no doing of our own. There was a line in the film I watched with my daughter this evening that would go well here.

‘Too many memories of wishes that didn’t come true.’

Desire and nostalgia, so easy and yet dangerous a combination. And so entangled with the idea of future, that only place in time where something like hope can exist. It is not something tangible, quantifiable. And even if you get what you hope for, it does become something else when merged with the present, though beautiful it still remains.

That interplay between want and memory after walking down streets that the ghost of some former self staggered down in a wide array of emotions, bliss and oblivion being among them. Was that specter following just behind as I could not escape the moment that was, even to wonder where all of this might end up getting itself to? Thankfully, the moment was not corrupted much with all that. Only afterward, in vehicular contemplation and such. And now, as my exhausted neurons force me onward to complete this task set before me, with no reward in mind aside the notorious ego boost provided by action of doing any of this at all.

My words may not be failing, but this evening’s ramble doesn’t quite feel like a success, for back of a letter term.

I must confess, I am exhausted. From the weight of a heart so very full. Of course, with that inescapable sadness that has hung around all my days, but with that other stuff too. The stuff of poems and music. Of laughter and the silent engagement of eyes, the sort that words flow in immense multitude, and yet nothing is ever said.

And the beauty to be taken from all of it. Watching my daughter display a year’s worth, and really several years, in an art form that is so long lasting it is now a cornerstone of her very identity.

And of sitting in a wooden pew and the beauty of an eclectic lot of folks, all sounding their voices together in such an aesthetically aligning way. What do you call that again? Harmony? You know, tones not the same but not opposing either, unless purposefully intended to. Some place of worship being temporarily dedicated to some other brand of deities. All beauty, all mothballs and old lady perfume.

Either all of this is going to leave someday, or I will be. Whichever happens first. The moments pass as soon as they occur. And the people fade, as well, if not vanish altogether in an instant. Either the ones we love pass, or we do before them. Hard to have a preference on such exits, but the truth of it is absolute. And once you’re gone, you’re gone, as far as I can tell. Might be that there is something else beyond this plane. But I’ve never been there, and don’t find the prospect promising enough to bet the entirety of this puny existence on such a gamble.

All the more reason to engage with as much of this life as one can manage. And to hope, even when foolish. It is easy enough to conjure bleak thoughts when considering the ever-dwindling future, but I think your humble narrator will continue to choose in opposition of that. That however finite an existence I may have, that I will continue to wring out each day to the best of the ability I can muster, and maybe a little further beyond that still.

     Is it the human condition to choose fantasy towards the path of folly and further in the hope of making an actuality come about?

     It very well may be, and an easily doomed prospect at that. Yet sit, I sat for another Monday and did the deed. There is more in my heart and mind, but this is not the venue for such endeavors, at least not this evening.

     I should sleep, and I will. But I may get up to some more of my nonsense before I bid this day away and wait for the arrival of the next. You know, the place where all the hope still exists. The one we call tomorrow, should it ever actually manage to coming around to be.