Contemplating whether the haze is a condition of the era itself, or my own age within all this time. Or is it but a part in some larger conspiracy wrought from the minds of ill-intentioned souls so that the deflated cognition of the masses allows for larger profit margins for those that live upon the other side of this rampant intellectual decay and irradiating numbness?

Sports matches and cyclically subscribed short circuiting. All bread and circuses and such. Though, the bread is more expensive, even here in the land of honey and milk. Never you mind what goes on in the war-torn and desperately economically destitute otherwise regions of this frail, miniscule blue dot that we see as so vast that you could almost forgive those that used to think this little rock was the center of the whole of existence. Takes a hit to the collective species ego to realize that we are an unlikely species barely out of the muck of some cosmic backwater. Doesn’t really make you feel special, somehow, being at least moderately aware of our insignificance. Inescapable in a singular lifetime, at least.

And yet, it is freeing, isn’t it?

The pressure of mattering in any way larger than ourselves contains the potential to emancipate our being from the meandering meaning of outside influence and choose instead the purposes we can paint of our own intentions and perspectives.

So, the thoughts begin to find themselves upon the stories we weave and what they mean, to ourselves and all these others that occupy this current space and time. Hues and shades both haphazard and habitual, simultaneously reflected in and projected outward, all as we etch the details of existence with deeds and words and dissertations both of official statuses and folklore origin. We tell our stories with our lives, but that is only a part of the piece that conglomerates to something larger. For without some version of a witness, the whole reality of our tale fails to see the light of day. Or the dark of night, for that matter, if that is your preferred scene and setting.

 And as these chronicles get told with what we see, and say, and do and don’t know- a dance with reality occurs. The continuity and disparity of perspectives as our paths merge or separate. Some of us lost in rationale to never get the wisdom and benevolence of imagination. Others, so diluted by inaccurate ideologies of self and societies that from their minds a scene divorced entirely from what is contained in the actual repertoire of realities. One could imagine it being terrible if such delusional characters were to wield power and information within our world. Thankfully, something like that wouldn’t happen.

Get it? I’m being funny, again. It’s one of my more charming personality traits.

But between the extremes of that existential bell curve resides most of us, wouldn’t you agree? Each of us with our own reason and insanity, all varied in degree and disposition. All important and impactful upon each other, even in ways not so easily witnessed. And though we are tested in these times on technological trails we are barely beginning to understand, we are not so far gone that the human part of all this humanity is a factor so far from our considerations.

I would be so bold as to suggest, dear reader, that in-person interaction is of paramount importance in this period of our species’ production upon the world’s stage. Or so says the man who lives alone in the woods.

But even in my isolated contemplation of this evening, I know our connectiveness to be a key factor in the betterment of our future. For while I have but the songbirds to keep me company at the moment, the last few days were spent otherwise.

A theater, a landmark I’d visited a few times before, as it bids farewell to its most recent occupants. An evening on a beach off the Belt Parkway, documenting a ceremony of two beings I love dearly, as storm clouds made their way eastward to cross the Atlantic, painting the sky vivid and viciously with color before fading away to night. An old industrial building revamped and filled with good beer and the excited vibrations of hardcore bards and their adherents, still swaying and swinging, for the mosh pit still lives. A backyard in a city of hills, at the end of a celebration to honor the uniting of two families hailing from different islands- one residing in the tropical waters of the Caribbean, the other a verdant and rocky gem on the edge of the North Atlantic. And of course, my place of work where beholding both the glory and horror faced by humanity is regularly witnessed with men I know and trust with my life.

So, as I ponder on in my current state of solitude, it is events such as the formerly listed that remind right down to the essence of my being that this human life is for us living humans. And the stories that we tell matter both as we are here telling them, and for those that tell the tales well after our own existence fades. And while it seems like there are great forces working towards our separation, as there very well might be, and almost certainly are- the best method of combat to that disparity is not in isolation but in even the slightest attempts towards unification. Empathy, of course, is a massive key to this. And while having an open heart is an easy enough way to get it ripped open, having the whole business of our emotions totally closed will solve none of the issues currently plaguing our collective paradigm.

It isn’t easy, I know. But it is important. For if we continue down the decline of division, our troubles will only grow in breadth and scope. And not being fool enough to think that we will all hold hands in the near future and have some efficient social machine upon which every participant agrees, I am still fool enough to believe that we can get closer to some semblance of a paradise here on our pitiable piece of matter moving about the otherwise indifferent vastness of the surrounding void. For you must remember, it is the fools who often have their eyes upon truths otherwise unseen. We are not stupid, even when tragically.

It will hurt, this life. There will always be loss, even amidst great love. There is fear among all the confusion and misunderstanding, as there always has been. And while knowledge doesn’t always lead to wisdom, the road of ignorance never goes anywhere worth being.

There was a line that I am about to pillage from a book. Not anything famous or well known. In fact, only a few people have ever even read it. It was made from all that love business, from one person of importance in my life as a gift to another. It is really a piece of visual art more than anything literary, but as two reoccurring characters, so elegantly and expressively created by hand, stare off a boardwalk into the abyss before them littered with nothing but emptiness and stars, one of them says to the other-

‘Tell me a song that makes your heart soar.’

That about sums it up, wouldn’t you think. To share our hearts with each other in the various ways that we can… well, that’s what this whole thing is about, isn’t it? Life, I mean.