Puppies and Kittens
I was lamenting the current political situation with someone recently. She says she spends down time looking at videos and pictures of puppies and kittens. She mostly avoids the news. My approach is quite different. I look at car crashes in Russia, high speed chases in L. A., eruptions, earthquakes, forest fires, burning and collapsing buildings, and urban shootouts.
I do look at cute cat and dog stuff, but end up watching violent cat fights and cats chasing dogs. What is wrong with me? Yes, horrible things are being done by and to our government, but will my preoccupation with it all is not gonna do much good out there. I have always been a news junkie, so maybe all this is unavoidable. But, even my humor is turning black. I like to tell old jokes, but even they are about some variety of mayhem.
Do you know about the Polynesian King who had just made a pact with a neighboring king to stop all the stealing and poaching that had been going on for years. To celebrate, the neighboring king gave him an ornate hand carved throne. The king had it installed in the Great hall of his thatched palace and had his old throne stored upstairs. One day he was on his new throne and the old throne came cracking down from the thatched ceiling and killed him. The moral is “People who live in grass houses shouldn’t stow thrones.”
I hadn’t thought about that joke in years, but this morning it came bubbling up out of my unconscious. I told the story to my wife and it ruined our morning tea and chat session. So the mess out there is creating an internal mess. What to do? I have only managed to get halfway through The Princess Bride, and I did Harry Potter last fall. Is it time to reread Tolkien or should I give in and read Faust and Neitzsche?
The dark side of the Force seems to be upon me. Yoda always told Luke to not give in to hate and rage. My new pen and pencil holder is a Darth Vader coffee cup. I guess I haven’t taken the message to heart. I think I need a road trip.
