Long have they urged us, originally in hoary Latin, not to let the bastards grind us down.  The bastards constantly and tirelessly grind.   Grinding us down is their only goal.  They do a hell of a job and it takes a fresh, happy energy not to be ground down sometimes.

Of course, it is supremely fatiguing, this death by a thousand abrasions.  It’s impossible to energetically engage every one of the many outrages that are paraded by us every day.  We have outrage fatigue, in this world where they are hatching one outrage after another, using devilishly sophisticated machines to crank them out faster and faster.  

Some days it is not possible to energetically engage even the smallest of these outrages.   The question I ask myself today, as my wheels spin so far in the sluggish air: how do I recharge my spirits?

I have been musing on the scam that is the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and the seeming impossibility of getting out of paying hundreds of dollars I do not owe, in addition to hundreds in monthly premiums I do, feeling myself frozen in place, stymied, angry.  No outlet.  Go fight City Hall, asshole.  Has nobody granted me the serenity to accept the things that get to fuck me with no remedy and know the difference between the things I am right to actively engage?

Global warming, the organized, vociferous denial of fact, a government whose corruption is surpassed only by the insatiable, murderous greed of those who corrupt and control it, poverty, war, lack of civility, humility, gentleness, creativity in our public discourse.  The war of each against all that is thrust upon us every day.   We are living in a mined out coal mine where the air has turned noxious and it doesn’t take a coughing canary to tell us which way the toxic wind is blowing.

How do I recharge my batteries today?  Yesterday I played the guitar for a few hours, an excellent thing to do.  But, while it did me a world of good at the time, did nothing to recharge my batteries.  

Going to work is the most widely practiced universal therapy out there.  That I do not go to work is a big factor, too much time to muse, since I am not hitting snooze, having coffee and dashing off to work.   If everything in one’s day is optional, a kind of haze can set it.   There is a good reason that many people fear leisure, dread retirement, the feeling of being unproductive, useless, if not working in some capacity.   I am on the other end of the scale with that one– if I could play productively every day I’d be a very happy boy.

A very happy old boy.