David Boles: Human Meme

We are reaping the whirlwind. The pandemic is upon us and we are flying, seedless, into the horizon with no foundation to root us. Schools are closed. The Palisade is staked. Every step we take is ground zero. We meet a new friend and saw off our arm. Are we there yet? Oh, yes, we are there yet.

How do we handle a perfectly designed killing machine? The Covid-19 Coronavirus appears to be a unique delivery system intentionally constructed for killing people. How does something so intrinsically effective sustain into being beyond the natural world? How many valves are left for us to turn down? How quickly will "social distancing" become "social retribution?" These are some of the vital questions we ask today of the virus that now rules us. 

Will there be singing? We are now living in a time and space in which we did not predict, or choose, and do not want. We are distanced, infected, and alone. Today, we turn to Bertolt Brecht and Emily Dickinson for resolution in the conclusions of our damaged human conflict; and we find ourselves irreparably caught in the drift between the abyss of scientific truth and the sacred heart.

We are created to fail. With the rise of the Coronavirus to pandemic levels, we are reminded of a dramatic Public Health Crises scenario where only some of the following people were offered a magic pill to heal their bodies from the plague: a toddler, a soldier, a priest, a grave digger, and a public health worker. Who would you choose to survive the last days with you?

We run from each other by canceling those we wish not to understand. We are surrounded by concepts, and notions, we cannot abide, and so we cancel the person -- instead of coping with fresh ideas -- by canceling the noise they create around us; but to cancel noise, is to nullify life itself.

We become our addictions. All our lives we race from the aftereffects of caffeine all while running headlong into belonging to that jolt of a manufactured high. Do we owe it to our children to remove the caffeine and sugar temptations before they rot from the inside out? 

It is always not done that a professor seduces a student; but it always does seem to happen. Professors must hold their morality to a higher standard than that of the whims of the body. It is never acceptable for a professor to socialize, or sexualize, the student/teacher relationship. Unfortunately, too much of that brain-to-body trickery is still in play today on college campuses, and the result is the skinning of the student.

The Deaf deserve their culture. Is there a legal definition for Deafness in the law that prevents the Deaf from interacting with a real, and not imagined, life? Are there any protections in place for infants, born Deaf, that guarantees them the right to grow into their Deaf culture, and to appreciate their Deaf language, without parental, and medical, intervention to “fix” their “broken” ears into “Hearing” without the consent of the intervened?

How do we know what we don't know? How do we know what we're missing if we've never been taught what to have? Google solves this problem of access to behavior modeling that many of us, born before the internet, have failed to acknowledge. We had to try and fail everything on our own. Today, kids can build on their successes by using only what has already been proven to work.

We used to say goodbye; now we're left only with hello. There was a time when the day ended. We threw away the newspaper. We said our nightly prayers before entering sleep. Our radio and TV shows signed off the air and left us with white noise and nothing to do but contemplate the results of our day. What happens to us when we no longer have the escape of turning off while trying to live an alive life? 

Embrace your sorrows, for they define you. Too often we become obsessed with happiness when sadness is the authentic and verifiable emotion that drives us and defines our daily lives. The context of sorrow is what frames our expectation against a fleeting joy.

What happened to the Hershey's Chocolate Bar? What happened to the American Tootsie Roll? Tastes didn't change. The economy changed our tastes. The bottom line turned a candy delight into a chalky turd. Where once we salivated for a chocolate treat; now we only spit out its remains. 

Where do we draw the line between relation and blood? Are we our ancestors? Or are we only our middle names? How do we adjust cognitive congruence with the reality of a missing ancestry? Are we bound by birth or by name?

Being great is no guarantee of success. All too often we have seen the mediocre rise to the top, while the best, and the most talented, languish in the dark. Take up your own spark! Light up your life, and the world of everyone else! Dedicate your service of others through yourself! 

Once we were quaintly shy, now were are merely anxious! Labeling conditions for the benefit of society has always been a human fascination. As terms grow, and conditions change, we tend to toss away the old label in order to apply a fresh one -- removing the cruel history of what once was for the kinder notion of today. 

There is glory in the bean. There is salvation in the nut! 40 years ago, some Midwestern farmers gave up growing alfalfa -- animal feed -- to instead grow soybeans to feed people. Today, dairy farms are giving up the cow to grow the almond nut. The cruelty of Animal Agriculture is dying, while the Human Feed Harvest is growing even stronger! 

The mark of the editor is blue. Everything created faces some sort of editorial change in production. Do you honor the object? Or do you celebrate the creator? You cannot admire both without the other suffering. Every Blue Pencil is a lesson in hubris and humility; but can we accept the stings of changes? 

Too often, we act in haste and not hegemony. We are instinctually programmed to react to pressure -- while the better of us choose, instead, to respond to danger instead of becoming part of the tension. The cohesion of the human soul requires a response, and never a reaction.

Are we our thoughts, or are we our vows? In the everlasting battle between mind and country, we struggle to define our private lives against our best public interests. Do we owe ourselves to our moral victories, or our solemn vows? We cannot cut it both ways!

Henry Fonda never stopped being where he was from. He was always an up-from-the-dirt Nebraskan, and the consequence of that fatality was an effect on his performances that was always influenced, and echoed in the dirt, sand, and gravel of the braided prairie. Nebraskans are famous for being friendly, but befriending a Nebraskan is altogether another matter!