These Are Wild Times

 A man just started a live stream and then set himself on fire as a form of protest against the USA’s involvement in the Israel’s genocide of the Palestinians.  Have we seen protest like this ever in the US?  Possibly in the sixties?  There’s a famous photograph of a monk who has set himself on fire, sitting peacefully while half of his body is ablaze with gasoline-fueled flames.  You can almost hear the sound of the fire through the photograph and you can definitely hear the sound of the fire on the live stream of Aaron Bushnell.  You can also hear his screams.  The video I saw blurred out the video of Aaron burning, and that’s fine.  I don’t think I need to see it 100% to understand.

It was wild.  These are crazy times.  Everybody says that: “these are crazy times”.  “These are crazy times we’re living in….”  But what does that mean for actual life?  It made me think about the game of basketball and the shiny, smooth court it gets played on.  Players run, and bounce the ball as they go.  But imagine if the floor was severely uneven.  City courts can often get cracks in them, divots, and even potholes.  If it’s all they got then I’m sure there will still be kids out there trying to play even though the ball frequently takes some wild bounces.  But imagine a court that’s severely uneven, wavey like skatepark moguls.  Or imagine the nice squares in Boston’s ‘Parque’ floorboards, but every single one is slanted at a different angle.  In either scenario it would very quickly cease to be a fun, or even possible game.  Every time you tried to bounce the ball, it would come back at a different angle then you want and it would make any type of dribbling in a straight line nearly impossible.  If we all learned how to play basketball on a nice, smooth court, and then were forced to only play on this hypothetical uneven court, who would even want to play?  It’s no longer a good game.  At some point a new game may be created using the uneven court, but its unlikely it would merit the name of “basketball”.  I’m picturing something closer to trampoline basketball or even ultimate frisbee.  Whatever comes of it, the point is that to try to continue playing the (traditional) game of basketball on such an uneven surface becomes a miserable and ultimately futile task. 

Well, maybe that’s an argument in favor of ‘God is Change’, like Earthseed.  Shape it, learn from it…  The way I feel like I’m being called is to a quiet house, maybe a cabin.  A bike to get to vendors and resources.  A radio to stay in touch.  And nature.  If it’s possible to just somehow get a small piece of land to live, starve, survive, write, be wild, sleep, learn, become a human…

I just don’t believe people know what is the best way to live life, and I guess I can see how I might become homeless one day.