There's an old saying to the effect that "The devil's in the details".
Wrong. The details are glorious. All the myriad bits and pieces which make up this and each moment of our reality.
I don't particularly care who or what created our universe. Nor do I spend much time thinking about it, any more.
I think many people who spend a lot of time arguing the point are actually wasting valuable energy. Energy they could devote to appreciating their existence, rather than trying to dissect it.
Me, I try to be appreciative every day.
And my appreciation is sharpened, in focus. In new and fresh relief, aided by new eyewear. But the lenses are just a tool to remind me of what I already know:
This might seem a strange thing -- to hear a large hairy straight male speaking of "swooning". And what's more, with pleased anticipation.
But the word has two meanings. First in most people's minds is "to faint". But the other meaning is mine:
"To be overwhelmed with ecstatic joy."
That is what I am looking forward to. And that is why I am taking the time to explain this aspect of the word, and take it back for all humanity from its connotations of wimpiness.
(Though I have an interesting ally in this effort. Harry Potter, termed "The Boy Who Lived" in the books, might as well be called "The Boy Who Swoons", though in the sense of the first definition -- he passes out more than a Jane Austen girl, 3 or 4 times per book. Granted, magic is weighty and mysterious stuff. But still I smile to think of a whole generation of readers, young males included, being subtly indoctrinated that it is all right for even such a hero to swoon without rebuke.)
The reason I am sure that I will soon swoon: tomorrow I pick up my new eyeglasses. And I know from experience that to look at the world through new lenses brings me first to giddiness at the clarity of things, then a state of ecstasy as the incredible detail of existence pours over and into me.
I will become enrapt over the minutiae of reality, created just for that moment, my already sharp appreciation brought into renewed focus.
I will be struck anew, in stunned awe, by sky and cloud and mountain and tree and the gleam of sun on hair and the curve of a woman's cheek as she smiles.
I will become lost in each great new vista, just as in each grain of sand.
And I know I will wear a great beaming grin.
And I will swoon.
And if you would think to mock me for my delight in the sheer brilliance of the universe, would think to belittle me that I could find ecstasy in such a simple acknowledgment of existence, I will ask you:
I was around for the first wave of silliness about the Mayan calendar predicting the end of the world in 2012.
Now there is a whole new resurgence in this theme, with several new books and popular coverage of the idea that Dec. 2012 will bring, if not an apocalypse, at least a major "shift" in human affairs.
As if that were not bad enough, I just saw that someone is trying to stitch together Nostradamus and 2012!
Of course, it is a perfect match -- the ambiguous maunderings of a famous "prophet", glued to the ambiguous "end of a cycle" of a mysterious lost people. Nostradamus' enigmatic quatrains perfectly lend themselves to a wide variety of interpretations (I have seen the same passage claimed to predict a female U.S. president, and a financial collapse), and anything "Mayan" excites new agers to drooling.
But I have to ask two questions:
1) Why is it people are so willing to look forward to an apocalypse in their lifetimes?
and
2) Why do people feel so lost that they will accept any framework, even a pessimistic one, to hang a belief system on?
I have my theories, but for now I just have to shake my head.
Personally, I am looking forward to 2013. And I wonder what satisfaction they get in believing it will not arrive.
The new year commenced with a bang. Many, many bangs, thanks to my neighbors.
If one has witnessed something annually for more than 20 years, it must be safe to call it a tradition. The tradition in rural New Mexico is to step outside at 11:59 on the evening of Dec. 31 and unload all of your weapons into the air. Pistols, shotguns, rifles, black powder weapons -- once you get over it sounding like a war zone, it is sort of a fun game to identify all of the different calibers and guns. That sounds like a 9mm, 17 in the clip. There's an old double-barrel shotgun, sounds like a 12-gauge, double-roaring, then, after a reload, double-roaring again. There's a .22, sounding rather like a cap-gun by comparison, ripping through a clip of 20.
(One odd thing this year -- out of the background noise I kept hearing 5 barking shots, 1-2-3-4-5, then a hesitation for reload, then 1-2-3-4-5 again. What uses a 5-round clip? An old strip-clip military weapon, like a Garand?)
Of course, while listening to all of this I am safely under cover, since what goes up inevitably comes down somewhere, and yes I know there is a lot of open space around here and yes I know the odds against getting hit are favorable but there is a lot of lead failing to reach escape velocity and I have only to look at the bullet-pock on the side of the house from New Year's Eve 2000 to be reminded that statistics are not the only consideration in life.
I must admit, I have been tempted to add to the sonic mess, shooting not recklessly into the air but safely into a pile of dirt but since the whole point seems to be recklessness I feel it would be an empty gesture. I will not be a would-be wanton; when I am wanton I do it right.
After years of being exposed to this annual barrage, I have come to believe that it is the result of superstition. Apparently my neighbors, and their counterparts across the area, believe that if you have any ammo left unused on Jan. 1 you won't get any more in the coming year.
(Note to sociologists: when there is a regularly-observed practiced you cannot decipher, chalk it up to superstition.)
Last night's barrage was especially memorable. Amid the booming and banging of ordnance were leftover July fireworks, adding to the battlefield illuminations. Too, party noisemakers could be heard, tooting and screeching. (And, where commercial noisemakers were not at hand, several people voicing vigorously through duck calls.)
But rising above it all, soaring, was the sound that made me burst out laughing, the clarion call that I have taken to heart and now hold as my sonic theme for the coming year:
The clear, proud, defiant call of a rooster, knowing that it is his job to crow up the sun.
