Through one of the myriad unexpected, odd paths that the Internet now enhances, late last night I ended up contemplating the move and book 2001: A Space Odyssey, in no small part due to the anniversary of the 1969 Moon landing, but also stirred by other now forgotten promptings.

We were once filled with high aspirations and dreams for the future, not just of technology but also of exploration and a peace that arose from a realization that our simple human differences were nothing in the face of the universe of infinity to contemplate and explore.

Now we are reduced to a desperate hope than our loved ones are not burned in a nuclear fire or biological meltdown perpetrated by enemies of civilization.

The melancholy musings prompted by the thoughts on a lost future of exploration with hopes unfulfilled prompted my post “Inspiration Lost” along with many other dark thoughts in the hours where it is better to be sleeping than thinking.

Today, it is yet another repetition of the refrain “same partisan shit, different day.”

Today, it is yet another holding action instead of an advancement of humanity.

Today, it is yet another individual tragedy revealed, an action that although on a small scale, affecting only a few, is a tragedy nonetheless.

There are countless so-called small tragedies that occur each day, yet each is devastating to those affected, taking a little more of that commodity that is far too rare to start, joy.

There are some days that I cannot ignore the sad outcomes, the heartbreaking narratives encompassing far too much of our all too short lives, the grievous losses that are all the more lamentable because they are not inevitable but instead a product of our flawed human nature.

On those days, only the reaction of the Southern boy inside of me is adequate, despite my repeated attempts to permanently silence that part of my personality that arose from my origins and has little merit beyond its recognition of the tragedy of humanity that is so well-expressed in the Southern Gothic tradition.

Some days, all that can be said is “Well, fuck…”

The universe is indifferent to our pleas.

The universe operates on the unpitying laws of thermodynamics, best expressed in layman’s terms as:

You cannot win

You cannot break even

You cannot even get out of the game

All of which continue to push us down the path to disaster while we are distracted by shadow-boxing with fanatics, while we are playing every event for political gain at the expense of what is good for the nation , while we are manipulating the data to conform with decisions already made regardless of the reality and ignoring other truly existential threats at our peril.

Never has my teenage-arrogance-originated phrase “mental masturbation” been more apropos…

And never has the danger of this navel-gazing distraction been greater.

We are presented with tragedies on both large-scale and small, we are confronted with evil both widespread and deep, originating not the least in our realpolitik of our recently exited bipolar age where the morals and ethics were discarded in favor of “our side” versus “theirs”, with results of our conditional morality completely missed by our government.

We are left stranded after a transformation into a New World Order that is not a time of peace but instead of unipolar instability enhanced and increased by our moral failings today.

And when that confrontation shows itself in all its horrifying strength we retreat into our world of “reality TV” and empathy for the tragedy of the individual while ignoring the resonance inherent in the far larger tragedies of each death-dealing day, and even with that willful ignorance the tragedy of the individual becomes overwhelming.

Some days, all that can be said is that whispered by my despised internal Southern boy, “Well, fuck…”

Some days, those high aspirations for the future seem not only a chimera, but a naive fantasy that should never have been taken seriously.

I mourn for those old hopes that continue to wither in the harsh light of the now, smothered aspirations that are ultimately destroyed by the desperate wishes for a non-lethal today, hopes destroyed by a melancholy darkening of whatever inspiration might still try to thrive.

Well, fuck…

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