What Will Come of All This?

—02.03.2000—

I feel like I haven’t written anything for ages, though it has only been a few days. My life is currently being pulled by considerations of commerce: not running out of money, corresponding with my accountant, etc. The prosaic appears to drown out the magical.  

I just spoke with my friend Jessica in San Francisco who reports that the dot-com frenzy there is in full swing. Isn’t it ironic how the center of the hippy movement has transformed thirty years on? What will come of all of this, if we, in our eagerness, pour so many of our resources into the virtual world? What will become of the physical one? What will become of gardens, parks and fairies that lose their wings? I feel it all seeping in, the shiny, shimmer of money, and the advertised promises of fun.

——

The waters around the boat of my life are dead calm. No sirocco blows hot wind into my sails. No current draws me closer to any shore. I want to leave it all for the moment and dive deeper into myself to find some truths, something to give, a direction in which to navigate. I am the captain of my ship, after all.

With this in mind, I went for a walk the other night. The air was balmy and I sat in one of my favorite spots, the one with the gentle, soft slope that always beckons me to lie down. I did, stared at the stars, asked for wisdom, and then curled up against the little island’s crags and went to sleep. When I awoke about an hour later I trudged home, chalky-mouthed and bleary-eyed, climbed into bed, and continued where I’d left off.

What I found is that my dreams have been much saucier lately than usual. Normally I’m no more lustful in the nocturnal world than I am in the real one, but last night was a different story. Transparency came alive, eyes closed, mouths opened, and hands found their way home.

—02.03.2023—

And what has come of this almost a quarter century on? The physical world does appear to be in a more precarious position, or rather it appears to me to be more volatile, more polarized between wet and dry, hot and cold. Is this the result of us investing more in the virtual world than the physical one? Or (and?) is it the result of us becoming more polarized and out of balance with each other, and with the planet?

What are your thoughts?