An unfamiliar world

A dream?

I awoke in a daze my friend, still partially submerged in the subconscious realm, thinking that the nightmare was true, until full consciousness kicked in. Thank God, it was just a dream! Can you imagine?

Everyone was walking around wearing masks and shields. The Sears store became a mass vaccination center! Had to sit there 15 minutes after the shot, with many others, in case the vaccine made any of us stop breathing. There was no choice in the matter, as this contagion, called Covid-19, was killing millions all over the planet. So, you either took your chances with a hastily created vaccine, or lived in fear of catching the Covid and dying an ugly death, and you would eventually. Yeah, not a choice really, unless you had a death wish.

And this vaccine was no one shot deal. You had to go back for a second one, to get more protection, maybe a third one later on, and so on. This invisible Covid was like a demon, it kept changing and mutating, finding new ways to sneak up on us, get at us. Glad it was only a dream!

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Perpetuating fantasies

Some fantasies continuously rewrite themselves to fit the current time, place, and situation of one’s life. The original “wish” perpetuates through the later versions, but everything else must change for the fantasy to remain relevant and offer the air of possibility.

Brick by Brick

Childhood was often a painful experience, but if we were lucky, and many of us were, then there were escapes, partial resolutions, and a few safety nets to fall back into. However, young adulthood and middle age became progressively less accommodating, and old age is sometimes like hell itself, with no possibility of negotiating with our painful circumstances, as they were built brick by brick, year after year, and remain as solid as the hardest rock on earth.

Negotiating love

We are unconditionally loved as children, and so saying “NO” doesn’t get us kicked to the curb – not often anyway. But love, or anything else, becomes a negotiation in adulthood, so saying “NO” better be balanced with an enticing “YES” to something.

Breakdown #1

The first confrontation with my mortality was at age 27, after the sudden death of my uncle. For the first time, I felt the universe to be a very cold and impersonal place. My faith was badly shaken, and I felt very alone and vulnerable. I experienced a breakdown as a result, one that lasted for several weeks, until the pain finally exhausted itself.

Eventually, I recovered a sense of spirituality in my life, as the idea of an impersonal universe was both incomprehensible and intolerable to me.