sick sick sick sick sick

- our society is sick to its core. or maybe it's the world's people. but i've seen the "happiness index," as maybe you have, & tend to think it's "western" culture that's sick. sick sick sick sick sick. i'm no freudian, but he had it right about the rotting influence of "civilization" upon the individual, particularly in this materialistic culture, breeding competition, consumerism & other addictions, venality ignorance sloth greed fear isolation arrghh... today i understand & remember the cynicism of my youth, tho mustn't indulge it. after all, a book we read says, & i believe it, "resentments kill." and though this world can suck, i don't wanna be dead quite yet (tho guess ultimately i don't control such things, like none of us do)...
- a saying i saw when i was newly sober: "granted that i must die, the question is, how shall i live today?" i try to remember that one when in a bag of sh*t (the one that has its zipper on the inside, to quote texas stacy, r.i.p., dear woman, & how ironic that she forgot her own brave words & took the ultimate solution out of this world). another good one: "always remember the blessed fact of sobriety." usually i'm reconciled to that 4th word, w/its religious connotations, but right now it kinda chaps my hide... yes,
- crap. what an up and down day. the news bears unimaginable horror, both nationwide & from a family member. violence, ugliness, tragedy. makes more plausible -- no, that's not right, -- palatable the notion of a god & a devil, cause then such characters could be causing the evil that can seem to seep from men's souls (& good?)... but we're kind of all puppets under this system. and i just don't believe that: do you? does any of this drive you nuts, too?? determinism, chaos, fortuity, meaninglessness: i guess we'll never know.
- jeez, sometimes i envy devout religious people: to believe, truly believe that there's some benevolent afterlife serving as reward for enduring the bad in this life, a happily ever after place (disneyland?) overseen by an ever-loving father figure (santa claus?): what must it be like to have such certitude in something so ABSOLUTELY RIDICULOUS??? i sorta envy such conviction. damned ever-skepticism: it might protect a soul from being onced-over, but it too can drive a mind insane!!!
- then comes reprieve: music practice w/12 bars, 1-4-5s, turn-arounds, fat 7ths, 9ths, 13ths, jumps & swings & 2-beat rhythms: there's such happy comfort in the predictability & security & high-energy visceral thrills of american music... heck, maybe THAT'S our religion!! but then the music ends & the spiral hits again. crap.
- ultimately i know, though the blues keep hitting in patterns small to monsoonish, we are so grateful for one another, for family and friends and the power of love and music. "true men of faith have courage," that book we know says, & "faith" i think must mean not necessarily of the religious variety, but faith in the life force manifested in part by humankind & the possibility of continuing goodness, especially when facts of life at times are so bleak... yes, to maintain this attitude does require bravery. so to you, brave friends, a reprieve from the magic magnifying mind that will home in on & amplify the negative... to you, a gentle day or eve.