Interesting Times - We've Got 'Em

OVERLOAD

I don't even know what to write. I don't have organization skills. How can I express myself coherently?

I CAN'T!!!!!!

My favorite: excessive use of exclamation points!

I heard some dude on the radio say that the entire U.S. financial system is breaking down. I wonder if this is sort of what a tsunami looks like? I don't want to belittle the experiences of people who have lived through (or not) a tsunami. I'm just wondering if this is figuratively similar. It starts out kinda weird and you don't really know what's happening. The big wave comes from far away and you can see it but not understand what it is. Then before you know it you're engulfed in calamity and it's faster, stronger and more overwhelming than you could ever have imagined.

I think I may be in the "see the big wave" part. Where the hell is the high ground and how do we get there?

In Sierra Leone a woman's chance of dying in childbirth is 1 in 8.

At the same time the world is full of amazing things.

This article on tracking elephants with text messaging is pretty amazing.

Then there's amigurumi.

And I just found this incredible site full of wonderful things, Print & Pattern.

Then there's cupcakes. I know there's a major cupcake backlash going on but holy cow. How can you argue with this?

And of course the whole bento thing.

As it says above, I make things. How can a person possibly decide what to make? I'm really stymied right now because there are so many things to make and so many things to learn and I can't organize my experience in a way that makes moving forward meaningful.

Maybe there's just no meaning, no forward and it doesn't matter what I do next so I should just do anything. That's what I've always done in the past. No meaning, no path, no destination.

And we should all just do what we do. I'm going to try not to hurt anyone while I'm about it.

All my life I've idly wondered what it was like for people in other times. What was it like to be Roman during the fall of Rome? What was it like to live in the Dark Ages? World War I? What was it like to be German during the rise of Hitler? Times of chaos when the world (or one's country) seemed to be going entirely the wrong way.

Maybe I'm going to find out. How much chaos are we in for exactly?

How about ecology? Are we going to retract in fear and use up all our resources because we're too scared to take the apparent risk of trying new ways? Panicked people behave stupidly sometimes. Use up all your resources and you will die. Do we have the sense to take painful short term hits so that we can survive into the future?

Beats the crap out of me.

So now what do I do? Do I go to the local farm stand and buy some more eggplant so I can make some more Japanese eggplant with miso topping? Do I just go out and put in more lily bulbs and peonies? Make more fuck plates? Design myself an agedashi dofu amigurumi?

What the hell?