Repairing the window of my world view

If I had started practicing my fly casting back in April, today would have been a great day for practicing casting into the wind. I hadn't, so it isn't. Fortunately, I learned long ago not to spit into the wind so that's not an issue. Prepare for some sort of untoward weather events tomorrow since that's when I plan to check out some trout fishing spots. I'm more interested in getting a look at a handful of places I want to reconnoiter for river access and casting obstructions than in actually wetting a line, but, to be on the safe side, I'll bring a rod or two. Otherwise, I'm sure I'd get to see the hatch and rise of my lifetime and there I'd be, standing empty-handed looking like a witless damn fool.

even sunny days often have storm clouds

Photo by J. Harrington

Yes, the continuing diminished and undistinguished state of the world has once again gotten under my skin. The tiller I want to use to make mounds for planting a three sisters garden may be ready this weekend. When I dropped it off at the beginning of last week, they said it should be done some time this week. It's been my experience that similar issues occur with about every small engine repair shop I've used in the past twenty or so years. "Oh, you thought we'd have it done when we said we would?" If the planting doesn't get done by the first part of next week, I'm not going to try it during our 100+℉ spell forecast for several days midweek. (Time to remember the wabi sabi "accept imperfections" approach.) Late next week, after the hot spell, should still allow a viable time to maturity so....

As I promised a day or so ago, I've been looking through the "Progressive's Style Guide." Today I learned a definition of intersectionality:

Intersectionality is a concept often used in critical theories to describe the ways in which oppressive institutions (racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, xenophobia, classism, etc.) are interconnected and cannot be examined separately from one another. The concept first came from legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989 and is largely used in critical theories, especially Feminist theory, when discussing systematic oppression. When possible, credit Kimberlé Crenshaw for coining the term "intersectionality" and bringing the concept to wider attention.

Although I know the meaning of each of the words in the definition, when they are all strung together, I'm still not sure holistic might not be a better term, unless the inclusion of oppression affects the denotation and connotation of the term. Plus, I have reservations about the validity and utility of critical theory, but then I had been more inclined toward a Hegelian than a Marxian world view. These days I find myself leaning much more toward Margaret Wheatley's emergent systems perspectives, combined with the Ojibwe world views described by Richard Wagamese, with a moderate sprinkling of zen and wabi sabi thrown in.

Fortunately, when I become as disgruntled as I too often am these days, I can almost always rely on the oeuvre of one of Minnesota's own Nobel laureates to help me out. Dylan has, decades ago, described today's challenges to a "T."

It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)

Written by: Bob Dylan 

Darkness at the break of noon
Shadows even the silver spoon
The handmade blade, the child’s balloon
Eclipses both the sun and moon
To understand you know too soon
There is no sense in trying

Pointed threats, they bluff with scorn
Suicide remarks are torn
From the fool’s gold mouthpiece the hollow horn
Plays wasted words, proves to warn
That he not busy being born is busy dying

Temptation’s page flies out the door
You follow, find yourself at war
Watch waterfalls of pity roar
You feel to moan but unlike before
You discover that you’d just be one more
Person crying

So don’t fear if you hear
A foreign sound to your ear
It’s alright, Ma, I’m only sighing

As some warn victory, some downfall
Private reasons great or small
Can be seen in the eyes of those that call
To make all that should be killed to crawl
While others say don’t hate nothing at all
Except hatred

Disillusioned words like bullets bark
As human gods aim for their mark
Make everything from toy guns that spark
To flesh-colored Christs that glow in the dark
It’s easy to see without looking too far
That not much is really sacred

While preachers preach of evil fates
Teachers teach that knowledge waits
Can lead to hundred-dollar plates
Goodness hides behind its gates
But even the president of the United States
Sometimes must have to stand naked

An’ though the rules of the road have been lodged
It’s only people’s games that you got to dodge
And it’s alright, Ma, I can make it

Advertising signs they con
You into thinking you’re the one
That can do what’s never been done
That can win what’s never been won
Meantime life outside goes on
All around you

You lose yourself, you reappear
You suddenly find you got nothing to fear
Alone you stand with nobody near
When a trembling distant voice, unclear
Startles your sleeping ears to hear
That somebody thinks they really found you

A question in your nerves is lit
Yet you know there is no answer fit
To satisfy, insure you not to quit
To keep it in your mind and not forget
That it is not he or she or them or it
That you belong to

Although the masters make the rules
For the wise men and the fools
I got nothing, Ma, to live up to

For them that must obey authority
That they do not respect in any degree
Who despise their jobs, their destinies
Speak jealously of them that are free
Cultivate their flowers to be
Nothing more than something they invest in

While some on principles baptized
To strict party platform ties
Social clubs in drag disguise
Outsiders they can freely criticize
Tell nothing except who to idolize
And then say God bless him

While one who sings with his tongue on fire
Gargles in the rat race choir
Bent out of shape from society’s pliers
Cares not to come up any higher
But rather get you down in the hole
That he’s in

But I mean no harm nor put fault
On anyone that lives in a vault
But it’s alright, Ma, if I can’t please him

Old lady judges watch people in pairs
Limited in sex, they dare
To push fake morals, insult and stare
While money doesn’t talk, it swears
Obscenity, who really cares
Propaganda, all is phony

While them that defend what they cannot see
With a killer’s pride, security
It blows the minds most bitterly
For them that think death’s honesty
Won’t fall upon them naturally
Life sometimes must get lonely

My eyes collide head-on with stuffed
Graveyards, false gods, I scuff
At pettiness which plays so rough
Walk upside-down inside handcuffs
Kick my legs to crash it off
Say okay, I have had enough
what else can you show me?

And if my thought-dreams could be seen
They’d probably put my head in a guillotine
But it’s alright, Ma, it’s life, and life only

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