Folded Thought of the Day:


I've looked to the east and seen that things are not what they 
seem.  And I've looked to the west and seen things that should 
never be seen...

Bundling up my dried goods and other essentials and climbing into 
a '57 Dodge, seeking out the back alleys and un-tracked dirt 
roads.  Surveying the terrain for a direction that will overturn 
the order of all this hunting and gathering.  To find a lonely 
place to put up my four walls and do my dirty little work.  Some 
minor corner of the universe where I can get some peace and quiet 
so I can hear my heart beat and my mind tick.  And I can shut 
out the evening news and the chart-toppers who don't have a single 
thing to say.

The white-man's burden has become quite the happening spot.  You 
can always find plenty of happy participants fighting in the pits.  
And it's getting harder and harder to get good ringside seats.  
Gotta know someone...be connected...have a little of that discretionary 
income.  Yeah, you sure ain't getting in on your laurels, not to 
mention your dancing technique.  Best to not even mention those 
attributes.  Stick with your strengths.  And smile a lot.  Just 
like they taught you back at the academy.

What's this?  You can't even get a decent glass of water around here.  
Spitting out the bits of debris you understand that the only pure 
thing left on this planet is the first sound of newborn baby.  It's 
all downhill after that.  Even the best of intentions become tainted 
and murky.  Being conditioned for so long on how to behave and what 
is good and what is bad, how can you even trust your own decisions?  
What is honest?  What is human nature?  

Right on cue, here comes the ramblin' troubadour -- always singing 
off key and keeping sketchy time.  But the kids do love it when he 
rolls around -- all gathering in a circle as he strums his guitar 
and tells tales of days gone by...stories of honorable gamblers 
and struggling pioneers and families surviving on the edge of 
civilization.  As they listen, they feel the warmth of his voice 
and the beauty of his words but they never seem to carry away 
anything but an anecdote or two...as if they accept that the 
world was a simpler and better place many years ago and that 
it's sad but inevitable that it's not like that anymore.  

But one of the children must have noticed the troubadour's voice 
cracking a bit more than last time.  And one of them must have 
witnessed the tired look on his face and maybe one or two took 
a moment to wonder if that was the last time he'd be coming around.

Who has time anymore to administer a just and righteous nature?  In 
what direction can one safely turn?  Tuning in to a sound that's been 
echoing for years down the canyons or our bitter intentions and jagged 
memory, what highly calibrated instrument could possibly locate the 
source?...or does it lie somewhere inside us?


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