ROUTINE BUILDS CHARACTER. Especially during these times they are a’changin’

Started to watch the presidential presser last night, hoping, of course, like lots of us red-pilled folks, that Trump would #FireFauci (see yesterday’s post), but it was not to be. Though Trump did invite Fauci to walk back his seeming anti-Trump comments of the day before.

Of course I was disappointed. Of course my twirling little mind tried — and failed — to slip into hopelessness, despair, or more actively: paranoia..

What is it about the human spirit that demands solutions, NOW! What is it about the human spirit that simply can’t stand to wait for justice?

But then, what is a solution? And what is justice? If I put together all that I think I “know”— even if I really do know it (and I don’t) — it’s still but a miniscule dot in an infinitely proliferating, interpenetrating, multidimensional web of cascading perspectives. My needing to KNOW, NOW, is — I think I have said here before, — what I would call my Root Addiction, the one that grabbed hold of me as a small child, and had me reading newspaper headlines, full of Fear of the Bomb, when I was five years old.

Yes, I confess. I am an addictive personality; and tbis “need to know” is the one that underlies all the others that I have indulged during my long life. Luckily, at some point, I realized that since I am an addictive personality, I need to cultivate healthy addictions, which mostly I have done. When I say “addictive personality” I mean one who craves regularity, pattern, small repeating patterns; just as I craved sucking my thumb as a child. Oops! So maybe that’s my root addiction, Oral Fixation, and not my “need to know”? It’s certainly the earliest addiction. Or is it? I wonder if I was aware during my time in the womb, sloshing about in my mom’s huge fear of the unknown, given that she knew her husband was soon to depart for World War II. That, frankly, would not surprise me.

For a long time I thought it was cigarettes. But that didn’t take hold until I was 18. (See How I Stopped Smoking). This one, this huge — what shall I call it, desire? No. Not early strong enough; let’s call it what it is, utter desperation to “figure things out,” and to do so with the very latest info — I told housemate Dan just yesterday, that in scrolling through my twitter feed, I don’t pay attention to something if it is more than one day old! After all, the world might have completely upended itself in the past 48 hours!

And let’s face it, folks. That IS how fast things are changing now. There’s no going back to the old “normal.” Too much has been uprooted already for that to occur. And somewhere, down deep, we all know it. Humanity was a slow-moving, earth-bound caterpillar, and we have turned to mush inside the chrysallis. What kind of butterfly will emerge? We have no idea. Everything, literally everything is up in the air, swirling around like a frenetic dust storm, on its way to reaping the whirlwind.

What now?

What next?

Note to self: Stay centered. Ask self to remain asleep for more than two hours at a time (my nights have reduced to four or five small bouts of sleep). Get plenty of exercise. Drink lots of water. Nap. Eat well. Listen to the birds. Notice the full flush of spring green. Wave to those whom I pass by. Keep to my daily routines, which include: one hour walk with dog, one hour yoga/taichi/chikung, one daily post here, at least one hour on my endless Recapitulation Project (which I’m now calling my Decapitulation Project — ‘cuz maybe it will sheer off my overactive mind! What a relief that would be!) And one hour for Dan and my “deep cleaning” project daily as well. Yesterday he and I both cleaned some long neglected kitchen cupboards.

Routine, remember, builds character. Especially during chaotic times like this, when our world is breaking open and we have absolutely no idea what the fuck comes next.