The Angel of Life

I'm just gonna say it - this virus is the best thing to happen to me in a long time.
I don't have to go to work.
I have been riding my motorcycle around almost every day.
I see mothers with kids walking down the street, sitting on their front porches, and in the parks.
People are fixing up their houses and weeding their gardens.
The air is cleaner than it has been in decades.
The traffic is down.
The noise level is reduced.
People are playing board games and making things.
Many of the dumbass businesses are closing down, with workers moving to grocery stores and support services like delivering meals.
People are talking to their mothers and fathers.
I cleaned my roof and gutters.
I am making coffee for my wife in the morning and sitting and talking with her rather than leaving her alone in the dark while I get on a bus I would rather not ride to go to a job I'd rather not do in a room I don't want to be in with people I don't particularly like and who don't give a shit about me.
My cat is loving that there is a lap available 24/7.
I am reading books.
The young people are in open rebellion.
Finally.
They are learning something we have forgotten: Fuck the Rules.
The world didn't seem to have room for them.
The Olds were hogging everything.
Think about it - what did the virus hit hard and early? Those places we stick our parents when we don't want to wipe their butts and drool any more. Places they hated while they sat waiting to die yet afraid to let go.
What did we do while they sat there?
We went to work at jobs we hated to get money to buy shit we didn't need.
Tesla is making breathers now instead of electric race cars for people with too much money and self-regard.
That guy sent a car into space with an empty space suit in it.
Major Tom was a ghost.
He was polluting the night sky with internet satellites just because he could.
And we watched and applauded.
But our children couldn't afford those cars.
Instead they worked for him alongside the robots while he worked really hard to make better robots to get rid of those very workers.
Nothing is wrong.
There is nothing to fear here except our own ignorance.
Look, I'll say it - bodies do not matter.
Nature cares nothing for lives.
It cares for life.
And we were not caring for life.
We were caring for lives, our own, at the expense of everyone else's.
Our entire economy, the economy of money and extraction and burning and hoarding - is an economy of death.
It is an economy of taking, of taking life from someone else so you can have more shit you don't need.
Think about what has happened.
Car sales are down.
Motorcycle manufacturers like Harley are dying.
There are no fancy restaurants for the rich to roll up to in their fancy cars for everyone to see, to get ostentatious valet service while the poor regular folks are in back washing the dishes to feed their kids, hoping the police don't show up before pay day to take them away to cages.
This virus is the Angel of Life.
It is sweeping across the world erasing bullshit, releasing our fears from the dark places and sending them out into the open for us to see and deal with.
In the Tarot the Crown represents the Ideal, the value system, what we pursue.
The Crown, the Corona.
Our value system is being laid bare for us to see.
Everyone is retreating to their corners, showing all and sundry what they are made of.
Many have gone to ground, holing-up, taking care of family, getting smaller.
Others have been positioning themselves at the front of the line of the public trough for the handouts they see coming.
These last are the very corporate monsters we have created and nurtured and served, and that are now going to turn on us, consume whatever resources they can claw away, and leave us, skeletons in the desert.
Everything is perfect.
Nothing is broken.
Many will choose to leave.
This may sound harsh, but it is true nonetheless.
The body is a vesture, a suit of clothing we wear for a brief period.
It is an interface.
And that is all it is.
We have focused too severely on the body and its decorations and dalliances.
We have neglected the reason it exists in the first place, to serve the Soul.
And that is the whole thing.
This virus is a reckoning and an opportunity.
The System is sending us a message.
We thought it was going to be an earthquake, a tsunami, or the sun exploding.
But it is this.
This is the Boss fight at the end of a round of game play.
And this is very much a game.
When the Soul is done with an avatar body it removes itself from the field of play.
And many Souls are done with this round.
We mourn the body when it dies.
But we do not understand, as a people, what death is.
We do not understand what a life is either.
But the virus is showing us.
Death is no tragedy.
It is not wrong or bad or evil.
It is a transition away from this field of play back to Home Base.
The fearful, the players still in the game, mostly don't know that.
They, we, have been mis-trained.
That is on purpose, by design.
But it is true no less.
This virus thing is going to announce its every move.
It is going to be open and honest with us.
And we will misread and misunderstand everything until we see this thing from a larger perspective.
The young are in open rebellion, having beach parties, going out to bars at night, gathering in larger groups than the Olds want them to.
They are telling us something, too.
They are saying, "Fuck You. You didn't have room for us. You left us the crappy jobs, the crappy "educations" (and the crappy bills), the crappy houses. You made us drive you around and make you sandwiches while you sucked up all the resources. You burned the place down for your own luxuries and then wouldn't have the kindness to die, to get out of the way so we could start fixing it back up before we got too old ourselves to do it."
Say what you want about that, but it is what they have been telling us.
And they continue to do so.
To the extent we fall into fear over this we will only make our time more miserable.
The message I have been receiving from the Universe at Large is this: FLOW - Fling Open the Windows.
This is a time of freedom, of challenge, of leaping from one trapeze bar to another.
It is scary when you're in the air in the middle, having released one but not yet grabbed the other.
But it has to happen.
I am a control guy by training.  And this virus has shown me the Foolishness of that.
There is no control.
It is a hard lesson. My persona only wants to double-down when things get out of hand, to try harder and harder to keep the pieces from flying apart. And it never works.
But I am beginning to see that there is a freedom there.
That freedom comes at a cost though. The cost is a breaking of the protective bubble, the shell, the cage I have built around myself and my life.
But that shell has grown too small, too tight.
I don't fit inside of it any more.
But I am only equipped to build it, not to tear it down.
And so the Universe at large has sent help.
It has sent the Angel of Life to break it for me, to release me from the cage of my own construction.
It is scary, the open air.
Maybe i'll leave with the others.
Maybe I'll stay and see what happens next.
I cannot say.
It isn't in my control.
But I know this - it is beautiful.
I can't wait.

The AirLock

A thing we know - never, ever open the door to the ship.

No matter how much blood, no matter how loudly they scream or how they plead, never open the door.
If you do not open the door they may die.
If you do not open the door the monster may get them.
If you do not open the door - you may live.
If you open the door the Alien _will_ get into the ship and murder everyone but the cat.
If anyone happens to survive they will be infected hosts who take the Alien on to the next ship and repeat the process.
In the end, it is only the Alien who lives.
Everywhere.
Everywhen.

Ask yourself - why do they want in?

What do they need?

They need air, food, water, and a warm, safe place to sleep.
Maybe they need some comms and something to do, maybe a book to read.

Put that shit in the airlock.

I am thinking a Winnebago in the driveway, or an old Air Stream if you're rich or lucky.

Make an airlock to receive the away team when they come ass-hauling back from their explorations.

Leave them in it for the quarantine phase, whatever happens to be the Alien gestation period.

After, when they have been proven clean, let them in to rejoin the crew.

And when the next ones come banging on the door, do not open it.

Ever.

New Rules - Wheelies

For - after.

Note the date and time and ask why a working dude is not - working.

The word for 2020 is - weird.

How quickly things have snapped out of place and into thin air like Wile E. Coyote over the edge but not yet fallen.

The skin on my hands is paper-dry and lizardy.

The garage is full of bean-cans, dried pasta, and camping "food" in case it gets freaky.

This is how I think now - there are New Rules.

The thing is, I know the Old Rules are out but I don't yet know the new ones.

Maybe no one knows.

Outside is early spring, birds and blue sky, buds on branches but not renewal, not ours any way.

I am on "admin leave" from work, which is basically snow days. Paid to stay home. Tomorrow I have to go into work to get briefed, sign papers, and carry home my computer and keyboard and maybe some monitors so I can "WFH" (Wif?) Work From Home. In clumsy gov-speak - Telework.

Vulnerable people, Lisa, and so myself, a-extensio, are getting special consideration. Agree. But I am not un worried. My mind churns through the permutations of fear/doubt, down there at the bottom of the pyramid at safety/security where my paycheck lives. So.Many.Questions.

How the ufck is THIS gonna work?

I mean - how is ANY meaningful work going to happen?

No one knows - anything.

No models for this.

We are making it up as we go along.

So I thought I'd write here every day for a while, for reference, later.

Todays inaugural post - Wheelies.

I bought a sumo a few weeks ago. Since Corvid19 I've been out doing wheelies, hooting it up around the back-burbs. Super fun. But here's the obvious thing - doing things like WFH and (the maddeningly-inartfully-phrased) Social Distancing to stay safe while simultaneously doing something manifestly dangerous, the riskiest thing in my repertoire, seems absurd, like vinegar and baking soda, self-cancelling.

But if you give it half a thought - the bug is bigly, freakishly out of my control. Riding, however, is my metier. At least it feels like something within my control. Literally, there are controls and I know how to use them. I am good at those controls. They are familiar, comfortable, and oh-so-satisfyingly responsive. They do exactly what I tell them to do, not a speck more or less. Everything is my own fault and responsibility. Live or die, it is my own doing. That, and I love the float.

The last few years have been preparation for this. I have become accustomed to  meteors. So far they have all burned-up on atmospheric entry. None have hit the ground. But the shockwaves and flashes - fuck. I'm getting jumpy. It is exhausting. And they just keep coming. Closer together now, and larger. Like this is Metaluna. Soon the Zagons will break through. Where are those Interociter instructions? Where is my spaceship?

I am Kai Solo.

Out.