Day: July 23, 2019

I will be spending some time at Alcor today. For those who don’t know it, Alcor Life Extension is on the forefront of Cryonics research and storage. The latest book from Neal Stephenson riffs on Alcor quite a bit as a way to introduce (and apparently dismiss) the notion of cryonics in our lifetime. It all has me thinking about my life time and what that means.

Here is a strange truth: I was ready to die last night. I was wrapped in the arms of the love of my life. I was comfortable and I’d had a good day and I had reflected in that moment that if this was to be the end, it would be a good end. In retrospect, I have shit to do. Still, it all got me thinking about the world I live in and if the now sits on the precipice of something really terrible–some fall–or if this is simply the latest in a cycle that happens throughout time. Let’s be clear: Trump is not the first populist with a divisive bent to run a world power. Having Trump and now Boris Johnson at the lead of two of the most important (socially speaking, because of what GB has historically represented not that they have as much power anymore… China be flexing, y’all) nations be of a similar mind does bug. It does bring to mind WW II. Still, that also means we have been here before.

That brings me to Alcor. What they do is ‘preserve’ people so they can be returned to active status at some point in the future. However, it remains unclear what that future would look like. So I am left to wonder, is now as good as it gets? Will a hundred years from now be better for us as a nation? For me as an individual? The haunting part of that conversation is that I’d be living side by side with my great (great?) grandchildren in 100 years. I cannot truly abide by such a reality. This was the reality faced by the protagonist in the film Interstellar and that dude opted to leave the galaxy instead of living alongside his descendants. I get that.

I don’t know that I am truly ready to die. I feel more and more like I am opposed to being frozen and returning to a time and place where I feel so vastly out of place. It would pain me to leave all my connections behind and start anew. Isn’t that, after all, a sort of death?

I have a lot to say today but nothing feels like it deserves a blog of its own. So…

Some Thoughts:

1. I really enjoy the fact that this has gone on so long–especially the thought list, which is entirely credited to Peter King who did something similar on his Monday Morning QB column. I’m a format guy. If I can find a format or a shape of a thing that works then I can do it forever. Thanks, Peter. Or more formally: Thanks, Mr. King
2. I can say that a lot. Thanks Mr. Stephen King as well. you’ve got it going on. I love your words. Most recently I love what you had to say about Trump. he wrote, “Trump’s worldview simplified: If you disagree with my policies, you hate America. Because I AM America.” This is exactly correct. I’m using Trump in future writing as the guy who developed power simply because people were wounded by a confluence of factors that made them feel vulnerable and he represented that anger and divisiveness that made them feel safer than the alternative. In other words, I plan to speak true in my characters.
3. My cat is throwing a serious fit right now. The weather outside is approaching Haboob levels and she is either lonely, terrified, or both. She won’t come downstairs because of the dog. We’ve had to separate the two with a gate. She’s just not about that dog life. Now she is apparently not about that Dust storm life either.
4. I’m winding down a Shadowrun project. With the end in site I should be excited but I am not. I feel like this is/has taken too long. I feel slow in the writing and I ought to do something about that. But what?
5. This really has to be the last season for football for at least 1 kid. We have football stuff forever it seems. Once he starts the H.S. stuff it is definitely going to be a major reduction. It might not feel that way because one more kid is playing. Of course there are always school sports but that involvement is much limited. I cannot see the other kid going more than one more season before he dives headlong into middle school sports and ends his so-called youth sports career. Maybe it is a good thing. I have other things in life to accomplish outside of this and this, while I love it, is in the way.