degringolade | Ain't No Grecian Dancer

New Realism (American Realism) / Edward Hopper/ Chop Suey

Cookies are baked, fennel seed shortbread is pretty damned easy to make and seems to be a crowd favorite. Flour, butter, sugar and seasonings is as simple a cookie as one could ever hope for. Today is the cookie exchange with the wimmen at work. The things that I have to do to keep peace.

Call from R. out of the blue last night. Haven't seen or heard from her for months. Always pleasant. Wonder what the hell is going on. Since I seem to be every woman's Plan B, at this time in my life, I have my suspicions. But always pleasant hearing from a friend.

Screed:

Going along with the leitmotif of Greta that has been in my thoughts of late, I want to try and lay out the dissonance between us fucking boomers (UFB) and those damn kids (TDK).

I suppose, to a certain degree, the problem is sociological and the outcome of a decades long process where differing inputs allowed for differing outcomes. You see, while everyone wants to blame us boomers for the problems of the world (and the accusation may well be valid), when your really look back at it, the decisions made and the assumptions followed appeared logical at the time. Now, one of my favorite past-times is "de-boning" folks motivations and data inputs. Having spent a bunch of time doing this (in some circles, such activity is uncharitably referred to as "rationalizing") I have come to the opinion that when presented with the options of what was at the time a fringe belief (resource constraints and climate change) and the economic reality that was Bretton-Woods, the post WWII rebuild and the (until that point) seemingly limitless flow of oil, the decision made in 1980 to abandon the steps taken during the first oil shocks.

What folks don't seem to realize is that there are two ecologies in conflict here. The first is Gaia. The ecology of the world without humans. The second is that built by humans with technology. And technology is oil and coal. Technology is the God that limps, in other words, Hephaestus . But technology is what we were raised in. Gaia is what we were running from. Because you see, Gaia is all about limits and balance. Hephaestus is all about extracting and making.

Because at the end of the day, my generation worshiped a God with a shelf life.