Crispy Cream

“I think I’m allergic to the sun…”

“That’s impossible. No one is allergic to the sun. You may have a reaction to it. Your skin has a tolerance level that when crossed, rebels. Sun burn is not only uncomfortable, but can also lead to serious cancerous maladies. You need to take precautions.”

That is not what I meant to say. I didn’t mean to infer that the sun, per say, was the problem. I meant to say sunny dispositions, blind optimists, are the cause of my burning sensation. 

He is like that however, jumping to rationalizations rather than seeking the source of the problem, before prescribing a remedy of his choosing.

I should not focus entirely on him. He is not the only one who tends to interject an opinion on a question not asked, but one not even considered. Have we gotten to the point where the mere inference of a question brings immediate reprisal? If that is the case, we are bound for disfunction.  When the road maps of society are being drawn by incompetents, with crayons and colored pencils, we are bound to find ourselves lost.

Remedies come and go. Everyone has an opinion, a response, a cure. But until you have tried them, they are only conjecture and should not be taken on principle, as being factual. It is too easy to go from conjecture to truth, and then find out later you’ve been misled. That is why I feel I have become involved in a controversy I had no intentions of becoming involved in. But again, words are all we have to convey meaning, other than perhaps in an existential manner, and they are too easily manipulated to reinforce a predisposed truth.

I, in the rebuttal of his inference have joined the army of voices demanding objectivity, truth, justice. All admirable aspirations, but also prone to be used as mere umbrellas against the light. I have begun to feel that the light has been fashioned to resemble the enemy. It must be the way one feels when stranded in a desert where there hasn’t been a cloud since the eruptions of Vesuvius. 

I believe we begin to invent and propagate visions of clouds, that although they have no chance of providing moisture, propose the notion that hope is certainly better than despair. I couldn’t agree more. But as the roulette wheel we reside on spins, and we are found ricocheting off the veritable interruptions in uniformity and find ourselves destined to land on a number by chance, it does not give me the assurance that we are destined for more secure times, euphemistically speaking of course.

How do we protect ourselves from the pain of indecision, when everywhere we turn, the billboard of science predicts and early winter, metaphorically, despite the melting ice caps. We aren’t even capable of recognizing that the earth, our home, is dissolving before our very eyes. Blinded by self-preservation in the short term, we have attempted to convince ourselves that the sun, despite its necessity, is the source of rising tides and exploding thermometers. 

I have heard it said, “there is no one as blind, as the one who will not see.” I feel that analogy sums up where we are today. The umbrella salesman in Death Valley is looking at the plumes of smoke from the forest fires consuming the west, and proclaiming, “see, the rains are coming.” We could for all practical purposes be putting lipstick on a pig. No matter how beautiful you believe the deception to be, it is still a pig.

I can’t help but wonder if we haven’t gotten so good at the shell game, that we can no longer tell if there is a pebble in the game. I don’t mean to infer that the ship has sailed, but I have begun to wonder if the reason the ticket office is closed has nothing to do with the virus. Have we become so adept at lying to ourselves that the truth no longer matters. We are willing to trade our tomorrows for our todays? And what, live in someone else’s contrived past.

If I am to burn because of the sun, at least allow me to apply some lotion. Knowledge, understanding, perseverance, a future, assuming it is not too late, might make a difference. If it does not, at least I can leave knowing I did my best and not allow myself to become a statistic of greed and social conservatism, that allows only those of position to live on the mountain tops. 

They too in their ignorance and overabundance of arrogance have forgotten as well, that Vesuvius is a volcano, and volcanos have a way of displaying an emotional arrogance of their own, which I can only assume is the motivational inspiration for, “Blowing ones top.”

We have arrived at a place where we need the sun, but like any need we must learn to respect its power. We are addicts to the sun and what it provides us, we have no choice, but must we disrespect power simply because it is power? We have picked a fight with sun, it has no reason to do anything but laugh at our antics in regard to spiting ourselves to prove a point, we humans, most powerful and intelligent species on the planet, are committing suicide by arrogance, and pretending it is not our fault, "it was an accident."

I was taught it takes more courage to admit a mistake than to pretend there was no error, only a misunderstood interpretation of the facts. We have lived through many periods of altered facts, shamed egos, deception, corruption, and of course the most dreaded of all, shingles. 

To not be detoured by the possibility of extinction, our answer has been to pass the cure for the burn onto the next generation, knowing it will not solve the problem, but we will not be here to witness the blisters. 

It is time to stop the pretense that it is not my fault, your fault, our fault. Then whose fault is it, or is it even necessary to place blame, as we have by the very nature of being human contributed to the disaster that is on our horizon. 

I would suggest praying, but I believe it is too late to expect a reprieve from the one we have given credit for our existence, and also the one we blame for our demise, Armageddon.  

There comes a time when excuses no longer are credible. A time when admitting our failures and pledging to amend our ways has arrived. A time to choose a different religion. One not devoted to consumption, but co-operation. A time to say enough is enough, and this time mean it.