We went camping this week in the Mansitee National Forest. Yesterday I was walking the Lake Michigan surf looking for beach glass and agates when I found this:
I've just done some cursory research thus far, but it was likely made by someone in the Middle Archaic era, 1800 to 8000 years ago. You can clearly see the chisel marks upon inspection.
I also rescued a Monarch butterfly that had fallen in the water.
With time at the family cottage and camping, I have had a bit of distance from news and social media recently. My annual trip to the family cottage always moves my psychological center of gravity, but this year the effect is more obvious.
I don't know anything about the life of the creator of my arrowhead, but I suspect that it was closer to existential decisions, and was patterned about them. The creator of my arrowhead has been lost to time.
Last year, I tried out Twitter. I have enough social contacts in the valley that I gathered about 100 followers without too much effort, and I started sharing my thoughts. It was utterly ridiculous and worse than a waste of time. The experience was mind-bending. I eventually deleted everything I said.
I've been thinking about proportionality and doubt lately. I've been thinking about the importance of my thoughts and decisions, and about the substance of my actions. I've been thinking about the reality that I perceive, and the one that I interact with. I've been thinking about noise.
I was raised Catholic, but it never clicked for me. I have never been one for dogma, or morality that strayed far from the Golden Rule. I have experienced Sin as a tool of power and persuasion and shame. Perhaps for this reason, I value irreverence and dark humor. I feel that nature gets the last laugh when we forget that our ideas die with us.
I've never been completely right about anything, and I never will. My actions and words make noise. Recently, I've started to think more about the nature and purpose of that noise.
I don't feel like the political right or the political left in the US represent me, and I don't strongly identify with them. I'd far rather the Democratic Party win the 2020 elections than the Republican Party, but I don't like the culture of either. I feel like the right has picked up irreverence when it excludes WASP's, and the left has demoted free-expression for a headless crusade.
I feel like Slash.
I am hopeful that my daughter will see a woman as Vice President, and then President soon after.
We've been looking at dogs, and I am both excited and ready to have one. I grew up with dogs, and I love spending time with them, and the nature of the human/dog relationship. My daughter expects to get one when she is 10. She doesn't know that it will probably be sooner.
School is virtual this year in our district. We are going to get internet at the cottage and spend some more time there.
The sun will set on me.
