Earwax Omnipotence

This has got to be the funniest SPAM e-mail subject line I've received yet: Earwax Omnipotence. That's a title; that's something to read.

Hopefully I can live up to it here.

I'm in a funk.

We all get them. Recent research shows men have biological rhythms very similar to the kind most people associate with pre-menopausal women—more spaced out and not based upon menstruation, but mood rhythms nevertheless. Biological rhythms.

Last night I was talking about writing the human race off. I was talking about how a cosmic vacuum cleaner would come in handy, in light of the cancerous nature of our species. I was talking about how our population explosion—which, from the perspective of mitosis, exactly mirrors cancer—and our disregard for other species, and even for our own, earns us absolutely no regard from a planetary standpoint. I still think that.

Though now I've remembered that the truth isn't quite enough: The fact that we are the single most destructive and morally abusive species ever to exist on this Earth, over billions of years, is not the point.

See, I forgot about kindness.

My wife reminded me of this as we left Il Fornaio in Coronado, San Diego, after celebrating her birthday eve (today she is out of town for work). She mentioned music—which is usually a salve for me—and art, and the good things our species has and does accomplish in a spiritual sense.

Sometimes it's hard to remember the kindness when things are so fucked up. When things really aren't going very well. When the more you are aware of, the more outraged you become. And then I remember:

     One love,
     one blood,
     one life,
     you got to do what you should.

     One life,
     with each other,
     sisters,
     brothers.

     One life,
     but we're not the same,
     we get to carry each other,
     carry each other.

     One life.
     One life."

As usual, my wife was correct.


(Lyrics: U2, "One")