connection with this life? My solitary walks are better than getting drunk and high, or watching television, buying useless crap at a big store, driving around town doing ambition, getting depressed. Some people go to church. Some seek others for meaningful company, or activities of distraction. Some don’t bother to do anything spiritual. Many don’t know it’s an option. I fantasize about the day we run out of oil and bullets, about building a refuge community in a verdant valley, about feeding the hungry, about hiding safely in the exclusion zone around Chernobyl, about wolves running through the ruins of Manhattan, about whales outing themselves as the dominant intelligence, about a life more in balance with the forces of earth after our species has had its come-uppance. But fantasies they all are. I don’t know anything, much less what is best and meant to happen. But a person can sense when things are going wrong in the world and, likewise, follow one’s instinct into the hills where others have been and where others still thrive, those who can instruct us if we listen.
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