The Final Solution: The Clouds

It's a bad time for the “I can’t complain” crowd. Anyone who answers “I can’t complain” when asked how they are can genuinely be diagnosed with one of those disorders in which the sufferer’s view of reality has become radically compromised. But where does "I can't complain" fare on the spectrum of emotions with the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, West Coast fires generating so much smoke in the upper atmosphere that Europe has begun to feel the effects in its upper atmosphere (governor Gavin Newsom said breathing the air in certain areas of California is like smoking 400 cigarettes a day) and a pandemic raging amidst the comorbity of racial and economic inequality. The answer is that there isn’t much reason to believe that the clouds are going to part both literally and metaphorically in the near future. And by the way if you’re thinking of escape don’t run down to the panhandle where the rains from Hurricane Sally are flooding the levees. So what stance is one to take, stoic acceptance, happiness for being alive and gratitude or a general feeling of terror, fear and awe at the reality that's unfolding right before one’s eyes? Spiritual programs are elixirs that are usually predicated on a certain level of acceptance that goes hand in hand with a lowering of expectations. But the danger with such attitudes is a kind of Polyannaism that doesn’t allow for merited alarm. If the sky is falling or in this case disappearing, someone has to tell the truth. Is your head in the clouds?