Don’t Shoot the Messenger
I woke with a start. The Roman Empire fell.
I spent the evening before the sleep planning a getaway in July with a friend to Rome. After so many months at home I get to travel! I laugh answering the question like in Peter Pan, “Would you like an adventure now or would you like to have your tea first?” “Oh certainly, the adventure first!” I cry with delight.
Italy - we’ve flattened the curve - our quarantine worked. Proof positive the draconian isolation measures and masks served a purpose in bringing this virus to its knees.
No I’m not blind.
Yes. I understand.
The virus will come back.
That is inevitable.
But for now I will plan an escape or two before the Fall.
Remember won’t you? The musicians played until the very last moment before the Titantic sank.
When I say Fall, American that I am, means to say “Autumn”, I use those words Fall and Autumn interchangeably - but when I said “before the fall” about my trip to Rome in July the words felt ominous.
It woke me from my sleep this word Fall. A Dream Thief.
All great empires fall. Rome, For sure. The Mayas. The Angkor in Cambodia. The Han and Tang dynasties in China. The Mali. More. I could go on. I don’t like doomsday and despair, but this current political environment suddenly makes sense when I wake with a start. “Are we living in The Fall?”
For 4 months I’ve been focusing on the fact the Renaissance was birthed from the bowels of the plague because I’m an optimist. In darkness I seek light. But I realized something- to be safe in the dark - your eyes have to adjust the molecules finding light that’s already imperceptibly there in the room with you.
This is important.
Note the difference. Those who can see in darkness are safer than we who look only for light.
But there’s more
Did you know the blind have extra senses? If one sense is lost, the areas of the brain devoted to handling sight— simply rewire and set about processing the other senses bringing them extra sensory perception.
And now.
Let’s talk about now.
I’ve taken you on this meandering journey.
You’ve crawled into valleys and over the mountain peaks as I’ve discussed and dissected this virus and it’s impacts. We are living in dark times. Are your eyes adjusting to the dark or are you squeezing your eyes shut and stumbling forward with your hands reached out?
What’s that they say? The only thing we learn from history is that history repeats itself. That’s not good news. History doesn’t present the best case scenarios.
For nearly 1000 years, Rome conquered and brought law and order to most of the known world. And while Rome might have brought about the modern world, their economy was based on slave labor. Their slaves were obtained from the resistance forces of conquered nations. Control, Power, Greed. Therefore, when Rome was no longer able to conquer nations, when they became lazy and fat, more concerned about their inalienable rights to large screen TVs, 3 car garages, haircuts and manicures the supply of slaves dried up. Without cheap labor to work the fields, the Roman economy collapsed.
Perhaps the most immediate effect of Rome’s fall was the breakdown of commerce and trade.
Think about it.
It was nearly 1000 years before any other civilization rivaled the Roman Empire in size, in complexity and sophistication. Europe simply suffered an intellectual drought, lacking of growth and prosperity until the Renaissance.
But here’s the rub.
Was the fall of Rome was necessary in order for the world to become what it is today? The plague crawled into those dark ages - and created a global reset. It rebooted the computer, per say.
And now...
Today...
You know I believe we are living a paradigm shift.
But if we are living a paradigm shift- the old paradigm can be no more. Therefore old civilizations have to fall in order for the Phoenix to rise from the ashes? What does this mean for our country? Our future?
I’ve been identifying with the butterfly but maybe our symbols should be the Phoenix?
Last week I talked with Dennis the Monk about life. “I am at risk of losing everything,” I said with resignation not despair. “I rebuild,” I said. “I start again. Better. Smarter. Oh, I have ideas.” And he responded as a monk might quoting St John of the Cross, on his Ascent to Mt. Carmel, Book One, 11.4 “If even a thread remains on the claw of a bird it cannot fly.”
“I was born to fly”, I said. So the thread must fall.
And I wake thinking of the fall of Rome.
Why haven’t I seen this?
The comparisons to Now?
Why do great civilizations collapse? I google this question and The World Economic Forum answers, “5 factors are almost always involved in the loss of civilizations: uncontrollable population movements; new epidemic diseases; failing states leading to increased warfare; collapse of trade routes leading to famine; and climate change.”
So where is the hope? That’s my nature - To find hope. I look for light in darkness.
And I am sorry I think the hope does not lie in hoping “the fall” doesn’t happen.
Ignorance is closing your eyes and then complaining you’re blind.
You can see the writing on the wall.
The fall is already in place. The old Structures are already crumbling. Why do you think we are seeing such social and civil unrest?
In order to create new order, we must destroy the old.
So here’s one for you. A year ago i would not have been brave enough to share even one sentence of this thought. But I believe, the hope lies in Time.
I propose that this notion of time is just an inconvenience of this life we live. I propose time doesn’t exist at all. Time doesn’t matter to people like you and me.
In the past civilizations fell and were not rebuild for centuries, millennium.
We don’t have time for this.
We don’t need to wait for a new millennium. The time is now.
We can create our own reality.
A reality of our design.
So let’s talk about time.
This year has already been 100 years.
Do you think time is operating at normal speed these days since the pandemic? No.
Time is not moving at the normal speed!
We all feel it.
Time is different now.
In the past the plague was not global -
People didn’t traverse far and wide enough for it to spread at the rate of this pandemic.
News, information and ideas were not spread at the click of a computer key that fit in the palm of your hand.
The World Wide Web controlled by the tip
of your index finger.
I remember telling my ex husband early in my marriage this theory I had. I believed time overlapped upon itself - past present and future were all happening simultaneously. He laughed. And I didn’t share my ideas any more. He was a supportive spouse and usually thought I hung the moon and stars so his laughter made me Shy. He was smarter than me. I won’t share my more esoteric thoughts. I thought. So I didn’t. I quietly in the morning wrote in private. Not sharing my ideas. I journaled galaxies in my imagination. And later, after my husband and I had separated I fell in love with a physicist, with multiple phds, whose Roman nose, was even more beautiful than his mind if that’s to be believed. Then one day, when I hesitated to speak my ideas, he asked, what’s that you do not say.
When I spoke, he listened, “That’s block theory,” he explained, “Controversial yes. Past, present, future existing simultaneously. In the block universe theory, there is no present. Or is there only now? All moments that exist are just relative to each other within the three spacial dimensions and one time dimension. Your sense of the present is just reflecting where in the block universe you are at that instance. The ‘past’
is just a slice of the universe at an earlier location while the ‘future’ is at a later location. But the universe is a giant block of all the things that ever happen at any time and at any place. On this view, the past, present and future all exist — and are equally real simultaneously.
I could breathe.
He Heard me.
He didn’t laugh.
He said people smarter than me heard this same call.
They spoke this same theory of space and of time.
I sighed so deep it took me down that wormhole to my past.
That book of my childhood, a Wrinkle in Time. In the novel, Mrs. Whatsit explains that “ if we understand space to be three-dimensional, and time represents a fourth dimension, then the tesseract is a fifth-dimensional bridge between two points in time and space. ... A tesseract is the literal “wrinkle in time.”
In quarantine as I shared my diaries on social media my friends asked, “When did you become a Philosopher?”
I’ve always written.
I’ve always had ideas.
I just didn’t believe in myself enough to share them until now - I didn’t want you to laugh.
But I think...
I think what I have to say might be important.
Those who learn to see in Darkness in this time will be safest.
To discuss these topics, to shine light, it isn’t easy but yet... it’s important to discuss. Those who can see in darkness will become the leaders. Those who can see in darkness will create our new reality.
Rome wasn’t build in a day and nor will this new reality... But in darkness with my other senses in high gear I can hear the hammer The steady thump of the hammer, building our future.
You might laugh now as I throw out notions that the world as we know it is crumbling and I espouse a hypothesis that if Time is moving faster - a new society will not take a millennium to be erected
But I believe the new millennium is now.
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