The Free Radical

Please forgive my recent absence here. I stand in the eye of the hurricane… as the playing field is levelled.

(Octopus by Syd Barrett from his 1970 release The Madcap Laughs)

(The story of Syd Barrett and Pink Floyd in the late sixties is a very interesting one… one that you may choose to look into on your own. In 1967, Pink Floyd released their debut album, Piper at the Gates of Dawn, which is a masterpiece of fearless originality… and it’s all Syd.)

Yesterday morning I sat down at the computer at my usual time to write up the Daily Forest Report. And I came up empty! That doesn’t happen to me… ever. My mind was a total blank; I felt a certain emptiness. I couldn’t explain it, and I was powerless to fight it. I closed my laptop, and decided to go about my day.

A few minutes later I received a phone call. The battered voice at the other end of the line was that of my longtime friend and roommate whom I had assumed was sleeping upstairs. The call was from the hospital; he would need a ride home in a few hours, just as soon as he stopped pissing blood. His vehicle was totalled; he’d been in a serious crash. No one else was involved; he was the only injured party… and he’d live. Thank god!

Everything can change in an instant! I keep witnessing it over and over. Lives are being stripped bare. Everyone is getting ample opportunity to re-evaluate their priorities. Where in the past there may have been some wiggle-room, now there is none. Our lives are being mercilessly redefined in the starkest of terms. There is no escape.

All we can do– and always should have done– is to live by principle. We absolutely have to do what’s right in every situation. Our digressions– those moments when we know we’re betraying our principles– are being redrawn in bold lines of dire consequence. We have to heed our own best advice– consistently.

The curtain is falling on the golden age of hypocrisy. It’s getting real– too real.

We’re coming out of the long grass and the weeds, taking stock of our true situation, and preparing to make the daring leap to lives of blissful integrity. Grasshoppers are well armoured for awkward landings; we’re soft and squishy beneath lifetimes of practiced armouring. Our familiar defences are being taken from us. Are we ready to see ourselves naked?

In times of total chaos (transition), it’s good to remind ourselves that we are all truly lucky to be alive!