The IsRaelians?

I couldn’t resist posting this gem of a sketch by Jack Pollock:


Meanwhile, I've been thinking a lot about hope. It's been such a useful motivator for me over the years - particularly when so much about the future looked so very GOOD. As a writer, all I had to do to think up and even sell an article was to look at the landscape. Some new delicious flower of an idea, a movement, a technology, or even just a novel twist of logic was bound to be emerging on the horizon. It's a little trickier, now. Not impossible, of course, but trickier. And looking for rays of hope can make me feel as if I am being a bit blind to the dark truth of reality. Or even just blind to the meaninglessness of reality. But what else is going to get us out of bed in the morning but a little hope that we can actually do something that very day to make a positive difference - in our own lives or, even better, in someone else's? See, we can't help but manufacture narratives - stories - about how some action that we might take is part of a bigger plan. And part of growing up is learning how to stop manufacturing so many stories, and instead being patient enough to see what phenomena are actually emerging. Reading the landscape and then acting upon it, instead of simply superimposing a pretty picture on top of it, and then being surprised when that picture proves to be so inaccurate. For every deconstructionist, there comes a time when no story feels real, and you become incapable of using narratives to motivate you. But the waiting - the waiting for something to emerge, and the discipline to resist making something up before something actually happens, can be excruciating. Patience. Sorry if I'm cryptic, today. But hell - it's a Blog. At least you got a picture.