RUMINATIONS ON HISTORY: Plague; Doris Kearns on “the ’60s”; observing 3D from within 5D

I’m deliberately not addressing the possibly emerging new “pandemic,” this time supposedly the dreaded “plague,” originating in Siberia. Oh my! HELP HELP! I’M SO SCARED! Of course, all the major news sources are promoting this terrific fear porn ad nauseam that hearkens back to “Russia Russia Russia”!.

And I’m deliberately not addressing the new plague vaccine the state of Israel (wouldn’t you know) apparently, supposedly developed only days? weeks? prior to the supposed “plague” originating in Siberia. (For more: search google’s gemini ai: “Israel new vaccine plague.” Lots of fuzz there.)

Nor am I deliberately noticing this new “scare” occurring just in time to hopefully disrupt the upcoming U.S. Elections.

Boring. So boring, this constant repetition of event sequences!

 

Meanwhile, in Bloomington, on usual fast four-mile early morning walk with Scampi, I pass by the new two-story rental (not sure how many occupants per story (probably five) being built on the border of my Green Acres neighborhood — just one of the new ones, most with the same bloated template, that are replacing our wonderful small old homes dating back to the end of World War II, when soldiers came home and began families. I was a decided activist during that time, nearly 20 years ago now, and wrote the forward to this document (starts p 16).

Green Acres Neighborhood Plan

 

But, now, as I pass by this busy construction site, where today the cement is being poured for the foundation, I notice that I’m no longer bothered by the way my neighborhood is being devoured by developers. What’s the point? It’s like when I was a furious anti-war activist. What. could. I. personally. do about it?

Well, I could protest, demonstrate, write letters to the editor, organize groups, become a speaker, etc. etc., and I did all that — way way back in the distant past.

 

My ruminations — natural, for any human who remains conscious and aware at the age of nearly 84! — have been recently deeply enriched by a famous author’s similar ruminations in a book published in 2024.

Yes. I just finished reading the large print edition (749 pp!) of AN UNFINISHED LOVE STORY: A Personal History of the 1960s, by Doris Kearns Goodwin: a fascinating, multilayered account that documents months-long daily discussions she and her husband of 33 years, Richard Goodwin, engaged in — ending only weeks prior to his death in 2018 — the two of them going back through mostly his boxes of old documents from that era together, relating their separate, deeply interesting personal stories of the dynamic, ever-mutating contrast and connection between authentic human needs, cultural shifts, and political machinations. I will never look at “what’s going on now” in the larger public arena in the same way again. Thank you!

For indeed, the book did take me right back there, to the ’60s and early ’70s. And I found myself, over and over again, noticing how everything has changed and nothing has changed. Still the same selfish and/or selfless forces nesting together in confusing and/or clarifying ways, vying for attention, whether those forces be personal, interpersonal, political, philosophical, cultural, etc.

Again, from gemini ai:

What grabbed me more than the endless, nauseating repetition, was how I was able to read this book with an orientation that lies “above” politics. And was able to come to both a new comprehension of the widening context sparking from each bit of “news” that I can still recall from that time, AND a new appreciation as well, due to a decidedly empathic connection with the struggles and travails of so many of the figures (many of whom I used to “hate”) that star in this account. Especially LBJ!

That I now sense and locate the actual humanity of  LBJ’s struggles, see/feel him from within a much more fine-grained, and ultimately empathic context, frankly, shocks me!

And yet, I notice that my 3D persona is shocked. But: I’m no longer “there.” I’m existing in a more spacious dimension in which the 3D drama plays out, over and over again, in repeating sequences both small and large, as we humans, who are of course, by nature “selfish,” in that in order to remain alive in a body, we must have our own “survival” in mind — can and do also join together, in small ways and large, inside the home, inside the neighborhood, inside groups of many kinds, inside our towns, states, etc. etc.

If we could actually learn to live, each of us as a singular pulsing presence, “occupying” the dynamic space that radiates, through widening circles, cycles, dimensions, into infinity, what then?

So yes, this IS my personal mission: to live as a SOVEREIGN SOUL AT ONE WITH ALL.