A Rain of Frogs

An Historical Downpour is a featurette of Rain. It won’t be common, but once in a while I will feature something I wrote on a different blog under a penname. I hope you enjoy.

Originally posted as “Ash Lane” at 12:50PM on July 13, 2004.

I saw her again. This time I didn’t need to trip over anything. I was walking on the crumbled old sidewalk on Ash Lane, while she was dancing and twirling down the middle of the road. Ash Lane is a small residential street in an old neighborhood, so it wasn’t dangerous or unusual to see someone walking on the road.

The sunlight filtered trough the old maples above, making small spotlights on the road and occasionally turning her pony-tailed hair into liquid, shining gold. She stood out from the world as if it were black and white and she was the only thing in color. I swear I heard wind chimes, but they sounded like they were coming from far away.

Her shirt was still too tight, but it wasn’t the Star* shirt I had seen last time. This time it was black and sleeveless, and lacked any other decoration. She was wearing a pair of baggy black pants, and worn, faded sneakers.

But her eyes, those sparkling, ancient blue eyes. They caught me, made my heart skip a beat. How could someone so young have eyes that old? Looking in them was like looking at the soul of the universe. Eye’s as deep as the sky.

She passed by, cocking her head to the side and smiling that knowing smile again. I remember smiling back, but I didn’t say anything. I was too stunned to speak. I turned to catch a glimpse of her before I rounded the corner, but Ash Lane was empty except for a grey squirrel hopping its mad loping way across the street. The world was quiet and empty, the chimes gone.

An Historical Downpour is a featurette of Rain. It won’t be common, but once in a while I will feature something I wrote on a different blog under a penname. I hope you enjoy.

Originally posted as “Star star” at 4:45PM on July 7, 2004.

If I hadn’t tripped over the crack in the sidewalk, I never would have seen her. She was about 17, dressed in baggy blue shorts and a pale blue t-shirt that was, like the Grinches heart, two sizes too small.

The shirt was pulled taught against her teenaged chest, the cryptic legend clearly visible. Star*. That meant something to me, but I was sure the girl, with her red lips parted and hand idly brushing golden filaments of hair from her glazed blue eyes, was oblivious to its meaning.

I considered asking her if she knew what it meant, but realized what a mistake that would be before my mouth ever opened. I walked on by. As I passed, I turned toward her, my eyes drawn by a directive as old as life itself. I was surprised to find her looking back her red lips curling into a knowing smile, and the glaze in her eyes fading to reveal a soul older than I would have ever guessed. An old soul, one that knew exactly what Star* meant.

As I turned away, she raised her finger to her smiling lips. A secret gesture, for a secret shared. A lesson learned, and a mind broadened.

I don’t often pay attention to American State of the Union addresses by any president, let alone this one, but since the Leafs were busy losing another hockey game and I was unmotivated to do much else, I sort of paid attention to what the guy was saying.

I was struck, in a positive way, by his frank and open admission that the United States is addicted to oil, and that it had to end its reliance on petroleum, since that fuel comes from mostly unstable parts of the world and is getting scarce and expensive.

Then he went on to outline a plan that increases research funding for cleaner fuels and hybrid and hydrogen-powered cars. I was impressed. Those would, indeed, be wonderful steps, and who better to lead the charge than the self-styled light of progress, the United States of America? Then he changed topics and went on to discuss other things: wars, the economy, health care.

Hold on! This is America, that uses 50% of the worlds energy! Creates most of the greenhouse emissions! And all he’s got to say is that clean fuels might be good?

You have to understand that I am in possession of a bit of an environmental mind. So, I went through my house, and counted the number of light bulbs. Not wattage. Just the actual number of bulbs. 16 in the basement. 31 on the main floor. 21 upstairs. 6 outside. That’s a lot of bulbs! 74, to be precise. And my house is a small one!

Let us pretend that I am very good at only having lights on in the rooms where I am, and turn them off when I leave. I am going to guess that on average, one fifth of the light bulbs in my house are on all day. That’s fifteen bulbs. Lets further assume that I use 60 watt lightbulbs, in an effort to conserve energy. Thats 900 watts of lightbulb in my house on average! 21.6 kilowatt hours per day. Jeeze.

We’re just talking lights here. Almost a 21.6 kilowatt hours of lights in the house of a mildly concerned individual. No mention of televisions, washers, dryers, kitchen appliances, computers, or anything else. And I was being pretty generous with myself. I probably leave more lights than that on.

I’m not going to dig further, but I think its obvious that clean energy is only half the battle here. If even half the battle. We need clean houses. Efficiency. There’s no way in hell a single house should be using 21.6 kilowatt hours per day in JUST LIGHTS. I’m at work for a 1/3 of the day and asleep for another 1/4!

Efficiency in use, not just production. If we can reduce the amount of energy we use by 50%, do we not automatically reduce the need to produce energy, and therefore greenhouse gasses, by a similar factor?

My numbers may be in error. I do not claim to be an expert on such things, but even I can see that hydrogen powered cars alone will not be enough to solve North America’s energy addiction.

For reasons I have not fully explored yet, I have recently spent a lot of time considering the nature of fear. While I certainly do not claim to belong in the same sentence, let alone the same league as them, some of the greatest minds of our history have contemplated the nature of fear. The only thing to fear, it is said, is fear itself. What a fascinating statement.

On a purely biological level, fear is a tool we use to protect ourselves from dangerous situations. It’s like a short circuit past our rational faculties to some sort of primordial evasive action system. It gets our thoughts out of our way so we can concentrate on getting safe.

Since much of the human struggle is involved with making things safe on the physical level, this short-circuit has become a bit of a liability for most people in most situations. What is more disturbing is that it has been bent by centuries of education to become a fear of the unknown. We have been taught that the unknown is dangerous, and therefore undesirable. We celebrate those who stand in the face of the unknown and shine a light into its depths, but inwardly we shudder and thank the powers that its not us.

For me, there’s only one true unknown, and that’s death. The great adventure, its sometimes called. Others have called it the Beginning, and still others the End. What everyone acknowledges is that it is unknown and will remain so forever. The ultimate unknown. The ultimate thing to fear.

But fear is the only thing to fear, remember? I’ve been lost in this spiral, looking for a tangent and a way out, and I’ve found one. No matter what happens, and no matter how hard science tries, death is inevitable. That means the unknown is inevitable – fear is inevitable.

Blow that. I refuse to live my life in fear.

I refuse to subscribe to theological tenets which I see as wrong simply in hopes that it might mitigate some post-death situation. I refuse to believe in a deity that is admittedly jealous and vengeful. I refuse to believe any god would require me to be so subservient to his will. And if it does, then maybe I don’t want to spend the afterlife with it anyway.

I also refuse to live in that much more basic fear, the fear of my life. I will not let a fear of bodily harm stop me from doing things I feel are worthwhile or meaningful. I will not let a fear of harm stop me from sailing around the world. After all, if I die and there’s nothing, then I’ll be dead and won’t care. And if there is something? I was looking for the great adventure anyway, wasn’t I?

The point of all this is that fear of the unknown is, when you spend some time thinking about it, ridiculous. The wise men said it best.

There is nothing to fear.

I think its become American legend at this point, but it bears repeating. There was a time, way back when America was a leader in the automotive industry, in which a man named Henry Ford ran factories with such efficiency he forced the entire industry to follow suit. This man said you could have your car in any color you wanted, as long as it was black. Eventually other colors arrived, and more, other manufacturers beat Ford at its own game.

I spent the last two Rains complaining about the freshly elected government in Canada, but pay close attention. I said I was ashamed for my country. I never said anything about the government not being the one we chose. I also promise that this site isn’t going to become predominantly political.

Nonetheless, the preceding paragraphs are, in fact, related.

As you may have heard, Hamas, a militant and very anti-Israel and anti-American organization was elected overwhelmingly in Palestine. In addition to being the new government, they are also on the American list of terrorist organizations. International election observers called the election a “top notch operation” and gave their seal of approval to the entire process, meaning that Hamas was rightfully and honestly elected to represent the interests of Palestinians on the world stage.

The upshot is that America is striving to spread democracy throughout the world, at the cost of tens or hundreds of thousands of lives and billions of dollars, but will only recognize the results of an election if their guy wins. The hypocrisy positively makes me itch.

Any party you want, as long as its ours.