WRITING in a SEASON OF UNCERTAINTY

 

 We live in an age of uncertainty.

A fatal amount of Covid-19

could have just

lodged in the membranes

of our eyes.

(Yes, we can catch it that way)

Or we become a victim of

violence

by uttering a

micro-aggression

or

support of a hated group

of which we were unaware.

When did we get so

thin-skinned anyway?

I feel many of our

great grandparents

who survived

the depression

would tell us it was

past time to

grow up.

I got a scathing email recently from a reader who scorned me for 

even suggesting that a white male Caesar could speak for and to all humanity.

The ghost of Mark Twain whispered in my ear, and I wrote back

that I would try to "man up" to these changing times.

But back to writing in these uncertain times.

I am not a Titan of Literature, but I have read and listened to many of them.

Take Harlan Ellison whose ghost visited my blog long ago:

 https://rolandyeomans.blogspot.com/2019/12/art-isnt-supposed-to-be-easyiwsg.html 

He would say that the very uncertainty, the very danger of our times

provides grist for the mill of our minds.

The above image should spark a dozen story ideas to us.

Yes, we are scared by the Hamas killings, the plague killing our children now, and by the economic ruin hovering over the horizon.

Michelangelo didn't let the ache in his arms, the spasms in his back

keep him from crafting the masterpiece, the Pietà.  

Samuel Pepys lived through the London Fire, the Plague, and restive political unrest that could have resulted in his execution.

But he kept writing the journal that is studied by students to this day. 

We can take the idiocies of conflicting demands being ignored 

and make of them a riveting story or novel born of what we see and feel.

WHAT DO YOU THINK?