{"id":2389,"date":"2011-11-03T20:53:07","date_gmt":"2011-11-04T01:53:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/2011\/11\/03\/before-i-was-so-rudely-interrupted\/"},"modified":"2011-11-08T13:33:19","modified_gmt":"2011-11-08T18:33:19","slug":"before-i-was-so-rudely-interrupted","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/?p=2389","title":{"rendered":"Before I Was So Rudely Interrupted . . ."},"content":{"rendered":"
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. . . on Saturday morning by a freak October snowstorm and an early power outage, I was posting a picture montage taken outside my bedroom window that morning, just as the temps dropped and the rain turned to snow. The local sparrows were freaking out at the feeder, clamoring and fighting each other off to get to the seeds, often in mid-air. I had to wonder whether they came out ahead, given all the energy they were burning in fighting to get to the trough.<\/p>\n

And then the power stopped.<\/p>\n

Mother Nature can be beautiful, but it can also be cruel and stupid. Human beings are also cruel and stupid, way too often. Just like these battling sparrows, humans have their own wars, inspired by the desire to secure and enjoy the good things about life. And like these sparrows, they just make it all worse for themselves; for most in the short run, for all in the long run.<\/p>\n

But unlike these sparrows, we aren’t entirely blind to our blindness. Sparrows have their beaks and talons (it got really interesting when a woodpecker claimed the perch and threatened all the pushy sparrows with its long pointy schnoz), and we have our nuclear weapons. Humankind has raised the stakes enormously, but we also see our sins. Another generation of sparrows won’t make the world any better or worse. Another generation of people CAN and WILL make a difference, one way or another.<\/p>\n

So let’s ponder these silly sparrows in the wake of a storm, and reflect upon our own stormy short-sightedness. <\/p>\n

As to the power outage, it went on for five days. We just got it back today. I learned to live in a world of candles and darkness, aware of limitations. Tonight, it’s back to civilization for me, and it feels so good. Civilization is really something worth defending, a project worth forwarding, contrarian though it so often seems in relation to Mother Nature. Candles and early darkness have their good points, but I’m glad to put them away. For now.<\/p>\n

PS, on Tuesday I was listening to my battery powered radio over breakfast, hoping for better news on power recovery efforts in my area, and the broadcast producer decided to lead-in the story with a musical clip from Soundgarden. Quite an appropriate clip: “I fell on [mournful guitar riff] black days [mournful guitar riff] . . .” Mother nature turned the lights out here for a bit, but humans [finally!] turned them back on. Let’s hope that humans can avoid turning them out for good, and avoid our own sparrow-like self-absorption, short-sightness and stupidity. Or else it really will be “Black Days”, for good.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

. . . on Saturday morning by a freak October snowstorm and an early power outage, I was posting a picture montage taken outside my bedroom window that morning, just as the temps dropped and the rain turned to snow. The local sparrows were freaking out at the feeder, clamoring and fighting each other off […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,23],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2389"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2389"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2389\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2391,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2389\/revisions\/2391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}