Abstraction

The sun is back and the weather watchers are saying the temperatures will go up into the 70's this week. These fluctuations get wider - the temperature is 55 degrees fahrenheit. Today is Tuesday.

Everything is becoming more abstract in the world. This is why there is a need to be clear about basics: who are you, what are you doing to become who you were meant to be in this life? Almost everything else is about surviving the winds of change in the era that we find ourselves in today.

People have become more anxious about the ability to survive the storms - both literal and figurative ones. Those who are fortunate to be able to pay for the mounting costs of living, and repair things that naturally fall apart in objects and relationships are the fortunate ones. It takes different skills to respond to different kinds of collapse. And now more than ever, there is a need to have the ability to discern - what tool or skill will take care of this particular problem in this particular moment?

Who has those skills and abilities? It is perhaps the ones that know how to work with ambiguities, abstractions, and absurdities – this is what we face in many of today's problems that must be overcome in order to live with some measure of stability. Everything is shifting if you think about it: Currency is moving from dollars/cents to ETF's and every accounting is zeros and ones. The foundational values of a country that once enjoyed global supremacy is shifting away from being No. 1, to perhaps No.2 or 3 (if things really collapse). The question of belonging has become critical for individual and social relations because we are living in a time of constriction rather than expansion, having turned away from the values that reinforce one to be generous and kind to one another. It is confusing, de-stabilizing, and abstract.

Yet, there are many ways in which to take an abstraction and turn it into beauty, a new way of seeing things, and a chance to develop a skill in living well with the phenomenon of a new way emerging. The thing that needs to be remembered is that fundamentally, human existence has not changed. We can still make choices and those choices can lead to something that currently resides in the imagination, waiting to manifest.

Examples of this are in the people you can meet, previously strangers - who may become a friend (whether in need or one you may need). It is exemplified in the many organizations that have chosen to step into the most challenging of missions - beyond money, such as those who seek to educate, house, and feed people who are willing to seek a new way. It is manifest in the artwork that creates a vibration that can bring a smile, a feeling of peace, and serve as a source of inspiration.

Abstraction may be another gift - opening a new way that has not been with us up to this moment.