Davka Daze

(Old Man At Sea, Open Edition, by Mark Ludy) I recently turned 40 years old. As a Millennial man, I assume that I'll be lucky to make it another 40 years. This true mid life has prompted a crisis, of sorts. Because I never expect to live this long in the first place. Like many young people, I thought I'd live fast forever in death as a beautiful corpse. So when I didn't, I wasn't sure how to react. I fell in love, graduated college, started a career, got married, had children, bought a house, graduated college again, and before I knew it I was here. Exactly where I wanted to be and exactly where I never expected to find myself. A good life with good people and good works. (Even as the world at large descends into madness, corruption, and strife.) It's a privilege built on survival, tenacity, and sheer luck. So many other people in my life didn't make it. They lost something, someone, or even themselves, in whole or in part. I thought that was my fate. I assumed ...

The coronavirus pandemic has done what generations of activism, reform, social justice, equity work, solidarity, dialogue, and diverse coalitions could not - have not done. It has upended the tea table . The cracks, crevices, faults, fissures, chasms, and precipices have been enlarged and inflamed. What we once thought was impossible - whether because of the status quo, the cost, the apathy, or whatever - has suddenly, profoundly, become not just possible, but imperative. Not just reachable, but downright doable. The shibboleths of our socio-political reality have been revealed to be little more than cobwebs and dust. Not even the death throes of an old system or its corpse. The detritus. In the past couple of weeks, I've seen more radical change implemented at an institutional level than in all my of my education and career. Some that bent the arc of history towards justice. Others designed purely to satisfy the avarice of hegemons. Regardless of what happens - or, actually, beca...