On the Road 11 begins today

Cormac McCarthy published a novel in 2006 called The Road. It was about post-apocalyptic times. How absolutely  horrible life would be, I thought to myself.  For the grace of God, I pray I do not have to experience that in my remaining years.

Today, I realized that I will experience it. Life as we knew it and hoped it would has just changed, forever.

Before I left for OTR-10, I had hoped to take all of my retirement funds out of the stock market, where it had all sat unchanged since 1995.  I did not have the chance to do that, though.  As good fortune would have it, the market went up when I was away, by 6%.  Lucky me, I thought.  For the first time in my life, I felt financially secure. Not so much for my financial well-being, but for the life I led to make it here. Not wanting to lose that feeling, and comparing it to how I felt in prior years when the market dropped, I decided that 11 years was way too long for the market to keep going up. And so, thinking that any one event (e.g., Iran, North Korea, etc.) could take the market down, I bailed 70% of my funds out of the market.  Aftre I pressed Return on my computer to accomplish that, I remember feel euphoric, again, not because of that one incident, or that it was the market, but because I was able to do it at all because of how I chose to live my life until then.  What a pleasant feeling it was, especially since my good fortune would allow me to spend my time and money on those causes I believed in. 

The date of that action was January 6th.  I don’t recall if I read it or not, but that was the very day any news media reported on the corona virus in China, the New York Times, buried in a small piece in the middle of the paper.  How coincidental.

Since that date, the entire world knows what has happened. Only God knows what will happen now.  But since in my spiritual mind we are all God, we have to make the best of it, for ourselves, for our neighbors, and for all of humanity and the creatures on this planet.

It seems to me now that there will be no OTR-11 this year.  I do not think the odds of my picking up the virus will be any greater or less on the road than they are here at home. But the consequences if I do contract the virus on the road are much, much greater, especially for Donner.  I cannot afford to be off in  some distant camp with Donner and be hit with even a mild case of it.  So, considering how life will soon became more primitive than what I ever experienced on any of  my road trips, and I can assure you that some of it was very primitive, I might as well declare OTR-11 on as of now and  start the blog for it now.

Yes, this posting is pessimistic, and for good reason.  But that is only meant to apply to the short run until I figure out how to adjust my behavior and habits and acclimate them to what comes my way.  In the long run, we will survive, maybe even thrive once again.  But just as those who grew up during the Great Depression never abandoned the habits and attitudes they developed during those difficult years, so, too, those who live through this time period will never abandon the habits and attitudes we are about to develop. My hope is that they are somewhat better than they were before. Maybe this epoch should become known as the Great Awakening. I hope it does.

Frankly speaking, I am going to approach this just like I approach all my road trips, as a challenge: Plan, act, improve; plan, act, improve; plan, act, improve. 

Vinceremo, Vinceremo, VINCERMO.

  ED