Tending my garden as the world burns

Is anyone in charge anymore? Every morning I peruse the news and am left wondering how our species manages to cling to this planet for one more day.  War in Gaza. War in Ukraine. War everywhere it seems, including here at home. 

That several lawmakers, their spouses and their families have now received death threats from Gym Jordan's goons should come as no surprise. The GOP has no platform to speak of, other than "destroy anyone who doesn't look like me." Intimidation and threats are the only tool they have left, and they've known it for a long time. 

And they aren't just idle threats. This has gotten relatively little attention, but does anyone really think this was some random drive-by shooting? Of course not. He was a judge. This was a hit, a revenge killing. 

I'm sure we can work this out.

And why not? This very behavior is being modeled by the top echelons of the GOP without consequence. Apparently this is how things get done now: Not by elections, not by votes, not through norms and traditions and yes, laws aimed at assuring a peaceful transfer of power, but through intimidation and threats of violence that seem increasingly credible. 

It's a jungle out there, is all I'm sayin. By time I finish reading the Internets, I'm afraid to leave my house. 

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All of which has me wondering: Is it okay to simply tend my own garden as the world burns? In a world gone increasingly mad, is it okay hunker down in my gated community with its manicured lawns, it's clubhouse and its pool, with its illusions of safety? 

My concrete bunker is covered in ivy! 

Is it enough to simply go about my business, intending harm to none? Do I have to carry the burden of man's inhumanity to man?  Am I shallow for just wanting to sit here and string my beads and go to my AA meeting and practice my tai chi? Is it okay if I just heal for awhile?

Or is "feeling safe," however naive that is, simply the last bastion of white privilege? These gates at my village, these pretty walls around my garden -- how solid are they, really? 

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I decided to excavate my closet yesterday. It's one of those projects one plans to get to "someday," at some magical point when "I have some time." Through a strange confluence of events, that moment has now arrived. 

This space isn't a closet so much as an archeoligical dig. There are things in there that haven't seen the light of day for centuries. The last time I tried this I found a Sony Walkman from ~1988 with a long forgotten Wilson Phillips CD in it. 

Good god, I was listening to Wilson Phillips? Look, times were tough, I did a lot of things I'm not proud of. 

Kinda like...