What Makes This Fucked Up World Tolerable to Me
by Edwin L. Young, PhD
August 8, 2010

You know what makes this fucked up world tolerable to me? 

It is the children of these Mexican immigrants, half of them illegals, running, playing, screaming, laughing outside my window while I am writing.  Music, lovely music, they are to my old ears. 

It is the sprouts of green shooting up from the ground and out from the tips of branches on tall trees with butterflies flitting and bees buzzing around their myriads of colorful flowers. 

It is the filthy, toothless, old, hopeless, homeless men and women grinning, laughing, and shouting greetings to one another like they have just seen a long lost dear relative or childhood friend. 

It is the checkout girl in grocery smiling with pride and appreciation when I depart saying her name as I thank and wish her a good day. 

It is the complete stranger on the bus who starts telling me little bits about their lives as though I were their best friend. 

It is the feel of the cold water running from my tongue to my belly when I come in from the scorching heat. 

It is when I have that desperately urgent feeling and this dilapidated ole body barely makes it to the urinal without pissing on myself and I breath out that aaahhh sigh of relief. 

It is waking knowing that today I will be well enough and strong enough to write, again, another note to encourage my intellectual friends to keep the fire in their bellies and minds stoked so they can continue their unique missions to address and heal this fucked up world’s ills.

Love to all,

ed