[This was originally written 4 weeks ago.]

Perhaps it’s the time of year, mid-winter, or perhaps it’s because my health hasn’t been 100%, but I’ve been a little melancholy.

I feel isolated from the world and like it less and less as I get older.  I’m not sure what to do about it, or even if anything can be done.

I got the latest O.M.D. album, English Electric.  When I first listened to it, I smiled.  It was as if my previous life in 1981 was still going on without me, and listening to this album was like checking in to see how things are going.  Many of the songs are about how life goes on, we’ve entered the future we envisioned in 1981 and it isn’t what we hoped it would be.  1981 was 33 years ago.  1981 is significant because it is when I first heard of O.M.D. and bought their first album.

It seems like nothing positive that I envisioned about the future has come true.  Yet, most everything negative I could have imagined, mostly originating in the science fiction realm has come to pass.

Jokingly, I could ask “where is my flying car?”  But I never believed we’d have those because they’re called airplanes.

Sunset overhead at Mud Lake.

But, where is the clean energy future — my hydrogen powered car?  Better transportation systems? Where is world peace?

Instead I live in a country with a war mongering government that is controlled by extremely (too) large corporations, that spies on its citizens.  The surveillance state.  Civilian law enforcement has become militarized and out of control.  And we are still on a diet of fossil fuels.  Corporations pay their workers less, expect them to work longer hours with fewer benefits.  No one gets a raise anymore, yet the stock prices climb.

There is no privacy.  My Apple iSpy smart phone constantly tracks my location and reports it to god knows who.  The corporations keep track of who I communicate with for god knows why.  Every purchase I make is tracked and saved.  I’m just a wallet to them.

Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden risk their lives to reveal what our government is up to, and nobody outside the government really cares.  As long as there is Facebook and Twitter the only important news is me.

I’ve spent the last few months working long days, 6 to 7 days a week.  For a moment I thought I was saving up money. I paid my estimated taxes and learned all that hard work didn’t amount to anything.  Now I’m expected to buy medical insurance with such a high deductible that I’ll never use it.  I’ll be fined if I don’t buy it.

Corporations will get their money no matter what.

The electric utility is raising electric rates because many people have put up solar panels and they can’t make as much money.  The phone company that provides landlines and internet has raised their rates to make up for the customers lost to cellular technology.

The color of the sky turns the snow orange.

Somehow I continue on.