We are nearing a global population of 8 billion humanoids. Perhaps the most fascinating aspect of this reality is that each and every one of us is unique and our respective lives each, in turn, tell a unique piece of the story about the Human Experience. Think about that for a minute.
Perhaps even more fascinating than how many stories there are to tell about the 8 billion of us that are already here is the number of stories that could be (along with the countless ones that already have been) told about all of the lives that have come before ours since Homo sapiens first stood upright over three hundred thousand years ago.
An electrical engineer and Technical educator by trade, I find myself now, in my mid-60s and no longer able to read or write after surviving three strokes, consumed by an urgent need to send out my remaining days being a teller of tales, chronicling my observations and reflections on the people, places, and things I am made to endure as I live my life alongside the rest of humanity with whom I must share space on this spinning little blue ball in the cosmos.
My grandmother, God rest her, taught me to look for the good in people… to look beyond the faults and imperfections… always insisting that we were all God’s children and that only He was perfect. In many ways, I’m actually happy that she has since passed on because I would not want her to see what has become of God’s imperfect children in whom she placed so much misguided faith. Life has gone on in her absence and, like everyone else, I have built up my own inventory of imperfections, but the more of them eyewitnesses in others the more jaded and cynical I become about the bloody lot of us.
My doctors tell me I have some mild to moderate cognitive issues that accompanied my vision loss which seems right but leaves me thinking I actually improved in some areas in exchange for the ones I had to give up. Foremost among these? I am much better able to see people for who they really are… and not for who my grandmother taught me to wish I saw.
Chronicles Of A Hermit’s Life is an outlet for sharing essentially true Tales about the life and times of humanity as witnessed and reflected upon in the addled brain of an old guy just trying to muddle through daily life. People told me I should start putting this shit down on paper, so I did. Warning: Expect salty language in the pages ahead; life is a salty business, after all, and sometimes only salty language can adequately describe it.
