And when that sort of day is ALSO a Monday, it needs more redeeming than most days need. So here I go.
What do I think of when I think about sliding toward work on a grey Monday morning, hoping not to fall in the puddles and cursing the folks who figured it was going to melt anyway, so why bother shoveling? Hope and curses, curses and hope.
A curse is an act of anti-hope, not despair so much as a negative, destructive hope. Go to hell, we say (or think), and imply that we hope the road there will be paved with something even more slippery than good intentions, thus speeding our interlocuters on their way... And remember, for Dante, the heart of hell was in fact frozen, and that was a man who knew how to curse his enemies. People always think that Dante was focused on spiritual realities, but if that was true, then why focus a full two-thirds of his magnum opus on places that weren't Heaven?
I'll tell you why. Because writers LOVE conflict. Without conflict, you've got no story. At best you might have a tableau, a still life, but then we remember that when life is still it has generally ceased to be life. So maybe the hair-splitting and back-pedaling of those whose agendas are environmentally neutral AT BEST, and at worst environmentally destructive--well, that's conflict, right? So the story is still being told?
Maybe. But I think that is why I am so drawn to a metaphor of battle. Because it does us no good to have a battle if only the bad guys show up. So I will spend the next several blog posts focusing on how to get the good guys to show up to the battle, strong, strategic and striving to win.
And with really good boots for traction in all weathers.
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