Each year. Every month. Down to the day. Sometimes to the hour or the minute. Our perceptions of change, and sudden realizations, push on our stabilizers. Like a sudden wind that blows you nearly off your feet, you have to be prepared for that. In my observation, people react in different ways…
One. Some people freak out. They just panic. Someone else has to settle them down.
Two. Some people kind of freak out at first, then settle down and sort stuff out. They analyze and examine, and re-examine, until they think they understand as well as they can, then maybe they go outside and ask someone else to help them analyze the situation and sort it out.
Three. Some people say “whatever”, and let the wind blow, holding on, until it settles down, then they move along. They don’t take the time to sort anything out. They just consider it to be “something that either is going to happen regardless, or something that could happen, but it doesn’t matter – it’s out of the reach of control…”
Four. They just simply pray. They don’t do anything but pray. They pray to their God, or their whatever… It depends on where they are in the world.
Five. They say, “Yeah. I’m a shit magnet. Stuff always happens to me. I’m doomed.”
OK, so I think I have the categories pegged. And probably, at different times, some of us react one to many of those ways.
We are all in the family of man, like it or not – you must admit it. We are also survival oriented. It’s in our DNA. We generally cannot help this because we are hard-wired to react mostly that way first, until our culture or something has us altering our basic belief systems and points of reference – that’s were we tend to morph and whether it changes our DNA, or not, it definitely changes our behaviors and our reactions to sudden change in our daily lives. I am convinced of this, 100%.
These are my observations. Right or wrong, “these opinions are not those of the management, but strictly those of the individual”.
Should have captured a photo the other day of the remarkable map that we could observe using satellite imagery and radar – oh. my. gosh.
There’s a thumbnail below of the storms – but, we’re not through the “season” yet… Last year, another Cat 5, Hurricane Michael, visited in October, chasing on the heels of Florence, involving some of the same damaged areas, still recovering from just under a month before – 16 storms in 2018 – 3 Cat 1’s, 3 Cat 2’s, 1 Cat 4, and 1 Cat 5, in addition to tropical depressions and tropical storms that fell into the total list before the season ended – the last one being the end of October, but not making landfall.
The prior year, 2017, was a “doosey” by all accounts, having 18 storms in the Atlantic – 2 incredibly damaging Cat 5’s, 2 incredibly damaging Cat 4’s – Harvey producing the historic record for total rainfall, doing incredible amounts of damage – still not completely determined, two years out – the recovery will continue for years.
With Irma, and Maria, Jose – all battering the USA and it’s territories, the costs are continuing to stress the economic resources – not to mention Mr. Crazy, whose influence as president and decider in chief, has altered the resource direction by his idiotic priorities. Let’s say that $282 billion and counting does a number on the resource pool. 2018, so far, is shaping up to be over $50 billion, and it’s only the first week in September.
Storm severity seems to trend higher in August-September and October for some reason, so the big numbers may be forthcoming, but let’s hope things calm down.
Multiple tropical storms churning in the worlds oceans. Powerful storms. Another “Category 5” storm rips apart – literally destroys – a vacation spot visited by many for decades – which reset everyone’s frame of reference and definitely created a paradigm shift.
Crazy weather – dangerous storms more frequently forming these days…
This is not the stuff of disaster movies anymore. It’s real life.
Essentially a couple of islands on the the east side of The Bahamas are no more in terms of life as people knew it. Like bad yard work, just mowing without any tidying – it’s an awful thought that NOTHING exists much there that isn’t destroyed. No modern anything.
Giant piles of rubble, likely burying alive people who could not get out of the way – TBD on the fatality count. We know that the number can grow from these disasters – largely people who do not have a lot of money and fancy resources, living the island life, surviving day to day as they always have for as long as The Bahamas have existed as a place where people live.
Lots of dangerous messes. Not even a way to start from scratch without a whole lot of effort – and think of this: forklifts, and big dump trucks that would help – there is no place to off-load them without building a dock or a ramp – those were also destroyed. The mother-of-invention has arrived. Let’s see if human invention and innovation kick-in… Depends on how badly or whether it is reasonable to rebuild – before the next monster arrives…
Just do the Wikipedia thing and review in short the history of this group of islands.
I visited The Bahamas only once – in 1985. Fun trip, but strange… interesting. I never had much desire to return, but, it wasn’t the fault of The Bahamas. It was mostly that the company and the experience with the fellow travelers and tourists did not set well. Didn’t get to stay long.
It was an expensive place to visit. Why? Because everything is shipped in that feeds the economy.
Tourism IS the economy. Perhaps if you throw in illegal drug trade, that might be a hidden sub-economy… Financial Services (the proverbial “bank account in The Bahamas”) ranking second, and Agriculture (yes, they do grow and export “tropical things” as their third most prevailing economic money-generator.
Oh and did I mention the casinos? Yep. Vegas Baby – it’s like that. Every island has a casino or hundred… It’s a thing. Part of why people visit there – maybe pay for their trip expenses or accommodations or meals.
But on the pleasant and fun side of the tourism equation – aside from the potential for staying totally intoxicated throughout a visit, if you are so inclined, scuba diving, water-skiing, fishing for giant catch, every water sport you can imagine – anything related to coral reef activities and crystal turquoise (or deep blue) water – that’s where you go (at least one of the places) to experience that.
The people there, by and large, are a mixture of indigenous and migrants from nearby islands and other places, particularly Africa. The Bahamians generally do not refer to “dissolved” multi-cultural categorizations – you are either “black” or “white”. As with other nations that have inhabitants with various skin-tones, whereby the darker are the majority, the white folks generally get nicknames. In the case of The Bahamas, white people get called “Conchy Joe”, in much the same manner as white people get called “gringos”, or other somewhat potentially sarcastic labels.
The original people who first inhabited the islands were Lucayans, according to the most up to date research. The islands were first inhabited best-guess between 500-800 AD. Research shows that likely these folks came to the various islands, potentially from other islands, originating from somewhere in northern South America – probably the eastern areas. Fascinating history of how these island populations evolved.
The whole laid-back atmosphere of the culture has evolved over time. Generous, graceful, and athletic – by and large- but, at times “polluted” by western cultural influences and the chasing of the almighty dollar – plus issues related to the fast-food trends – just like other places across the planet – the norms and influences, and the takeovers of countries…
Back to today, now the situation on Mother Earth is changing at an accelerated rate, and we are witnessing what happens to fragile areas when the seas get angry and super-storms develop. Anyone want to wager on whether there will become a Category 6 sometime in the next few years, as storms trend to be Category 5’s more often and push the upper levels?
As we have been warned, the economic impacts will be significant during the “adjustment period” to the new normal generated by the changing climate trends.
You throw in the ever increasing wild fires destroying whole towns, well… let’s just say that Mother Earth’s anger at her human inhabitants is coming out in many forms. Remembering that old commercial “You can’t fool Mother Nature” – it’s true… She’s no fool – and Mother Earth is her favorite grand-baby.
Like the Game of Risk, these “machinations” continue to destroy unique cultures as the civilization of indigenous peoples is driven by “big religion” efforts, “big plantation” AKA “corporitization” efforts, technology, social engineering (another nice word for exploitation, which is just another form of human aggression, takeover, and control) – all of these forms have been doing this, in some evolutionary format, since the dawn of humans on the planet – humans are “born to take” – despite the internal “guilt” instilled by God only knows what, in some cases – each human being has more or less the drive to acquire something.
But that, dear readers, is an entirely different discussion… for a different day.
For now, this tragedy, added to the tragedies of Puerto Rico, and other “destructed places in paradise”, is still unfolding and yet to be understood fully – and will not be for a very long while…
In my life, friends have come and gone – some really have gone, but that’s another subject for another day…
When you look back on your life, you reflect on your actions, the setting, and mostly, the people, at least I do that. Who was there…what we did…the memorable conversation… And what? It ended, we moved on or we maybe still have some semblance of a relationship. We can think back and go, “Oh, that was really a great time..” Sometimes we forget about most of the bad parts of our episodes in life, thinking that things were hunky-dory, then someone else who was there brings up that thing that wasn’t so hunky-dory – and so it goes – everyone has their own perspectives.
And then, there are the aspects of aging and the memories (the old noggin hard drive is getting packed with them) – and the memory capabilities – apparently, from about 40, it goes downhill from there – yet many people have very good capabilities of retention of certain memories, and zilch for others – selective…
Then there’s the replay that we cannot seem to control. Over and over it plays, keeping us up at night when the sleep robbers are most active…
When I think of a twenty-plus year relationship, and then suddenly you realize that it wasn’t what you thought it was, it’s that Winnie-the-Pooh quote:
” When you are a Bear of Very Little Brain, and you Think of Things, you find sometimes that a Thing which seemed very Thingish inside you is quite different when it gets out into the open and has other people looking at it.”
It’s how it is when this happens… What your premise was, is not what the other person’s premise is and suddenly, you find out in a situation whereby you go, “Wow. Really?” Then you must process that, come to grips with it, like anything else, it’s a “change management” process that your mind must go through – your emotions included – to adjust. Here we go again.
Then, there’s the ego threat – am I right, am I wrong, is it “no-fault”? Is there any peace? Yes. There might be some peace, but you have to work for it.
Existential Thought of the Day: “If I just sit here and be quiet, will anyone call? Will anyone write? Will I just eventually disappear?”
